Hacker News Reader

Comment by wslh | Hacker News Reader

Could you please expand on your "viral indie release to Youtube" idea? I am just a YT basic user and don't know what is there and what is not beyond HN, random videos, and my relatively simple use cases (e.g. music videos, and movie trailers).

View on HN

Indie film makers release a lot of their work on youtube.

There hasn't really been a Blair Witch Project movie happening on Youtube yet...

I get that the real issue isn't just YouTube, but that no other horror film, or otherwise, has really matched Blair Witch Project's combination of impact, marketing success, micro-budget, and cultural phenomenon.

I just speculate that if Blair Witch Project were made today, it would likely debut on a platform like YouTube before gaining wider recognition.

The best example I can think of is already mentioned up-thread, but just to drill down on that. Kung Fury[1] was initially released on Youtube (and a few other services, mostly in other countries I think) and became a pretty big viral hit. Enough so that the filmmaker eventually signed a deal to make a sequel[2] with distribution by a traditional film company and some big-name stars. Unfortunately the release of the sequel has been held up for "legal reasons" and FSM only knows when or if it will see the light of day. :-(

Anyway, not as big as BWP, but still a decent example of the concept under discussion, I think.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kung_Fury

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kung_Fury_2

Just because the quality of the things people upload there isn't up to the arbitrary standards of "as good as the Blair Witch Project" doesn't mean its less valuable

Reply on news.ycombinator.com