Over two years, eight videos from Melbourne’s the Woolshed Company were viewed more than 205m times, partly thanks to $100,000 in taxpayer funding.
The Australian producers who were behind eight fake viral videos which made news around the world were part of a Screen Australia-funded project to explore the impact of a short film narrative.
Over two years, eight disparate videos from Melbourne’s the Woolshed Company were viewed in 180 countries, more than 205m times. On YouTube alone they were watched for the equivalent of 164 years; they accrued 500,000 comments and 1.6m likes.
But all of the scenarios presented as real were fake: a guy taking a selfie in a tornado, a shark attack filmed on a GoPro, a selfie stick fight, a stormtrooper falling down the stairs, lightening almost striking a girl on a beach, a lion taking revenge on a trophy hunter, a GoPro falling off a drone into a dance festival, and a snowboarder being chased by a bear.
The videos were shown in news broadcasts from every commercial TV network in Australia, and internationally on NBC, Fox, CBS, CNN, Sky News and ABC (US).
Online publications including Sky News, the Daily Telegraph, the Guardian, the Independent, the Mirror, the Sun, the Telegraph and Time Magazine also shared the videos.
The ruse started in June 2014 when the young advertising creatives posted a video on a YouTube channel under the name Terry Tufferson. GoPro: Man Fights Off Great White Shark In Sydney Harbour quickly went viral, attracting more than 34m views on YouTube.
The second video, the tornado selfie, was a paid commission from Roadshow Entertainment, to make a fake viral video to promote natural disaster movie Into The Storm.
“After the success of the first two we realised that we had a strength to play,” Woolshed Company managing director, Dave Christison, told Guardian Australia. “I see these types of videos every day on my Facebook feed and I know half of them are fake and half of them could be real. We saw it as a short-form story medium.”
After a successful bid, the remaining six videos were made in partnership with Screen Australia, which delivered $100,000 in public funding.
“Screen Australia knew we were exploring what is real and what is fake and how the world reacted to it,” Christison said.
“We approached them with the concept, that we’d really like to figure out what are the best ways to reach really big audiences with these tiny little stories. It was totally different to what they normally fund.”
Resource: https://www.theguardian.com
Resource: https://www.kvtr.com/news/
The Australian producers who were behind eight fake viral videos which made news around the world were part of a Screen Australia-funded project to explore the impact of a short film narrative.
Over two years, eight disparate videos from Melbourne’s the Woolshed Company were viewed in 180 countries, more than 205m times. On YouTube alone they were watched for the equivalent of 164 years; they accrued 500,000 comments and 1.6m likes.
But all of the scenarios presented as real were fake: a guy taking a selfie in a tornado, a shark attack filmed on a GoPro, a selfie stick fight, a stormtrooper falling down the stairs, lightening almost striking a girl on a beach, a lion taking revenge on a trophy hunter, a GoPro falling off a drone into a dance festival, and a snowboarder being chased by a bear.
The videos were shown in news broadcasts from every commercial TV network in Australia, and internationally on NBC, Fox, CBS, CNN, Sky News and ABC (US).
Online publications including Sky News, the Daily Telegraph, the Guardian, the Independent, the Mirror, the Sun, the Telegraph and Time Magazine also shared the videos.
The ruse started in June 2014 when the young advertising creatives posted a video on a YouTube channel under the name Terry Tufferson. GoPro: Man Fights Off Great White Shark In Sydney Harbour quickly went viral, attracting more than 34m views on YouTube.
The second video, the tornado selfie, was a paid commission from Roadshow Entertainment, to make a fake viral video to promote natural disaster movie Into The Storm.
“After the success of the first two we realised that we had a strength to play,” Woolshed Company managing director, Dave Christison, told Guardian Australia. “I see these types of videos every day on my Facebook feed and I know half of them are fake and half of them could be real. We saw it as a short-form story medium.”
After a successful bid, the remaining six videos were made in partnership with Screen Australia, which delivered $100,000 in public funding.
“Screen Australia knew we were exploring what is real and what is fake and how the world reacted to it,” Christison said.
“We approached them with the concept, that we’d really like to figure out what are the best ways to reach really big audiences with these tiny little stories. It was totally different to what they normally fund.”
Resource: https://www.theguardian.com
Resource: https://www.kvtr.com/news/
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