Full-Length Movie is a Hit on YouTube

A few months ago I wrote about the curtain going up on Google's on-line art house, the YouTube Screening Room.  Every other week since that time Google has given us four new high-quality short films to enjoy on the full-screen YouTube theatre player. Now Google has added its first full-length movie to the mix.

Long-Form Video is the New Trend at YouTube

I expect YouTube is going to start hosting lots of long-form video real soon. Just last week YouTube added full-length TV shows like "Californication", "MacGyver", "Dexter", and "Beverly Hills 90210" to its mix.

The reason for the move to long-form video is two fold.  Joost and Hulu.com are doing it, and YouTube can't afford to loose any momentum to the competition. More importantly, it is much easier to insert advertising into longer format material without annoying the audience - and YouTube needs to start coming up with a way to pay for itself. The TV shows all embed ads front, midstream and back. The art video flicks don't embed ads yet, but I can't believe that's going to go on forever.

Feature Film, "The Princess of Nebraska" Debuts on YouTube

The San Francisco Chronicle recently said that "of the thirteen films that opened this Friday", The Princess of Nebraska which premiered on YouTube "has proved to be the "biggest release of all".  The paper says this because this hour-and-ninteen-minute-long film garnered almost 160,000 views during its first weekend. Not bad for a weekend's audience for an art film! Of course, we have no idea what percent of that audience watched the whole film. Free content watched on computer screen gets ditched a lot faster than a movie you pay 10 bucks to see in a theater.

The Princess of Nebraska follows a young, pregnant Chinese woman who has come to San Francisco to decide what to do with her life. I gotta admit, I am one of those who sampled the film but did not watch it all the way through. Not that I didn't like what I saw. I just didn't have the time. Will you like it? The New York Times did.  Log into the Screening room to watch the movie and judge for yourself.

Will Screening on YouTube be Rewarding for the Director?

Truth be told, as a videographer, I am less interested in the audience reaction to this film than to whether or not screening on YouTube is going to be a rewarding experience for the director Wayne Wang. Wang is not a newbe director looking to YouTube to build an audience or to establish street cred. Wang has already had his share of bonefied commercial and art-house hits (Dim Sum, The Joy Luck Club, Maid in Manhattan). Why on earth is he screening his latest on YouTube?

Part of the answer is that Princess is a companion piece for another film of Wang's (A Thousand Years of Good Prayers) that is currently touring real word (not virtual) art houses. In France, the two films are being shown together. US audiences demand shorter fare and Wang decided to release Princess on YouTube in hope that showing it for free would encourage people to go to theatres and pay to see the other half of the duo.

In an interview on CNN, Wang talks about how this film came to YouTube.  "Princess" was sort of a freebie anyway, made with leftover money when Thousand Years came in under budget." Because it was made with leftover money, Princess was shot on the cheap with a minimal crew, a very tight shooting schedule, and inexpensive digital cameras.

Over the last couple of years, art house theatres have been closing and Wang admits that finding venues for his independent films is becoming more and more difficult. So he is experimenting with alternative ways to distribute and make films.

"You kind of have to think differently about it" said Wang. Different venues require different techniques. On-line films "have  to move faster, the images have to be tighter, you can't really see a lot of details. If `Thousands Years' was shown on the computer, I would be kind of depressed ... it has to be projected big."

In the San Francisco Chronicle article Wang admits he has no idea if this particular gamble is going to pay off for him. "(YouTube) may give (Princess) more profile, I don't know."  "If the film had enough hits, YouTube could charge more to sponsors. It's like you can watch (Comedy Central's) 'The DailyShow' online for free, and that page is sponsored. It's that same paradigm." 

Will Wang's gamble pay off? My guess is that it won't this time.  Pioneering efforts rarely bring big success. With luck, Wang and YouTube are going to keep pumping out great on-line feature films. By doing so will they will start to generate a whole new class of audience.  That will benefit us all in the end.