YouTube Millionaires: When It Comes To Film, CineFix Hits “All The Favorites”

By 05/29/2015
YouTube Millionaires: When It Comes To Film, CineFix Hits “All The Favorites”

Welcome to YouTube Millionaires, where we profile channels that have recently crossed the one million subscriber mark. There are channels crossing this threshold every week, and each has a story to tell about YouTube success. Read previous installments of YouTube Millionaires here.

There are plenty of places on YouTube where film fans can go to complain about movies that didn’t quite hit the mark. Few channels, though, celebrate film as deeply as CineFix, which recently surpassed one million subscribers. The YouTube hub run by Whalerock Industries has combined its staff’s deep knowledge of film with a handful of fun concepts to create a channel filled with compelling original series.

Recently, CineFix also expanded its library by working with members of the YouTube community to create Superhero in Training, a reality about the transformation from ordinary schlub to action hero. We asked about that series–as well as several others–when we discussed CineFix’s accomplishments with the channel’s staff.

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Tubefilter: How does it feel to have one million subscribers? What do you have to say to your fans?

CineFix: We still occasionally refresh the page to make sure it doesn’t say 1,000. We’ve been making a lot of videos for over a year and a half and 1 Million Subscribers is always this lofty goal you hope to hit one day…like someday in the far future. So the fact that it happened and now we have to set goals that sound even crazier is amazing, and unbelievable, and it makes us incredibly grateful there’s so many people out there who like our stuff and want to know as soon as it comes out.

At the end of the day, all we do is make videos we are proud of and we think celebrate film in fun ways. We cross our fingers that other people will like them. So, if there’s one thing we’d like to say to the fans, it’s just, “THANK YOU for watching, for the support, for commenting and challenging us and each other to make things better, and please keep letting us know what you want to see!”

TF: When you look at the videos that have most resonated with your fans, do you notice any common elements?

CF: The fans at Cinefix really like to learn things in fun ways–whether that be learning about movies they’d never heard of, about what happened on set, what films influenced others, how-to techniques on DIY filmmaking, or even just learning about storylines and films they forgot about from Easter Eggs we put in videos and long discussions in the comments–the videos that really seem to work for the fans are ones where there’s at least one thing you can walk away with having learned while being entertained.

TF: When sharing facts about movies, do you guys choose to discuss particular films based off feedback from fans or do you tend to pick ones that interest you as film buffs?

CF: We tend to do a little of both. There are films that we really love that we try to find time to discuss, there are movies that are coming out that we try to watch and find things out about, there’s the movies only crazy film buffs have ever heard about but we feel everyone should know about so we try to fit those in too, and we get a lot of requests from fans. So we sift through it all and see what gets requested the most and try to make sure to give fans things they want as well. There’s A LOT of movies out there! Luckily, we get to make a new video every day, so there’s always time to hit all the favorites in different ways.

TF: Where did the idea for Superhero in Training come from?

CF: Chris Pratt? Haha. Clint has actually been wanting to do the show since the earliest days of Cinefix… probably because Clint just wanted to get fit and find a reason to motivate himself! But after Pratt lost 60 lbs to play Star Lord in Guardians of the Galaxy, we were discussing it and Clint brought up the show idea again because it’s something we keep hearing about over and over–actors changing their bodies to play different roles (it’s almost the first thing that comes to mind when someone says Christian Bale)–and these days especially this seems to be true with everyone playing superheroes.

So the idea was simple, now that this is a constant part of the movie making process–if Andy Dwyer could become Star Lord–is this something anyone can do? Is it ALL makeup and CGI? What is the process really like? How hard is it? Could we do it? And IF we do it–let’s play superheroes! Now we’re here, and it’s been very, very hard, but an amazing learning experience.

TF: I’m a big fan of Film School’d. How do you think a detailed film education changes the way viewers consume movies?

CF: First off, we live in a time where we have access to EVERYTHING! ALL THE TIME! So consuming movies is harder because it’s not just the 10 movies in the theater this weekend, or those 10 plus the 50 at Blockbuster Video, it’s all movies ever, from all over the world, whenever you want…what do you watch? Something like Film School’d hopefully makes you curious about so many of the classics that really should be seen. We really hope you watch an episode and go, “Now i’m going to go see that on Netflix” or whatever service you use.

Additionally, knowing your history is important. It’s important to know why things are the way they are and how we got to today. The Marvel Cinematic Universe wouldn’t exist without the rise of serialized cable TV or Richard Donner’s Superman, or Star Wars, which wouldn’t exist without sitcoms or westerns or Japanese film, and you could keep going and going! We could do a video tracing a web-series like High Maintenance or Broad City back to War and Peace or Guardians of the Galaxy all the way back to Baroque Theater! Detailed film education helps us to better appreciate what we have now – it helps us get easter eggs and references for fun, it helps to see why certain stories work and why some don’t, and it definitely makes you more excited when an artist tries something totally new!

TF: Do studios ever approach you regarding tie-ins for their upcoming films? If so, how do you execute those videos while still remaining impartial in reviews?

CF: Yes, occasionally we work with studios to promote the release of a film in theaters or on DVD and we’re happy to do so if we think it’ll provide an awesome video for the audience, but that doesn’t impact reviews. We’re very open with the audience when something is promotional. At the end of the day, we can look at a movie and say “this scene would be amazing made out of cardboard” or “this film would be SO MUCH FUN in 8/16-bit style” and do an episode, but then watch the full film and honestly review it with a “it’s not a great movie and here’s why…sorry.”

TF: What movies are you most looking forward to in the coming months?

CF: Every single one of us on the team has a different answer to this question but Crimson Peak, Spectre, Mission Impossible, The Martian, Black Mass, Star Wars, Silence, Paper Towns, Trainwreck, Dark Places, Hello My Name is Doris, Jane Got a Gun, Knight of Cups, Mistress America, The Overnight, Southpaw, Hateful Eight… if it happens, The Assassin, Cosmos, La Blessure…Someone in the group has each of these and more on their list. There is still a lot of 2015 left!

TF: On a similar note, which movies from this year do you think would make for the best Kids Reenactments come Oscar time?

CF: Who knows what will get a nom this year…. there’s a lot of movies that probably won’t get one that would still be fun–Kingsman, Ex-Machina, Age of Ultron, and Tomorrowland would all be fun. Sometimes the ones that are so adult you have to step back and go, “how do we even try that with a kid?!” are the best ones. There’s the sense of hesitation going into it, and then it’s a simple, clean, fun joke and there’s a sense of satisfaction to that. But we’ll see what gets a nom.

TF: What’s next for CineFix? Any fun plans?

CF: More of what people love–8-bit, What’s the Difference?, Film School’d, Things You Didn’t Know, but we’re also going to be trying some new shows that address things fans have been asking for and hopefully they’ll work. It might be fun to dissect the movie making process in action from soup to nuts and put it all out there for people to see. It would be a hell of a ride. Who knows! There’s only one way to find out.

On Deck (channels that will soon reach one million subscribers): LinksTheSunheyitspriscilaLosPolinesios

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