I have 60-plus videos on YouTube and over 30 million views. Of those 60, only three or four are branded videos. I built that audience by telling stories the way I like to tell them.
Possibly the only genre that efficiently converted from TV to YouTube / Vine is sketch comedy, which has always had more to do with the skills of its creators than its budgets.
I think you have to do the stories that interest you and hope an audience likes it, rather than doing stories that you think the audience will like, whether you like them or not. I think there has to be something that you find compelling and interesting, and then hopefully an audience will agree with you.
So, one of the biggest things about YouTube versus any other platform is the built-in audience and discovery tools.
I think the problem with 'YouTube Rewind,' at least how I see it, is pretty simple actually. YouTubers and creators and audiences see it as one thing and, YouTube, who's in charge of making it, sees it as something completely different.
As a filmmaker whose first film was made with the DIY tools of digital cinema, I love how the democratization of the filmmaking process and platforms like YouTube enables people to tell stories that in previous generations simply could not be told.
As content creators, we're benefitting YouTube every day. YouTube couldn't do what they do without us, so do not underestimate your power.
This is my life - I want to tell stories. There is something huge inside me that pushes me to tell stories, and tell stories for an audience and everybody.
What is my intention being a filmmaker? To make as much money as possible, or get as much attention as possible? It's not really either of those things. Now I can tell the stories that I want to tell.
One of the things I'm excited about is the observation that gamers are creators and creators are gamers too. We used to think of creators as workstation customers and think of gamers as consumers.
YouTube is an amazing platform to talk about social issues because it gives people the ability to tell their own stories and reach audience around the world who may otherwise never be exposed to these people and conversations.
I don't think it's going to be possible for the next generation of writers to tell stories without telling stories about telling stories.
You want to go to a place where you work every day, where you get to tell stories that look and feel like the audience in America that are watching. You're really limited, if you walk into a room and you can just tell stories about that. So, we've been really blessed.
I think 'Game of Thrones' was extraordinary. I want to do some period pieces. It would be lovely to tell great stories, that is my main ambition. And to be working with amazing creators.
I constantly think as an artist, as a rapper of what are the stories you want to tell? They can't all be, "I'm ill, I'm fresh, look at me, I have money." At some point, when you have an audience for it, there are stories that need to be told.
I think the Web is, you know, things like YouTube and stuff are absolutely where a lot of younger people are watching their TV on iTunes in the Web and YouTube, whatever. So, I think it's an important place to have a presence.