Austin360 blogs > Almost Urban > Archives > 2007 > March > 28 > Entry
Lonelygirl15, Public Access TV and the YouTube revolution
I was so swept up by the SXSW Music Festival this year that I haven’t really taken time to reflect my perennial favorite part of the annual industry beatdown, the Interactive fest. Yes, I’m a die-hard music lover, but at heart, I’m a Web girl. I love the way the Internet has created an open forum for personal expression that gets easier to use with each year. I built own career by blogging and doing independent Web work until, eventually, I fanagled my way into a paid position.
The most fascinating panel I attended this year, was a discussion with the producers of the YouTube hit series Lonelygirl15. Lonelygirl15 is a made-for-Web serial drama, styled as the video journal of high school girl with oddball restrictive parents who are involved in a shadowy religious organization. Lonelygirl15 started as an experiment in narrative and form, with the show’s producers initially positing the lead character Bree as an actual video blogger. When suspicions in the blogosphere about Bree’s authenticity began to impact the daily lives of the actors and producers, they revealed the series’ fictional nature. And with the accompanying interest spawned by a flurry of press reports, the show’s popularity surged. Now it’s essentially a Web soap opera with a rabid fan base. Lonelygirl’s YouTube profile has over 90,000 subscribers and close to 10 million channel views. The primary screenwriter for the series is currently working on his first feature film and yes, there’s a Lonelygirl movie in the works.
Take home lesson: The Web is the ubiquitous back door for everything.
Which brings me to Public Access TV in Austin. I was down at Austin’s PACT studio last night for a taping of the local music show “The Infynit Hour,” which airs on Tuesdays from 10 to 11 p.m. on Cable channel 10. With all the spoof-worthy imagery that any discussion of Public Access TV conjures, Austin PACT’s facilities are actually pretty nice. “The Infynit Hour” is taped using 3 cameras in a spacious studio setting. Performing artists who appear on “The Infynit Hour” can get DVD copies of their performances which can later be YouTubed and spread across the net.
Beyond that, PACT Austin offers a very reasonably priced TV producer training program. For less than $200, you can learn everything from how to operate a camera to how to edit your work in Final Cut Pro. Not just for conspiracy theorists, it’s actually a great resource for musicians, artists and garden variety soapbox philosophers with a desire to learn how to broadcast. And perhaps, to join the YouTube revolution.
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