In this video you're gonna see a lot of secret information we know we can trust you to keep it a secret
*sound of silence *
Fun fact for you
Did you know that in the past year our audience has grown more than has in the previous nine years combined?
Nine years? You're telling us we've been well-established and had a large team of talented filmmakers by our side for ten years?
No, that took about five years to get to that point.
Ten years ago, May 17th, 2010,
that's when we started the Corridor Digital YouTube channel.
And here we are, a decade later. is interesting because on our 10-year anniversary
Nico is
Moving it out. I've been in this building ever since we moved to Los Angeles
Corridor digital started in the loft that I currently live in before
He moved it over to you Studio number four with that change will come a lot of changes for the studio
It's been a crazy time and we want to tell you a bit of a personal story in this video and take you guys on
The journey of what started just two kids from Minnesota and turned into a whole group of filmmakers
Being really passionate about the stuff they make and having an awesome audience to make it for let's go on a journey
Door Sam myself Freddie Brandon ball got the place together as roommates because you're working on a family ma
Somebody called dark island and that then turned do youtube
Someone's moving. Yeah
Getting out of here. Yeah part of the mess, by the way
But this is what happens when you're moving right now actually looks like how it looked with corridor ones here
Their big studio three is great
You know
this is where all like the old school videos are if you're like an old school Freddy W in court or digital fan from like
The 2010 to 2012 era, you know studio three. This was the place. We even shot full-on quarter digital videos. They're like googly eyes
*Ether crazy people scrraming or the sound when mincraft dies*
In this part of LA
This was literally the cheapest building. And so you guys might know that our landlord is a
Artist and I am not just any landlord I am
he has
Made it his goal to keep the rental hope in this building us being two bumpkins from the Midwest really appreciate a bet we didn't
Have jobs we didn't have a place to live
We could happen to afford enough room to actually set up green screens or props do all that stuff and really get a head start
He's kind of kicked off when I was right here sitting on a couch. It wasn't this couch. It's a different couch
Freddy's desk was right here. In fact teens still see the worn-out floor from the wheels of Freddy's chair. This is well
Ready, you've had his rocking chair
Samuel working on this video idea and wanted me this little like tactical military piece and honey. You said you know what?
Why don't you make it a fan film for Call of Duty that a little more audience appeal? Like that's a good idea
It's right here when that happened
We would often shot that over Christmas because we needed a break
we've been working on dark island for a
Year and just wanted to go to mixing for fun
And the idea of making a Call of Duty fan film ended up working out really well for us the day we released it it
Was number one on the reddit for the entire day
We've got a million bees in a day, which was a big deal on YouTube back in our first video
I happen to go viral, which is pretty solid. It's on the Freddy W Channel. Oh, yeah, it cost us like about
$325 and we wanted to get the money back. We're really going all-in for this one
Yeah, it's like, you know, we put our channel
We just got partnered like back the day we do on your channel is your video to be monetize
he had to wait for someone to manually review it like two days after you uploaded it start getting ads a couple days after it's
Uploaded so but in frozen crossing one went live and went viral. I got a million views in the first day
We didn't make any money off of that. Okay, we got to re-upload it. Remember there's a lot of history here
I remember there's like a big barrel guns there
In fact, he's filled it with coins we trigger it's like a barrel needed treasure. I'll see the question there. Someone say coins gold
There's like such a pitiful amount of coins in there
It's a big barrel
You just commemorative LA Olympics coins in there from 1988 as well as a flattened penny 1895 something something Greenfield Village. I've no idea that
Got to seal it up. So The coins fresh
It's a great space to actually work in the only problem is that this was also where Sam and Nico lived. This was their home
Moved in there's cubicles that we have to tear down. Also this wall here. Now. This was built by the way
I don't want to come back here. It's too hot
This is like a big wide-open area. My mattress is in one corner
Sam's mattress was in the other corner Freddie's mattresses in one corner and Brandon's mattress was in a different corner and because I was always
the youngest they
Decided to turn this into the baby's room
They replaced my old bed with a tommy baby bed baby memorabilia
Basically, one of the first things we did was a move tears
