The Subversive Filmmaker: Why YouTubers Should Think Beyond YouTube

My friend Lynette Privatsky just got accepted into the Silent River Film Festival with "Black or Blue," an episode of her web series, Adventures of the Battling Bag Lady. Even as I'm excited for her, I'll also very happy with the nature of her project, and it's relationship to one of my favorite subjects - the relationship between social media / YouTube and "traditional" media.

This episode of "Bag Lady," like so much creative work on YouTube, was written, produced, directed, shot, performed and marketed by none other than Lynette - and only Lynette. The only thing that isn't created by Lynette is the music, which was provided by composer Gary Garundei . Like other episodes in the series, there's no dialogue - it reminds me of silent movie slapstick comedies of eons past. It's also not long - all of 45 seconds - but it tells a nice little story: a trash can with an attitude teaches "Bag Lady" a little something about recycling.

Lynette's been experimenting with short video for quite a while - she's produced several episodes of "Bag Lady" over the past few years. For the past year, she's been exploring and learning about social media - "Bag Lady," at first essentially a portfolio film, has evolved into a web series concept.

To be sure, Lynette doesn't yet have a large number of subscribers on YouTube - in fact, she has very few at the moment - though I expect this might change with this festival exposure and the resulting opportunity to promote her projects. She, like so many of my friends and colleagues, has been diving deep into researching and experimenting with social media entrepreneurship. She's also starting a Twitter, blog and vlog called Special Order, Please - for people like her who love food but struggle with extensive food allergies and restrictions (to find out more about that, subscribe to the Twitter for that project at http://twitter.com/specialorderplz).

I titled this blog "Subversive" not because I believe self-created pieces like this will take over traditional media - they won't - but the developing success and acceptance of programs like this draw attention and create acceptance of some of the real creative energy that the "third platform" - social media - is unleashing. I also hope that it encourages creative / entreprenuerial YouTubers who may never have looked beyond their channels to dream a little bit bigger.

I hope you'll support Lynette's efforts and encourage her work by subscribing to her at http://youtube.com/privatsky .