BANFF – Banff-raised filmmakers, Tyler Funk and Sebastian Mercado, took a deep dive into the minds of viral influencers for their first feature length documentary, Anything for Fame.
Funk and Mercado grew up in Banff where they learned filmmaking in high school. That took them down the path of pursuing education in film production at University of British Columbia.
Now they work together at North of Now, producing commercials for major brands, and most recently, creating their feature documentary that highlights the competitive nature of social media, and the assumption that viral content creators are making large amounts of money.
“I think the biggest shock for us really was for some of the creators who literally had millions of followers and hundreds of millions of views that they'd monetized next to nothing. I mean, they made almost like $0,” said Funk.
“I think there’s a myth around a gold rush culture around influencers. Like you often hear the story of the toy review kid who made $20 million, Mr. Beast cleared this much money, but they're really such outliers.”
Some of the influencers in the documentary went viral from doing wild stunts, trashing stores and even licking an airplane toilet seat during the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The influencers featured in Anything for Fame are Ava Louise, Jake Hillhouse, Jade Jadasaur, Peter Teatime and Jumanne.
“We have Jumanne, who is a content creator who made his name for himself robbing stores or destroying like Subway restaurants,” said Funk. “[He] went to jail multiple times for his videos. Really blurring that line between entertainment and crime.”
“And then we also have Jake Hillhouse who's more derivative, I'd say, of Jackass. And very much classic stunts that you might think of, everything from shooting a pellet gun through his cheek to just anything you can imagine that is painful.”
Funk said he felt pity after learning what these influencers are up against to make a name for themselves.
“I just have a lot of empathy now, understanding a bit more of how much it's really just people that want to create content, they want to be entertainers, and how much this machine, social media, encourages behaviour that is self-destructive or destructive to those around them,” said Funk. “But that's really the game that a lot of youth are facing to try and make a name for themselves online.”
Although many of the content creators partake in risky behaviour, Funk said he hopes that the film can start conversations about how competitive social media can be and what it takes to compete.
They filmed for 70 days taking them across North America into multiple states and provinces.
There were a couple years of research, development and getting financing before the film could take off. But after being funded by the National Film Board of Canada it took Funk and Mercado around a year to film and edit.
They reached out to arout 250 influencers and ultimately filmed with 25, but after the first cut ended up approximately three hours long, they narrowed down the story to five lead subjects.
The film is 84-minutes long and will be available Nov. 8 on https://www.nfb.ca/.
