By our guest author Chris Suffield:
There are plenty of YouTube stars who have made their name with grainy videos ranting into the camera, Julian Smith on the other hand has built his video empire on a diverse range of high quality sketches, inspired music videos and hilarious parodies.
I made this for you! screams Julian at the end of each of his creations, the actor/writer/director/composer has been applying his unique brand of comedy to relatable topics since 2009. His first video 25 Things I Hate About Facebook struck a chord with audiences, he quickly followed that with the now legendary Techno Jeep music video which you have likely seen already.
Proving he was the real deal, Julian surrounded himself with a core team including his regular collaborators co-writer Josh Lovell and Justin Johns (camera man cinematographer. This is where the series sets itself apart from other online shows, the slick editing, sound design and camera work gives a broadcast feel to all his offerings.
Smart people get robbed, urinating etiquette is taken to it’s violent extremes, a commercial for pre blessed food, the catchy Racist Coffee song, and a brilliantly edited Britain’s Got Talent spoof are just some of the brilliant treasures waiting for you within the warped mind of Julian Smith.
There’s a regular cast of great performers (including fellow YouTube stars Rhett and Link, Ray William Johnson and Joe Hanson ), this gives a constancy to the series not often associated with online content. This isn’t to say all online series are poorly made, but if all web based comedy looked this good we might all switch off our TV sets indefinitely.
The overall feel is akin to the excellent but now defunct Derrick Comedy, in many ways this is the natural evolution of the format but if youÃre missing the genius of the Derrick Comedy team then Julian Smith TV is the web series to fill that void.
Earlier this year he launched a new mini series Kidnapped, the set up being Julian is abducted and unless he reaches 1 million subscribers in 5 weeks he will be executed. This warped marketing idea proved to be so successful Julian made a second series of Kidnapped which recently concluded its run.
What works so well with this series is that it fully adopts the ethos of quality, this isn’t a flash in the pan one-trick internet sensation but a committed filmmaker who is showcasing his multiple talents.The comprehensive amount of videos are dangerously addictive, if you’re new to his world a great place to start is with his latest sketch, Video Game and Violence or the outstanding Techno Jeep video.
Longterm the Nashville born filmmaker wants to make a feature length project and recently set up his own production company Papertown, so the signs are there that he is paving the way for the future.
Lashings of irreverent humour, hilarious characters and some of the most well produced videos seen online in recent years, all these elements together makes for one of the best TV shows never shown on TV.
He might call himself a “scatterbrained creative type,” but his brilliant videos speak for themselves, his work has been featured on Mashable, Funny or Die, ABC News and The Huffington Post, he was also recently named the 19th most successful director on YouTube.
Go on and treat yourself to a dose of funny, after all he did make this for you and it would be rude not to give it a watch.