I Was A YouTube Superstar And Didn't Even Know It

Recently, I got an email from a fan who'd seen my short POOL DAYS on YouTube. My films get uploaded from time to time without my consent and when it happens, I usually ask folks to limit them to 2-3 minute clips. When this fan sent the link, I was surprised to see that my film had an astounding number of views--nearly 1.1 million, and over 1,500 comments too. I was a YouTube superstar and didn't even know it!

Unfortunately, the uploader of the film had titled it "Gay Short 033" (!) and did not include any information about me, the actual title, or links to my other films. The situation was both frustrating and somewhat exciting, given the number of people who were responding to my work. When the original film was released as part of BOYS LIFE in the 1990s, it was a big success and seen by maybe 100,000 theatre goers over the course of a couple years in realease. But now, in mere months on YouTube, more than 10 times that number had watched it. Of course, if I had a dime for every click...but that's another story.

Anyway, this time I thought I'd take a different approach with the errant uploader. I messaged the guy and told him he could keep the full clip online but on one condition: he needed to properly credit and tag the video with my information and links to my other work. I figured if all these people like my short, they should be able to find my other films too! These days, in the indie world, it's all about building and bringing your audience with you so this seemed like a way to do just that. He replied to my message in a couple hours and changed all the info and, since then, we've had a lively discussion about my film's sudden viral life.  

What's most interesting in all this is that I've had to sit in countless meetings with executives, producers, and investors over the years about gay-themed projects and the general response is that there's little to no audience, especially if there's teenagers involved. In fact, one of my fellow young adult authors John Green (THE FAULT IN OUR STARS) has an infamous and terrible story of a producer meeting where he was told, and this is a direct quote, "The only thing Hollywood hates more than smart teenagers, is smart gay teenagers." Yet there on YouTube, one of my movies about a smart gay teenager gets over a million plus views with no promotion or publicist or anything. Go figure.

This is all the more timely as, currently, I'm working on a new project, a 12-part series adapted from one of my YA books called BEST SUMMER EVER. It's based on my novel TALE OF TWO SUMMERS about two best friends, one gay and one straight, who have their first big romances over the course of a summer. It's being done independently, for now (see above)...or at least until someone wises up to the audience that is out there. In that same interview John Green said, "I hope Hollywood will prove this movie producer wrong someday." Not sure if/when that will happen, but I think the Internets has maybe done this already.

So make sure you check out BSE on other social media spaces (FB, Twitter, YouTube) for more details to come. In the meantime, you can watch POOL DAYS below.

Brilliant Doc JOBRIATH A.D. Has Its NYC Premiere At NewFest

This weekend, the NewFest screened my friend Kieran Turner's brilliant documentary JOBRIATH A.D. up at Lincoln Center.  The film takes a fascinating look at the legendary story of a singer/songwriter from the 1970s who was destined for fame as America's first out rock star.  Unfortunately, that never came to pass....

Jobriath Salisbury started out playing America's first out musical theatre star--Woof in the cast of an LA production of HAIR.  When he moved to NYC, he met famed musical manager Jerry Brandt who promised Jobriath he was going to be a huge star and set up a massive promo campaign w/Elektra Recods to make it happen. However, the public rejected Jobriath despite his talents as a singer/songwriter. It seems his extravagant ways as the "first true fairy of rock'n'roll" was a bit too ahead of the curve for the music biz in 1974. But there's a lot more to his story than this.

If you think the name Jobriath sounds a little odd, as I did watching the film, you're onto the truly interesting story behind the story.  Unlike the usual "Behind The Music" trajectory, this film takes some amazing twists and turns as it goes into who Jobriath was and who he became after his rock career fizzled in the mid-1970s. To say more would be to give away the surprises of this riveting and ultimately heartbreaking story about a talent that was lost way too soon. It is easily one of the best docs I've seen in a while and definitely worth checking out when it gets a general release next year. You can keep updated about all that by liking the film's Facebook page.

Finally, JOBRIATH A.D. got its start with a DIY Kickstarter campaign a couple years ago. So, with that in mind, I'd like to give my dear readers a gentle reminder that my own Kickstarter for BEST SUMMER EVER is in the final countdown phase....just 3 days left to reach our goal. And you can check out of FB page too.  Please help us make our goal so this movie can be at next year's NewFest. Thanks! :)

BEST SUMMER EVER Needs Your Help--Just 12 Days Left

So we've got 12 days left on our Kickstarter to raise money for BEST SUMMER EVER, my new feature film. The bad news is we've got a long way to go to make our goal. On Kickstarter, it's all or nothing and so far we have only raised about 10% of the 25k needed to start production on the film.  But fear not...we can still reach our goal. That is, if you help us out.

