DIGIPENDENCE - declare yours!

A few weeks ago, Fede Alvarez uploaded his short film Ataque de Panico (Panic Attack) to YouTube and now the viral video hit - which has 1.75+ million views to date - has landed him a U$30 million dollar movie deal. The 31-year old Alvarez made the five minute film for U$300; it depicts an alien invasion by giant robots and flying spaceships on Montevideo which is the capital of Uruguay.

“I uploaded (Panic Attack) on a Thursday and on Monday my inbox was totally full of emails from Hollywood studios,” he told the BBC’s Latin American service BBC Mundo. “They sent me emails that said ‘Now that we’ve seen what can be done with 300 dollars, let’s see what you can do with 30 million,” Alvarez told Agence France-Presse.

Alvarez sorted through a number of offers and has chosen to work with Sam Raimi’s Ghost House Pictures to develop a feature-length film which will be set in his native Uruguay and neighbouring Argentina.

Making a short film is a great way to get noticed. Many people specialize in making short films, and that’s an art in itself, but some people use them as a springboard to making a feature film. Depending on how they approach the situation, it can be to either showcase their talent to big name players so they can land a Hollywood-type deal, or raise enough money to fund an independent full-length feature film.

Alvarez’s success via YouTube is reminiscent of Canadian-South-African director Neill Blomkamp, who landed a deal to make his 2009 sci-fi hit District 9 after first winning attention with the six-minute viral video short Alive in Jo’Burg. Another director who recently made a short film which morphed into a full-length film is Shane Acker who made 9. It too has a Canadian connection as it was animated by Toronto-based Starz Animation. View the original short and poster. Both Blomkamp and Acker’s shorts provided the genesis for their features, but Alvarez has noted that his feature won’t likely be based on the premise of his short.