Array of videos one click away

Catherine Manabat, a second-year English student, was introduced
to

YouTube.com soon after the UCLA basketball team beat Gonzaga
University in the NCAA Tournament.

She found several versions of the final minutes of the
nail-biting game, some even filmed from the sidelines.

“We’re catching up and then, “˜Oh my gosh,
they’re tied,'” Manabat said. “You can see
Adam Morrison cry and he’s rolling on the floor.”

Officially launched to the public in December 2005, YouTube now
has more than 40 million videos, with more added each day as people
continuously upload new material, including home videos such as the
game footage shot by fans at the NCAA Tournament as well as works
by aspiring filmmakers hoping to be discovered.

One can watch anything from black-and-white Beatles concert
footage to Michael Phelps swimming the butterfly stroke at the 2004
Olympics. Students have also been pulled away from the couch and
into a swivel chair because of the availability of hard-to-find
shows as well as home videos of local events.

Mary Nguyen, a fourth-year biochemistry student, has become
hooked on subtitled Korean drama shows since she discovered YouTube
six months ago. She also was able to watch tapes of UCLA’s
Vietnamese Culture Night.

Edith Prado, an undeclared first-year student, also uses YouTube
for UCLA memories. She posted a video of Burt Bacharach’s
performance at Spring Sing that she filmed on her digital camera,
as well as one of her cat drinking out of the sink.

Prado was surprised to see films online of people she thought
were shy.

“It’s just a fun way to see another side of a person
““ what they’re so passionate about that they’d
film it; that they’d post it,” she said.

But for those passionate about film, YouTube provides more than
just a spare moment’s amusement. Because users can create an
online portfolio of their work, several aspiring filmmakers at UCLA
are turning their profile into an online resume.

“If you’re applying for a job you can just add a
link,” said Blake Stokes, a second-year theater student.
“Hopefully more people will start to realize that (YouTube)
is becoming a bit of a hotbed for great stuff to look
at.”

Most of Stokes’ films originally aired on UCLA’s
“The Mike & Ben Show,” a sketch comedy series that
airs on UCLAtv. Stokes wanted to expose his films to more than the
few people with access to UCLAtv and the even fewer who watch it
consistently.

“The people who watch the show are usually our staff, our
friends and people in the dorms who are up at 3 in the
morning,” Stokes said.

Stokes will be the show’s producer next year, and hopes to
expand the program’s online presence.

Arbi Pedrossian, a fourth-year psychology student, is another
“The Mike & Ben Show” writer who hopes to be
discovered through YouTube.

“I do have fantasies about some big people seeing my stuff
and giving me a call,” Pedrossian said.

YouTube will allow him to continue to reach an audience even
after he graduates from “The Mike & Ben Show.”

“It would be harder to motivate myself to make stuff if I
didn’t think people were going to see it,” he said.

A YouTube user since December, his four-minute comedy sketch,
“The Bra,” has been viewed 53,000 times in the past
five months ““ an unimaginable number for a “The Mike
& Ben Show” sketch pre-YouTube. Pedrossian posted the
YouTube link to “The Bra,” which is about a man
resurrected as a bra, on online message boards and e-mailed it to
friends all over the country.

“Once it got on the Internet, it became one of those
things that everyone was sending it to each other,”
Pedrossian said. “Someone posted it on Spanish-language
weblog and wrote a description of it in Spanish, which was pretty
funny.”

But as new films are posted each day, “The Bra” and
Pedrossian’s other films can become lost in the search
results. With such abundant competition, it is hard for a film to
generate and maintain buzz on the Internet.

“There are so many people now who have the ability and the
means to make stuff that the competition is through the
roof,” Pedrossian said. “It’s a lot tougher to
get noticed, but all in all it’s a positive thing because you
can make a movie and show it to the world on your home
computer.”

To Stokes, a wider audience allows him to be more creative. No
matter how quirky the video he posts, it might still acquire some
fans. And freedom to be unique makes for better films.

“I think that makes for less interesting stuff, if
you’re trying to make it funny to everyone,” Stokes
said.

YouTube already gets more than six million viewers per day
““ more than Facebook ““ but the site still has some
catching up to do.

“I don’t think I’m addicted,” Manabat
said. “Yet.”

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