We all know that Justin Bieber got discovered on YouTube, and I’ve been wondering when a filmmaker would finally get a big breakthrough on the popular video streaming platform.
For years now, people have been telling me the next big thing is not going to be a big theatrical film, but something smaller that will breakthrough on the web.
Already Max Landis, screenwriter of Chronicle, has gotten over a million hits on YouTube for his short film about The Death of Superman, and when I went to the Hollywood website The Wrap, I found out the next big thing may have already broken through via RocketJump.
It’s a feature length film called Video Game High School, or VGHS for short, and it was created by Freddie Wong. Wong also created RocketJump, and you can watch VGHS in ten to twenty minute bites. How many people have tuned in so far? Apparently it’s been watched over 40 million times (combined).
Wong and his partner Brandon Laatsch also have their own channel, Freddiew, which over three million subscribers. I read all of this in amazement, and am glad that finally the little movie that could breakthrough we’ve been hoping for on the web has finally happened.
Wong told The Wrap even if you’re top dog on YouTube, you can’t get the kind of cash you need to fund something like Video Game High School, so they set up their own thing, hence the creation of RocketJump. Video Game High School cost $500,000, and like many struggling filmmakers today, they raised money from Kickstarter. ($273,276 to be exact.)
RocketJump also told TheWrap that their operation is profitable, and their next opus will shoot next year. (Also, just like every filmmaker hopes, mainstream Hollywood is now looking at Wong, although he said that right now he’s not interested in working with the big boys just yet).
And indeed, this is someone taking the net by horns and doing what I’ve hoped a number of filmmakers in training would do. Put something out there that could hopefully change things or shake things up in a big way. Even if Video Game High School never does that, I think it still sounds like a great start.
