''Four Eyed Monsters'', an American 2005 film by Susan Buice and Arin Crumley. It roughly follows Buice and Crumley's real life relationship; the couple initially communicated only through artistic means inspired to continue their online digital non-verbal courtship in the analog world. The film is a very low-budget digital video production but has gained attention for its use of various web-related strategies in distribution and in its ability to build an audience through the use of online resources, a growing trend among contemporary American indie filmmakers. In 2007 it became the first ever feature film to be released on

YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...

. In 2010 the film was released on

VODO VODO was an online media distributor offering films, books, games and music under pay-what-you-want pricing models. Founded by film director Jamie King, VODO has recently focused on bundle offers, bringing together a variety of creators under t ...

where and placed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Sharealike license allowing audience members to redistribute or even alter it as they wish. Since then a number of screenings have been utilized taking advantage of this open license. The film was shot on

MiniDV DV (from ''Digital Video'') is a family of codecs and Videotape, tape formats used for storing digital video, launched in 1995 by a consortium of camcorder, video camera manufacturers led by Sony and Panasonic. It includes the recording or casse ...

using the

Panasonic AG-DVX100 The Panasonic AG-DVX100 was a video camera released on October 13, 2002, manufactured by Panasonic. It was the first consumer 60-hertz digital camcorder to support video recording at 24 frames per second (progressive scan) onto MiniDV tape. T ...

mostly in

Brooklyn Brooklyn is a Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City located at the westernmost end of Long Island in the New York (state), State of New York. Formerly an independent city, the borough is coextensive with Kings County, one of twelv ...

and

Manhattan Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York New York may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * ...

, with supplementary shooting in

Framingham, Massachusetts Framingham () is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts, United States. Incorporated in 1700, it is located in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, Middlesex County and the MetroWest subregion of the Greater Boston ...

and

Johnson, Vermont Johnson is a town in Lamoille County, Vermont, United States. The population was 3,491 at the 2020 census. The town is home to Northern Vermont University-Johnson, a part the Vermont State Colleges system. The Vermont Studio Center is loc ...

. It was edited on Apple's

Final Cut Pro Final Cut Pro (often abbreviated FCP or FCPX) is a professional non-linear video-editing application initially developed by Macromedia, and, since 1998, by Apple as part of its pro apps collection. Final Cut Pro allows users to import, edit, a ...

editing software. It debuted on the festival circuit in January 2005 at the

Slamdance Film Festival The Slamdance Film Festival is an annual film festival focused on emerging artists. The annual week-long festival is held in Los Angeles in late February and is the main event organized by the year-round Slamdance organization. The organization ...

where it was well received. At first the filmmakers hoped to obtain a conventional deal for theatrical distribution on the basis of its success at Slamdance, but nothing was forthcoming. This is when they decided to release what eventually grew into a two-season 13 episode online series about the journey of creating the film. This attention eventually grabbed the attention of IFC TV who went on to air the film, release in iTunes and sell DVDs through Borders bookstore. IFC then stopped selling the film and for a period of time it was only available in Canada through Films We Like and UK via DOG WOOF. IN 2009 the film was relaunched on YouTube and in 2010 released on VODO.Much detail is available in Buice and Crumley’s own account in ‘Four Eyed Monsters DIY Distribution Case Study’, London International Film Festival, Nov 2007, a video recording of which is available online at http://a31.video2.blip.tv/3470000016822/Arincrumley-FourEyedMonstersDIYDistributionCaseStudy195.m4v?bri=49.0&brs=2142

Plot

A shy videographer (Arin) and an uninspired artist working as a waitress (Susan) meet on the Internet and spark a relationship. Fed up with the usual dating game, the two decide to not communicate verbally, only through artistic means to see if they can make it work.

Video podcast

Out of their creation of the film, the Four Eyed Monsters podcast was born. It played on various places on the web, and episodes 9-13 debuted on IFC as a featured web series. Episode 3.5 featured a cameo by Chicago filmmaker Mike Krumlauf.

Awards

* Best New Directors - 2005 Brooklyn International Film Festival * Chameleon Award - 2005 Brooklyn International Film Festival * Student Jury Award - 2005

Newport International Film Festival Newport International Film Festival was an annual film festival in Newport, Rhode Island, established in 1998. The Newport Film Festival was generally held the first week in June and featured various international films at several local cinemas. ...

* Special Audience Award - 2005

South by Southwest Film Festival South by Southwest (SXSW) is an annual conglomeration of parallel film, interactive media, and music festivals and conferences organized jointly that take place in mid-March in Austin, Texas. It began in 1987 and has continued growing in both s ...

* Special Mention - 2005

Sidewalk Moving Picture Festival The Sidewalk Film Festival is an annual film festival taking place during the last weekend in August in the Theatre District of Birmingham, Alabama, since 1999. The festival typically screens at seven venues located within downtown Birmingham, fea ...

* Nominated for Best Cinematography - 2007

Independent Spirit Awards The Independent Spirit Awards, originally known as the FINDIE or Friends of Independents Awards, and later as the Film Independent Spirit Awards, are awards presented annually in Santa Monica, California, to independent filmmakers. Founded in ...

* Nominated for John Cassavetes Award - 2007

* Winner of the Undiscovered Gems 2006 Showcase - Awarded 50K towards further theatrical release and 50K for a TV deal with Sundance Channel still under negotiation.

References

External links

* *
Free download at VODO
{{VODO 2005 films 2005 drama films American independent films 2000s English-language films 2000s American films