It certainly didn't happen by accident, but day after day that seemingly unattainable goal started to look more and more realistic. Three years and three months into the game and today my combined video views from YouTube, Vimeo, and Yobi.tv now total more than one million! That's a pretty respectable milestone if you ask me.
Divided up over a number of projects, I'm proud to say that the views didn't all come from a single video or from uploading someone elses' content or from a cheap attempt to go viral - no, the million views (and counting!) have come from simply sharing film school shorts, experiments, travelogs, parodies, and a variety of other original content that I've created over the years. And to be clear, the number doesn't include any of the corporate edits or videos that I've done and that others have uploaded to their sites.
It's a small time success story in that there are those who have achieved this milestone seemingly overnight - but, for my sake, the number simply means that people have been watching. Whether the number was 10,000 or 1,000,000 that's all I ever really cared about. The number is more or less a realization of a goal that seemed almost impossible to reach when I started out, and in that sense it's a marker for the determination and effort that I've invested in myself and the work I'm passionate about. It feels incredible to have reached one million views and have perseverance to attribute it to.
Thank you all for continuing to make the journey a rush!
I imagine every generation of teenagers has believed they've had it harder than their parents did. It's par for the course when the smallest things seem life changing, when your social life feels pressurized, when you don't know what you want, and when your experiencing one first after another. Thus is the conflict within an Indiana high school in American Teen (2008).
The film kicks off on the first day of the school year where we're introduced to a cast of characters who initially seem painfully cliche. From the jock to the outsider to the princess - it's clear from the get-go that we're going to be in for a lot of angst. Still, there's something redeeming and unexpected about the approach.
Whether you're a teenager or not it's easy to get swept up in the drama. I remember the stress of trying to figure out where I wanted to go university, the torture of high school politics, and the arrogance and stubbornness that seemed to make daily life more complicated than it needed to be. American Teen isn't about hard hitting facts or specific problems, instead it's a fly-on-the-wall documentary about that awkward, raw, and emotional teenage experience as told by distinct (and suggestively average) cliques.
We're witness to the daily problems of each kid, who really have a lot more in common than any of them are willing to recognize. A highlight of the film is the unexpected romance between the high school pretty boy and the artsy chick with aspirations to go to the big city - a match up that is initially portrayed as never-in-a-million-years. Moments like this help to capture a slice of that feeling you had when you first realized that the world was bigger than you gave it credit for. Seeing each student grow out of their role (however marginal) is what gives this experiment and documentary some weight.
American Teen was filmed over an entire school year, which is impressive in itself, but it's almost a requirement just to escape the day-to-day gossip. At times the documentary feels too superficial, too focused on playing up forced drama, and I couldn't help but think that in the moment the subjects had to know the cameras were there capturing what they were doing. This is most obvious when a high school prank causes 'the princess' to lose her student council position. Who would actually do this knowing that it would be permanently showcased in a mainstream documentary?
Nominated for the Grand Jury Prize for Documentary at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival, American Teen's director, Nanette Burstein, was also an Academy Award nominee for Best Documentary (feature length) for her 1999 film, On the Ropes which she co-directed with Brett Morgen.
In the same way the Hills or other MTV shows have failed at documenting 'actual' reality, American Teen walks a very fine line. I'm not convinced that everything we were shown was entirely truthful, but it's convenient. We want to see the artsy girl leave town, we want the jock to get his scholarship, we want the outsider to gain a bit more confidence, etc. and by showing this that youthful optimism is further emphasized and resonant. In this circumstance, I think that's crucial.
Being a teenager isn't easy, but as we get older it becomes almost comic in comparison to the responsibilites of our day to day lives. American Teen embodies a spectrum of 'frustrations' to show how real life and growing up begins to overshadow the soap opera, how there is a lot to figure out, and how before you know it you're out on your own. It would be interesting to see a follow up in a decade to see what's become of everyone. And, I guess that's the point of what I'm saying - it's fun to watch potential. 7/10
The time has come again! After last years very successful and highly anticipated road trip to Indio, California my friend Dave and I have finalized our plans for a return trip this September. This time we're spending more time down there and taking an alternate route home - something there simply wasn't time for last year.
From Salt Lake to Vegas to Indio, LA, Hollywood, Long Beach, Palm Springs, the Salton Sea, and ending with a trip up the coastal highway for a stay in San Francisco, this is going to be one epic journey. If my edits for Indio Outio were any indication, this second excursion will prove to be even more dynamic and diverse. I'm also excited that we'll be revisiting places that are now completely different from how we saw them just a year ago. The North Shore Yacht Club at Salton Sea will be the biggest change. Renovations over the last year have been completed and the abandoned site we explored is now a restored museum and community centre - see the post I did about that here. Also, we've planned to check out the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway again, but this time earlier in the day so we can see more of the landscape. Riding the tramway at sunset we caught a glimpse of the city lights through the valley on our last visit - the video I edited captures the euphoria quite well.
I'm anxious to get away again and am just as inspired by the potential edits I have in mind to create. While last years trip fueled some upbeat travel clips, I want to make more of a statement this time around by creating poetic vignettes of the experiences. Likely all to be narrated, I'm going to push myself to create bolder, more weighted, interpersonal presentations. A reworked mashup of last years footage from Indio is also in the works and should be a gauge of what I hope to accomplish.
Once again it seems a road trip has presented itself as the ideal escape. Dave and I both seem to have quite defining memories of the random locales seen last year - with the extra money and time already put forward, I think we're going to be amazed again at how much we see and do.
What else can I say? Our California trip has been jokingly referred to as our skewed version of Sideways. We shall see.
