Even if you don't know his name, you probably have seen this guy's videos. Devin Graham (now more commonly known on YouTube as Devin Supertramp) has blown up on YouTube with viral video after viral video. He's became known for his parodies of video games such as "Assassin's Creed," "Far Cry 4," and "Halo 5" in his "Real Life" series but more recently he has created a new genre: videos of people having fun in the most unique ways.
Since he was a little boy, Graham has always had a thing for putting his subjects and his lenses in extreme danger, breaking many of his parents' cameras as a child. Now that he has his own toys to play with — and a far bigger budget — he's creating content that makes his GoPros scream.
He's throwing people into and under zorb balls...
...Or he's tying them up into human-sized slingshots and seeing how that goes:
Not crazy enough? Just add water:
Perhaps most crazy of all, he constructed the world's largest urban zipline in Panama City, Panama. We can safely assume that location was chosen because it wouldn't have been legal in America!
Some of his other work like "Human Bowling" reminds us of Johnny Knoxville and the gang back in the days of "Jackass," except Graham is smarter than that because he doesn't put himself in danger. And he still gets paid for it. Win, win!
You might wonder how you could replicate this style of work yourself and make yourself 3 million subscribers and 550 million views? Don't worry, I've got you covered.
Almost all of his content starts out with an establishing shot, usually with a worried looking participant praying and shivering with nervousness. Figure A:
Nervous Establishing Shot
He uses a lot of wide-angled shooting to get a sense of the enormity of the event. Figure B:
Yeh so... that speck of yellow is actually a person.
He makes use of drones attached to cameras to get unique angles on the action that other YouTubers couldn't easily reproduce. Figure C:
Using a drone to get shots adds an extra level of production value.
In post, he makes heavy use of slow motion at key moments. Go figure.
Then add in some electronic music and you've got yourself a hit! Obviously none of this matters unless you already have a wacky idea, a massive budget, and a group of beautiful young people to put themselves in danger.
For more information on how Graham shoots specific elements of his video, there are many great behind the scenes videos that Graham has posted on YouTube, too:
Graham claims that "the ability to connect with others through stories of life is the strongest power that filmmaking offers." I'm not quite sure that "Human Bowling" qualifies as a story of life to me but what does make Graham's videos so entertaining is their ability to make anyone, anywhere laugh and share his content. His 3 million followers wait with baited breath for each video because with Graham, you never quite know what's coming next in his videos.
The source of his power? Well it may turn out one day that this man had a fairly serious mental disorder or something, but for now... damn, the guy can shoot a funny video, so who cares?
he is really good though.I watched the videos a bit with no sound, he is still engaging visually
Money man, above creativity there is money!! Hahaha amazing videos, never saw them before! :D
True but he did start small. We all had to start somewhere
Yeah true!