YouTube Features First Full-Length Film

For the first time ever, YouTube.com is featuring a full-length film – a movie you can watch online without being a dirty video thief who is surely bankrupting production assistants by the thousands. Through Friday, June 15, the Sundance Channel award winner Four Eyed Monsters is available in its entirety on YouTube for 100 percent official, non-sketchy viewing.

The movie is based on the relationship of its creators, Arin Crumley and Susan Buice, who met online in 2002 with the rule that neither of them would speak in person. Rather, they spent four months getting to know each other through drawings, videos and instant messaging (on top of the usual ways couples get to know each other). In 2004 the film was accepted into the SlamDance film festival and subsequently toured 20 other festivals, picking up awards and – apparently – a mountain of credit card debt.

Hence, the YouTube experiment. With help from online film community Spout.com, Crumley and Buice hope to knock out a chunk of what they owe. An intro to the movie by the mellow, blonde-haired duo encourages viewers to sign up for Spout, as each new member – without having to give an actual donation – will make Crumley and Buice $1 richer. Their goal is $100,000.

“It's about our lives,” says the film’s YouTube description. “Being alone in a city, wanting to be in a relationship but feeling there are no good ways to start a connection and then breaking out of a rut, jumping feet first into something deeper and crazier than either of us expected.”

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