The Vloggers' Road To Fame and Fortune
Posted on July 24, 2006
The New York Times reports on a growing trend of web auteurs having their work picked up by major studios. Known as video bloggers or vloggers, these auteurs of short films usually upload them to sites like Youtube.com where anyone can view them.
"I have a hard time focusing on the computer screen for 90 minutes," Mr. Swanberg, 25, said. "A feature film isn't interactive. I think a theater is still the best venue for that." Yet Web users have already shown that they can bend a movie to their tastes. The most obvious instance has been New Line Cinema's coming film Snakes on a Plane, which was the subject of endless Internet interest, mostly spoofing the title and its self-evident premise. New Line decided to play to this audience by incorporating some of its ideas, requiring a week of reshoots and a change in ratings from PG-13 to R.Andy Samberg's career is a classic example. Samberg was a member of the Net comedy troupe the Lonely Island -- he's now on Saturday Night Live where he will always be known for his brilliant comic short "Lazy Sunday: The Chronicles of Narnia Rap.""We really got to service the fans," said "Snakes" director David Ellis. "Decisions are usually made by guys 50, 60 years old. They only know during test screenings. If you can get it out early, you can deliver what they want." Still, to let the audience feel genuinely in charge of the phenomenon, Mr. Ellis and New Line had to sacrifice prerogatives that directors and movie companies normally hold dear. "The worst thing we can do is take it over," New Line's marketing chief, Russell Schwartz, said of trying to control the "Snakes" Web boom.
