SOBER – TRAINSPOTTING FOR LEEDS UTD DADS – 10,000 + views in FOUR days and 12,000 HOURS WATCHED On Good Friday we released our Leeds based £7k budget, shot in nine days feature film ‘SOBER’ on YouTube free to view. In just four days–the film has received over 10,000 views–and has notched up an astonishing total of 12,000+ hours watched over four days. And it’s still going – since I started writing this post this view count has gone up by another few hundred views. Theoretically–if this film had been released at the box office – it would be number 11 in the UK this weekend (if every view translated at £10 a ticket). That’s top 15 UK box office for a £7k film – made in Leeds, in nine days. Online the film has had 400 likes – and 45 comments on YouTube all positive bar one. But there’s a lot more than that. The website connected to the film peaked at 600 views on the day it was released and we’ve already sold DVDs of the film to customers – who have been keen to order the film to encourage the team who made it – to make more films going forwards. On Twitter – the response has been phenomenal – some of the reactions have been screenshot here. STATS WISE: The film was released on YouTube but over 50 percent of the audience watched the film – ON TV – so at least half of the 12,000 watch hours were notched up on the box in the corner of the livingroom – meaning people chose to sit down and view a £7k film – over the content on Netflix / Amazon and the traditional UK broadcasters. This film had no marketing budget, no PR behind it, there was no ad spend. The film wasn’t aimed at world wide market the film was AIMED at LEEDS people and has picked up word of mouth almost instantly. One of the biggest referrals to the film on YouTube is via WHATSAPP – which means the film is being recommended and shared PEER to PEER – friend to friend and friend to family. So, what does all this mean? It means, if you haven’t watched it – maybe you should catch up with SOBER – which has been described as – ‘Trainspotting for Leeds Utd Dads’, a tag line created by someone who watched the film.
