Launched roughly 7 years ago, Freddiew is one of the largest Youtube Channels out there. They have almost 6Million subscribers and a total combined views of over 800Million. That's insane.
So what is Freddiew? Well, it's a channel that releases an action short movie every week (they have since slowed down drastically, but more info on that later).
Just a couple of dudes that are into video games and bad action movies. I give them a lot of credit. Go on Youtube and search "action short", you'll get over 1Million matches. How did it work for them?
They defined their goals, listened to their audience, and made consistent, quality content.
The last one is tricky. When I say consistent, I mean they followed a schedule/routine. Think about network sitcoms. Your favorite show airs on the same day, at the same time, for a season. If your show aired at random times, you'd never watch it, because you'd never know when it was on (DVR has changed this, but it still remains true). But it's also consistently good content. Who doesn't like an action movie? Transformers is awesome because it has shit blowing up, not because it's a deep character study (although Michael Bay can still suck a dick, but the man is good at what he does).
What defines "good content"? Well, what do you want to see? If you want to see something that looks good, make sure you have a high def camera. If you want to see a character driven story, write your ass off. What I've noticed is that majority of the people watching internet shorts are more concerned with the video quality of a movie, versus the story quality. Which is the same with people who go to movie theaters. I'm guilty of this too, if I see a show or movie on television that's broadcasted in Standard Definition, I'll painstakingly search for it in HighDEF, before settling on the former.
Although, more often than not, if an internet short has terrible audio quality, but good video quality, people won't watch it. Whereas, if the video quality is mediocre, but the audio is really good, they'll stick around. Sorry to get all technical, but think about the last time you watched shitty internet video, it was painful wasn't it? If you can find the balance between good audio and good video, you're halfway there.
But what about after you've launched your channel and you've gotten a million views?
Now you can take it to Kickstarter and Indiegogo. It seems fair to do it this way. You've gained your audience. The Freddiew channel existed for a few years before hopping onto Kickstarter for their series Video Game High School (season 1 & season 2), combined total: Over $1Million in donations. They deserve it. They're a couple of dudes who liked making short videos on Youtube, now they have careers. They aren't Spike Lee or Zach Braff or James Franco or Kevin Smith.
Take a look at Griffin Hammond, host of the Youtube Channel, Indy Mogul, a community driven network dedicated to educating viewers on how to make a movie. Griffin recently set out to make a documentary about Sriracha, that red hot sauce that hipsters love (I love Sriracha by the way).
Now Griffin isn't a famous filmmaker by any definition. He's a videographer by trade and hosts a Youtube show. I don't know exactly how much work goes into the show, but I can't imagine it's difficult, the content is community driven, he just has to piece it together and come up with some how-to's here and there (not trying to downplay it here, for all I know he sleeps 1 hour a day and rips his hair out, haha). But he set out and shot a documentary on hot sauce. Then he set up a Kickstarter asking for $5k to get his movie out there. He ended up receiving over $20k. This is totally okay with me. Why?
BECAUSE HE'S ALREADY SHOT THE MOVIE!
It's already finished. He only wanted $5000 and he got over $20,000. Why? Because he has his fan base, albeit relatively small compared to Kevin Smith, but they're fans nonetheless, and because, apparently people want to see a movie about hot sauce, which says a lot about our society. 22 Veterans commit suicide everyday, but hot sauce gets a movie...
Should Griffin taken the full risk and financed the entire aspect of his film? Absolutely. When you're fully committed to something, you're all in. But he wasn't unreasonable with his request. It wasn't $2Million, it was 5 grand.
Filmmaking, just like any business, is risk taking. Take look at the film For Lovers Only. Rumored to cost roughly $1200, the film has grossed over $500k. That's insane. For the cost of a vacation, this guy made a movie. There was no crowd funding here. Social networking is totally responsible for this taking off.
Side Note: I've read that people complained about the audio being crappy in that film, so keep what I said in mind, find a balance between good audio and good video.
Kevin Smith once gave a bit of advice to a student about how to get movie funding.
When he shot Clerks, he financed most of the movie on Credit Cards. This is both the best and worst advice I've ever heard.
Since the movie isn't a physical medium, there's nothing to repossess. So go ahead and shoot your movie on your Visa, and the banks can't do shit. On the other side of this, you'll have about a 1% percent chance at selling that movie and making that money back. So if your budget is Clerks ($27k), you'll have fun reminiscing over that $27,000 mistake from back in your 20's. Along with still paying for it... while living in your parents basement.
So do yourself a favor, don't listen to Kevin Smith. As a matter of fact...
Fuck Kevin Smith.
That jerkoff still owes me a job (NSFW).
***Kevin, if you're reading this, WHEN'S GONNA BE MY TIME MAN??? I DID YOUR COMIC BOOK SHOW AS A FAVOR, WHERE'S THE RECIPROCATION???***
Kevin Smith - Estimated Net Worth: $25Million.
So there you have it. I could go on and on about the state of filmmaking, independent or not. The subject has been beaten to death. This whole thing stemmed from a discussion on Facebook with a fellow movie buff of mine and I figured I'd post my thoughts about it.
Go make a movie, God knows I want too...
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