If you've never heard of Casey Neistat then you have probably been living under a rock for the last few years as he has skyrocketed to stardom on YouTube. His fame comes from the creation of videos he posts to the online media source labeling them as "movies" or "films." Over the last two weeks, Neistat has created a new video every single day highlighting his incredibly interesting daily life in New York City. Here are the results as he ventures into the future of filmmaking and vlogging.
First seeing Neistat's highly-addicting videos on YouTube some years back, I have been hooked ever since. It's been refreshing to see someone with such passion and drive continue to create and make something he is proud of for a living.
In one of his most recent vlogs, named "What's your motivation?," Neistat goes into great detail with a Q&A style sit-down — which he does each week — answering fan's questions. In these videos he goes through emails, tweets, and messages he has received over the years and responds to each in his own way. He was given one statement which was, "You're a filmmaker, stop vlogging!" This seemed to hit a nerve in Neistat and drove him to explain how in moving forward as a generation we must push past what others have done and look to pave our own way, ultimately defining a new medium. Below is his brilliant reply and I couldn't agree more:
I have premiered movies at Cannes Film Festival, the Sundance Festival and written, directed, edited and starred in my very own HBO TV series. I was awarded the Rockefeller Grant for Film Making and I am a lifetime member of the Sundance Institute. Creating a new movie every 24 hours and releasing that movie to an audience of hundreds of thousands of people is an evolution in filmmaking. Our job as creative’s is to further define any medium and also define a new cliché and not to adhere to generations past. To suggest that this is anything but film making is to highlight some preconceived falsehood of what film making is.
Now, for your viewing pleasure, I have gone ahead and compiled all the vlogs starting back to the very first one posted two weeks ago. Each video is about eight minutes and explains a great deal of what it truly means to be a creative in this world and how defining new paths is the only way for us to evolve to make something truly original.
To see more of Neistat's incredible work and keep updated with this new daily vlog be sure and check out and subscribe to his YouTube channel. You will not regret it!
I love these. Watching his vlog is now part of my morning routine. So good.
Right?! I have loved this dudes work since college and its been fun watching each of his short films on YouTube every so often. This was like a Christmas gift when he announced he was doing a daily video. I have wanted to get into a little bit of video experimentation and timelapse work thanks to this dudes vlogs featuring them. Ha
Me too. Inspiring shit. Makes me wanna move to NY! haha
Makes me want to explore my own city and make it just as beautiful
Saving this for my weekend relaxation. Thank you.
Brimming with personality. I know it sounds crazy, but you end up feeling like everyday pals with him.
Favorite quote "My new computer!" hahaha. Love how he breaks down his motivation. Very simple and straight forward. Awesome stuff.
Big fan here too, top bloke!
This guy has the drive we all wish we had. It's indeed part of my morning routine, don't forget to check his snapchat also.. jeejz that guy never sleeps.
Casey is the man. I started following him after the CLA BTS videos. Inspiring for sure
The one thing I've always admired about Casey (especially early on) is he will shoot on whatever he has at his disposal. In a time where I think a lot of filmmakers and shooters (myself included) get hung up on the gear they have.
I think one of the bigger take aways we can have from Casey is "Just $@#@*@$@((! Shoot"
Facepalm, sorry but really shallow article. He did reinvent filmmaking bofere starting those vlogs. And bofere my "what's everything wrong with Cayse's vlog" I need to say I look up to his attitute, focus, creativity and self-esteem. Yet you really cant even call these films, no matter how good they are. Vlogs compare to his other works is a plain entertaimant, empty self-contreteted daily clips from his life. How can you come from criticisicing billion dollar corporation(and accually making the change by the movie), working for ny times and doing commercials for million dollar companies come to making videos about yourself. And don't get me wrong talking about how the filmmaking and youtube stuff works was great for like 5 vlogs and from then on it's more like bunch of funny stuff for all those teenagers who get freak out when he even retweet their picture or something. And he even calling it pure creativity, I don't know but for me and I think for anybody who takes his work seriously would be more important to do video for ny times and has 5000 views by adult people who can already think for themself than some crazy teens and have millions of view. You simply can't compare things you work on for weeks then shoot for weeks and edit for months with one day edit. The value at least for me droped, he was visionary who could change and make this world better. Daily vlogs are too shallow for that. Or maybe it's not the form but the content. Look how much value can bring Gary Vee into almost his vlogs, has only couple of tousand of view, yet I think it's more meaningful. Peace
thank you for sharing, just searching the net for Casey Neistat and found this post, he is really inspiring and thinking of doing my own vlog, someone definitely to check out and learn some pointer from.