Two of YouTube’s craftiest filmmakers are back in action. Two-and-a-half years after it aired a farewell live stream, Indy Mogul has returned, with original hosts Erik Beck and Justin Johnson taking control of the channel the first started back in 2007.
Indy Mogul first arrived in 2007 as one of the channels run by Next New Networks. It quickly gained a devoted audience thanks to its short films and DIY projects, which showed off Beck and Johnson’s creativity and adventurousness. In 2011, Next New Networks was acquired by Google in 2011, and in the following few years Indy Mogul’s funding dwindled. In 2013, the channel — then hosted by Griffin Hammond and Russell Hasenauer, went off the air for good.
Or so we thought. On May 18th, 2016, Beck and Johnson posted a short video titled “WE’RE BACK,” in which they tease their triumphant return to Indy Mogul. Nine days later, the channel posted two new videos: One explains the history of Indy Mogul, while the other gives the two hosts a chance to answer some frequently-asked questions posed by their fans. “We can’t express enough how excited we are to be back and to have full control of the channel really for the first time ever,” says Beck in the latter video.
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The return of Indy Mogul comes with some important changes. Rather than returning to old formats, Beck and Johnson are launching a pair of new shows: One is titled Erik Builds The Movies, while the other will carry the name Five Word Films.
The more crucial change, however, concerns funding. Indy Mogul is no longer supported by Google money, so in order for it to be viable, Beck and Johnson need help from their fans. If you’d like to support them, you can find them on Patreon.
