“Portrait of YouTube Star”

In 2008, I entered the Tacoma 72 hour Film festival. This was my first try at doing something like this. We were given 72 hours to create a short film.

My filmmaking partner, Michael Bartley, had already agreed to star in a short film by Jeff Alldridge. This was Jeff’s 4th year entering the competition and he intended to produce, write, direct and edit a short drama about a heist. That left me with nothing to do… so I convinced Mike to sign up as a second group. I figured since Mike’s priority would be dedicating his “72 hours” to acting in Jeff’s movie, I could stick around on the set and make a mockumentary about the creation of the heist movie.  I planned the filming of my movie around Jeff’s production schedule.

2008 Requirements:

-Had to include someone blowing bubbles
-Had to include a fortune cookie
-One scene had to be at a museum
-Had to include the line “I feel like we’ve been here before”.

To understand the context of this short film (remembering fortune cookies, bubbles, museum and the line “I feel like I’ve been here before”), I recommend first watching Jeff Alldridge’s 5 minute short film, “The Forgotten Heist”: (NOTE: I had nothing to do with the production of “The Forgotten Heist”. I made a small cameo, but it was entirely Jeff’s work and he deserves every bit of credit for it).

 

Then enjoy the 20 minute mockumentary I created called “Portrait of a Youtube Star: Behind the Scenes of “The Forgotten Heist”.  Featuring Michael Bartley as the “YouTube Star”,  David Kennedy as a talent agent to YouTube Stars,  and Nick McCord as the loyal manservant to the YouTube Star.