Articles | Animation: The Illusion of Life film details

by Sam Chen

Thanks! We're over 1,000,000 hits in three months. It's been pretty exciting since it was spread entirely by word of mouth. I also like that it has a perfect 5 star rating on YouTube by users. YouTube ratings and view counts are good, solid evidence that people like the work. My mom keeps asking if that's a lot of people. I tell her that it's 1 out of 8 people in NYC. I still am not sure she gets it.

Really, I was trying to make a branded viral video, that was innovative. After working at Saatchi & Saatchi, an ad agency, I realized I could not compete with commercial directors. There are too many of them, and their reels are too overproduced. Coming out of college, I don't have money, but I have good ideas. This one cost $100 worth of production. Larkin Clark was an actress I knew and did it for free. I can't tell you the exact point of time I came up with this idea. But I can tell you it took almost 50 bad ideas to come up with it.

I got a really humbling e-mail from one of my heroes at Pixar. I could not believe that he saw it. I still don't think this director realizes the profound impact that an e-mail can have on an up and coming filmmaker. If I ever become a successful filmmaker, I will definitely try to reach out to others who make good work. It is so inspiring, you have no idea. His e-mails will be enough fuel for me to last a decade of more struggling. (yes I'm a serious filmmaker and prepared to struggle at all costs).

I got a lot of attention, and made many incredible connections. I had a couple phenomenal opportunities come my way, such as commercials and other viral videos, but got passed over so far in the end. It's okay. The contacts I made, are invaluable. If not now, I know if I do something else incredible, I can reach out to them.

I did get my first official music video out of this, which will be out around the end of the year. It is radically different than this one. I think it would be too easy to just recycle the "Apple Mac Music Video" idea. I have many other ideas that I want to do.

I finally did get pretty high up the Apple corporate ladder. It took a while, but they really liked it. Employees from stores around the country wrote, which was insane. I saw it playing in the Apple flagship 5th avenue store in NYC, where I'm from, while getting my iphone 3g. That was really weird. As for Steve Jobs, I'm not sure. I heard that he did and that he didn't from different high ranking Apple employees. I like to think that he did though. =)

I just really dig their music. I wanted to contact them first for permission, but figured they would turn a no-name down. That's fine, I get it. So, I figured if I could increase their sales, then they would have business incentive to keep it online. The same strategy went for Apple. If people enjoyed it, then why not bask in the positive publicity for everyone? Luckily, it worked. The Bird and the Bee invited me to their concert in NYC and we had a drink. It was really cool how the Internet just connected all of us.

Sure. I think great creativity will prevail over high production values. But we shouldn't be surprised, because that was the case since the very beginning of filmmaking. The web is the ultimate equalizer, but it does not guarantee any success. That still has to come from the individual. Put it this way: even with a crazy budget, Hollywood film - if you don't have the ideas and skills to back it up, then you will be found out eventually anyway, right? So you might as well just focus on being the best filmmaker possible and then the rest will come.

Anyway, from my experience, the web is an advantage for everyone with a good idea.

What's kind of interesting is that I don't see myself doing another desktop type video at the moment. I think that would be too easy to replicate something similar. My favorite directors take on new genres yet still remain the same director. Ang Lee, one of my heroes and I'm sure many at the SDAFF, can do a Western, an action movie, a quiet drama, and then a wuxia film. That's an absolutely ridiculous track record!!! Yet he is still Ang Lee in his films. And he's extremely humble.

So my new music video is entirely different. But strangely, it's really similar. It uses a lot of technology in it. Lots of technology. You'll just have to see it, when it comes out. I don't even know if it's technically possible. But it'll be interesting to find out! Stay tuned!