The beauty of crowd-funding is that all it takes is a lot of people giving a little bit to help make it happen. For instance if everyone I know on Facebook donates just $20 then our campaign is over TODAY. Done. That's it. And we can start making this movie a reality. So if you haven't helped us out, here are all the pertinent links below.  

http://kck.st/LPKr4B     (Kickstarter)

http://on.fb.me/MXNIlr    (FB)

http://bit.ly/NPnG4w  (tumblr)

twitter.com/bestsummermovie

Please give what you can and support us online by tweeting or posting about our Kickstarter w/our bitly link below. Or you can copy and share our image above too...it's prettier that way! Everything little thing you to support this little film counts...so don't underestimate the power of you. :) Thanks so much and I hope you are having the BEST SUMMER EVER!  #BSE

Help Us Spread The Word About The BEST SUMMER EVER

It's been almost 10 days since we started our Kickstarter campaign for my new feature film BEST SUMMER EVER. Much thanks to all our early supporters who have given so generously since--we've had more than a few major donors at the $100 level and above which has been amazing!  But now we need hundreds of donors below that level for this whole thing to work. So I'm asking those who have supported BSE to help us get the word out on social media...where we now have a great presence: we are live on TWITTER, FACEBOOK and even TUMBLR.


So you can join in all the Internet fun AND really help us out by following and "Liking" us too.  But even more helpful than that is making your friends/followers aware of our fundraising here on Kickstarter by tweeting or posting kickstarter URL to your twitter or FB status update:  

http://kck.st/LPKr4B

The key to crowd sourcing is growing our crowd...ie; you tell two friends and they tell two friends and so on and so on. So if you can do this sometime in the next day or two, that would be major!  So please alert your peeps about this fun movie....it won't get made unless we get it out to more people who can donate, especially at the lower levels. 100 folks donating 10 bucks = a cool 1K! So please help us out as we spread the word about BSE... and I hope you have the Best Summer Ever! :)

AUGUST Is Now Available On iTunes

Last summer, I had a few posts about a feature film that I co-wrote/produced called AUGUST. It was directed by my friend Eldar Rappaport and is a steamy love triangle set in Los Angeles during a heatwave. Well, now that it's summer again and almost August, it seems the appropriate time for the film to get its commercial release.

This week, AUGUST is available for rental or purchase via iTunes; to rent its $4 and to buy its $14. For those who like to have an actual DVD, that will be available later this month via Amazon and Wolfe Video, our US distributor. So check it out this week because, as the temps rise, it's a great time to stay in the comfort of your own home and watch a hot new movie. Thanks for your support!  And stay tuned for more news on my new feature BEST SUMMER EVER....

Welcome To The BEST SUMMER EVER--A New Movie!

I have some big news on the blog today....I'm working on a new feature film, BEST SUMMER EVER. It's the adaptation of my novel TALE OF TWO SUMMERS (Simon and Schuster) which I've been working on since last fall. I wrote the script based on the book and will be directing the film as well.  


In the book, two best friends spend their first summer apart from each other and, to keep in touch, start a blog...thus the title. The film is going to be the same story just told differently.  In BEST SUMMER EVER, Chuck and Hal send videos back and forth to each other to keep in touch. Of course, this is no ordinary summer (are they ever?!) and they both end up falling in love for the first time.  Awwwww. Hal meets a hot french teen at the mall and Chuck falls for one of his castmates at a summer theatre program.

I'm very excited about this project and getting another film going too.  Of course, all this costs money so today I am kicking-off the project with a little Kickstarter campaign, the oh-so-modern way for indies to raise funds these days.  Below is the cute little video I put together where we took the question "What's Your Best Summer Ever" to people here in NYC. We got some great answers about that and summer romance too, which is what BEST SUMMER EVER is all about.

So check out the video and click through to our Kickstarter home page and donate what you can. It's essential we make a strong start out of the gate, as it were, so that Kickstarter will feature us on their homepage and introduce the project to their larger crowd (the key to crowd-funding!).  Simply put, without your help, the movie will not be made. So help us make it happen! Like us on FB, follow us on Twitter, and check out our cool Tumblr too. Thanks for your support and here's wishing you the BEST SUMMER EVER! :)