30 million views before you can make a sale

David Budzinski is not a professional videographer, he's a supply manager from Houston Texas. He was on safari at Kruger National Park in South Africa when he was fortunate enough to capture an eight-minute video of a life and death struggle between a pride of lions, an alligator, and a herd of cape town buffalo on his hand-held camcorder.  The video begins with the lions separating a calf from its herd. Next an alligator grabs a leg of the calf and plays tug of war with lions for a while. Eventually the big buffaloes get up the nerve to charge back in and save the day.

According to the NY Times, another tourist told Budzinski, "You could sell that video!"  Turns out that's no so easy. All the outlets Budzinski contacted told him that they never accepted footage shot by an amateur. Truth be told the video is pretty shaky, but it is also very compelling.  So he placed in on YouTube where it quickly became one of the most popular videos in YouTube's history.

30 million views later potential buyers started knocking on Budzinski’s door. The National Geographic Channel eventually bought the television rights to the video turning it into an hour long documentary.  The eight minutes were padded with discussion of the behavior of the animals that took part, and a description of how Budzinski shot the video.  The resulting documentary, Caught on Safari: Battle at Kruger will be aired several times this week.  Check this site for details and listings.