At 3 A.M., I'm still up watching videos of jazz heroes I never saw live. It's so thrilling. And not just the music. The Internet is changing the future of fund-raising. I'm thrilled by the potential.
Jc and I love our YouTube audience, and we're going to keep producing videos, but we're also really interested in learning what other opportunities are out there.
I come up with the ideas for my videos, and I write the lyrics and choreograph them, and I direct them and tell everyone what to do and how I want them to sing the parts and do the tongue pops and eye rolls and stuff like that.
You know, if a band on a label sold a few hundred thousand copies of their record these days, they wouldn't make any money. But if a band can pump out 10 million copies of a record for free, and 50,000 of those fans come to the band's website to watch pay-per-view videos or buy a t-shirt, that's roughly $10 million in revenue per year.
I'm looking to produce more stuff: TV shows, commercials, music videos and short films. I'm building my catalog so I can have some fun in between the times that I get to a movie.
Apart from photography and music videos, I also do graphic design.
I wanted to be an Ailey dancer. I would watch Alvin Ailey videos over and over, and I'd picture myself doing that. I was obsessed with it.
When my YouTube videos started to get really big, I was like, 'Man, this is pretty sweet.' It started as my hobby, and then I started traveling and learning how to play different instruments, and then it just kind of became my life.
I have an office full of product from brands trying to be in videos and an inbox full of songs from artists, but at the end of the day if the artist doesn't support the brand or it doesn't make sense for the song, then it will never work. What we do is try to pair them up so that both sides are happy.
She is always going to be Diana Ross; she doesn't have to put out another album to keep at it. I'm not Diana, but people know me from the stuff that I've done. And that stuff, those videos, live forever and will continue to be discovered by a new users.
If you look at the first generation of wireless, it really lasted about 15 years before we went to the second generation. When we implemented the fourth generation, which allowed us to do all the smartphones and the videos, the time between that and going to the fifth generation is going to be four years.
I've done four videos for older people under my new brand, Prime Time, and the missing link was yoga. I'm aiming it for older people - people who have never worked out or who are recovering from a surgery and have to start slow. It's easy, you can't get hurt, it's very doable, and I've done it in ten-minute segments.
I'd always loved watching YouTube videos, and that's what inspired me to make them myself. Initially I was drawn to makeup tutorials - I learned everything I know about makeup from YouTube.
Predating the Internet and predating videos, you had an active imagination. You would hear sounds and then get mental pictures of what these sounds felt like to you. It engaged you and made you more invested in it. It made you want to get tickets to the show, buy the album, put the poster on the wall. Now it's sensory overload.
My record company had to beg me to stop filmin' music videos in the projects. No matter what the song was about, I had 'em out there.
I started out doing music videos and photography, and I always loved writing.
I dropped out of school at 17 and joined the Irish band The Frames, getting my first glimpse into the world of professional film making while shooting of a number of rock videos.
We noticed that the most popular videos at YouTube showed people making things.
I wouldn't be posting videos of me in drag or doing a remake of Zoolander's orange mocha frappuccino scene if I didn't still like attention.
I knew I wanted to be a singer from the age of five. I've been lucky to be so single-minded - some of my friends still don't know what they want to do, and they're finding it hard. There are home videos of me singing and taking centre stage at family parties when I'm about three.
To shuck oysters, you'll need an oyster knife, a handy tool with a sturdy handle and a short, rigid blade which you can pick up for about ten bucks in a kitchenware shop or fish market. A quick trip online will yield any number of videos and slide shows with step-by-step instructions on how to shuck an oyster.
There's no real music on television unless it's music television, and then it's expensive videos, which people like me can't do.
Film was something that I didn't see as a step up from music videos, though obviously, music videos, the fact that you work with a crew and a film camera, are the closest to film I've ever been. That is the only schooling I've ever had.
Sometimes videos make a bad song very tight.
There's no continuity in videos... you can jump around all over the place. In features, you can't throw in a close-up of a musician stomping on a guitar - you have to film a scene.
All my records and videos were groundbreaking.
I'm perfectly happy for my videos to be on YouTube, whether I'm getting paid for them or not. If they're on YouTube, people will see them. If for some reason my videos get taken down from YouTube, well, I apologize. If it was up to me they'd all be up there and they'd all be free.
I've noticed that a lot of people in film always seem interested in music videos, like it's some, like, really exciting thing they've always wanted to do or something.
If you get rid of music, images, videos, words and literature from the smartphone, you just have a simple phone that would be worth $50.
I started making music videos in my twenties and made my first feature, 'Guncrazy,' at 29. I then spent the greater part of my thirties directing features.
The more you create, the more ambitious you become with your projects. Short films were a direct result of over 200 web series sketches and vlogs. After you create enough 2-minute videos, you start to wonder what else there is. Deadlines and discipline and quantity with a focus on quality have always been what keeps me going.
The number one question I'm asked as a YouTuber every day is, 'How can I get my videos out there; how can I make my videos go viral?'
I just block out the demons. I sing. I block them away. I put my pain into my music. I paint. I make my own videos. I direct myself. No one directs me anymore. I am in charge of my destiny.
I have to say that filming 'The Night Manager' was not just amazing but also very daunting at first. I used to describe myself as the token plebeian surrounded by all your national treasures. All that glittering talent in one place; I knew Hugh from Fry and Laurie videos that my grandpa used to watch, and Tom Hollander's 'Rev' is hilarious.
To me, getting to do music and videos, you work on a character. Being onstage is acting; you get to be larger than life and larger than yourself.
An album is a whole universe, and the recording studio is a three-dimensional kind of art space that I can fill with sound. Just as the album art and videos are ways of adding more dimensions to the words and music. I like to be involved in all of it because it's all of a piece.
