"Last Sunday, I found myself inside YouTube's suite above the 50-yard line at Levi's Stadium in San Jose. (The 49ers won against the Cardinals, but no one is reading this for the sports.) YouTube CEO Neal Mohan had gathered some of his platform's biggest creators, along with NFL Commissioner Roger Goodall, to celebrate YouTube's NFL Sunday Ticket partnership. I wasn't there to cheer for football rights."
"I wanted to know more about the parallel studio system that's connecting creators, platforms, and audiences. It moves faster, costs less, and connects more directly than Hollywood while serving an audience at a scale no studio or streamer can match. But what does that mean in practice? Here's my theory: For now, independent filmmakers and content creators operate in parallel universes. In some respects they're diametrically opposed: Where indies have the auteur theory, influencers study the comments like holy writ. However, Hollywood is watching closely and I think those worlds are beginning to converge."
"Dhar Mann, who has 26 million subscribers and owns Dhar Mann Studios in Burbank ("the size of two football fields"), specializes in high-drama stories with uplifting messages. Imagine after-school specials as vertical dramas: "Girl KEPT IN ATTIC From EVIL STEPMOM" (860K views in two weeks) or "Kids MAKE FUN OF Boy With AUTISM, They Instantly Regret It" (4 years, 68M views in 4 years)."
YouTube convened top creators and NFL officials at Levi's Stadium to mark a major partnership and to spotlight evolving creator-studio dynamics. A parallel studio system is connecting creators, platforms, and audiences, operating faster, cheaper, and with more direct engagement than traditional Hollywood while delivering unmatched scale. Independent filmmakers and social creators currently follow different models—indies prioritize auteur-driven craft while influencers optimize audience feedback—but those models are beginning to converge as legacy studios pay attention. High-volume creator studios like Dhar Mann Studios produce short, emotionally direct vertical dramas rooted in personal experience and optimized for mass engagement.
Read at IndieWire
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