Friday, December 30, 2011

The Vlogger Interviews: Ali Jardine [RogueBlueJay]


London-based RogueBlueJay - 20 year-old Ali Jardine - has been vlogging on YouTube since 2008.  He's a passionate content creator whose experience creating online video and in the YouTube community has inspired him to take his craft to an entirely new level as he begins to study the craft of filmmaking.





In my last Vlogger Interview, I spoke with BillTVMacon, a broadcast veteran with decades of experience in radio and television. He began his own vlogging "career" at Ali's urging - and recommended that I take on RogueBlueJay for my next interview.

Through vlogging, Ali's learned not only the basics of filmmaking - but the art of visual storytelling.  He's already beginning to develop a a vision as to the sort of films he'd like to make.

Ali's favorite film is Mean Creek, an intense 2004 Jacob Aaron Estes film about a bullied teen's brother luring the bully into the woods for vengeance.   Ali works to achieve in his vlogging and filmmaking what he believes Mean Creek achieved - a sense of reality and emotional authenticity.

In many ways, Ali may represent an exciting (some of my colleagues in the traditional media industry might say subversive) new generation of filmmakers more attuned to creating for and responding to an audience than any that came before them.  While most YouTubers won't become filmmakers - those like Ali who are passionate about their craft are going to bring with them not only a new approach to filmmaking, but a camaraderie forged in these early days of online video. 

"I think that in that in the film industry, or whatever that happens to be in 10 or 20 years, doing YouTube will be almost a sort of almost secret handshake, far more important than film school, or anything like that," Ali speculates.  

With affordable technology, he adds, the old adage that "writers write" can now also be applied to filmmaking - "filmmakers film."

"You don't need any sort of permission to make stuff these days - you just need a camera and a few friends."

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