we built these walls in the back maybe depth of space is
Everyone needed their private space because literally was like the four of us all sleeping on mattresses
On opposite ends of this like thousand square foot room. No privacy
This is the prop room or was the probably still called the prop closet even there's no props in there anymore
This is originally Freddy and Jimmy's room and they had a bunk bed
But they had so much stuff there to store that they just put all that on the top and just share the bottom bunk
They talked about creating a secret youtube channel called two Wong's make a right. There's just video them sleeping together
Mary but we did end up making a really fun video where we had a fake gun wallet
Like spun around till I show our cool guns
They're like tricked everybody to think that we like that Jake built a real mechanized gun wall
The previous tenant and Brandon had the idea of making a pull-up bar
So I spent like an hour cutting through it with a hacksaw
it's been here ever since for us to do workouts on I did the upside-down ones hook your toes underneath and I
Do it upside down. So we're living and working on the same space
And that was one of the things that we could do in this area. This is known as artists lofts live-work spaces
You can actually run a business and live in the same space, which is actually illegal in much of LA
Okay, Julie fans, but you know find the address and usually to be outside or something like that, but one Saturday morning
I'm sitting on the couch. I mean like gym shorts Sam's in the kitchen making coffee or something like that and the door opens
and in steps like a family from Ohio or something like that and the dad's just like
Wow, so this is where the magic happens and I said from the couch like this is like Saturday morning and the sound like blocks
Out the kitchen like hi
Like if the kid who was there who took his picture with us?
If you are watching this video still you owe it to us to put it on Instagram and take corridor digital
Take me take Sam. I want to see that picture. I want to see how frazzled and out of it
I look were you worried that it wouldn't work out
I don't worry about things not working out that often
Maybe more so as I've gotten a little wiser but back then there were so many fall backs still. Yeah
YouTube doesn't work out we were making just enough money doing freelance visual effects and still know a bunch of people
They're always moved back home at the end of the day. We haven't like burn those bridges yet
So it's like not to mention like just simply being in a space where there's other people doing it there
Was that kind of support back then?
It was so hard to even put a gauge on success or failure for this kind of stuff because there wasn't like any
Similar content out there to gauge it against I felt like a win-win you guys might wonder where Jake plays into all this
So Jake is also from the same hometown
He's the same grade as us when it's in high school and he was already out here going to law school
Jake's always wanted to do this like
You know making art but also helping Shepherd it because that's kind of Jake's personality
Like he's a German Shepherd of a human being basically fill in with us right away because he just wanted to help us make videos
And very quickly stepped up to become a producer and just helps from the business in time
He eventually became the third partner of corridor
but you can see Jake as well as us in a video signed on our channel is on the Freddy W 2 channels became the
brand new Jo a channel
Yeah
It's the water bucket prank and there's one of like the first
Videos like really go viral and get out of like our circle of like digital effects short films
There's a moment the camera pans around the room you can see me you see Jake T Sam
All of us is just like little children. I think jake has ponytail this whole place here
This was our sniper zone. The street was very empty back in the day
We had a 60 foot like range from building to building here where we could test up airsoft guns boy
I have times changed another shot was true. I think the best range though was when we were working on
There's an alien on your head with Clint
dude, others like nailing like a head
And that video is inspired from us playing archery in here, you know, I mean, it's hard to miss at this range
We were training for eventually doing the William Tell
Challenge which is to shoot an apple off of somebody's head for a while a like that's a helmet setup and like the target on
Top of the helmet and the rules never hit the helmet every shot must be on the target. Exactly and you're good
And so then we made a video about that
There's a part where I needed to get shot with an arrow and did we just actually shoot me with an arrow?
Yeah, we could have done the head shot. But like it was way safer to do the chest soft target. You're wearing a vest etc
It was pretty cool actually shooting Nico with a real arrow just like we shot Peter
It was the same thing
we'll create a playlist of all the memories and all the videos that we're talking about a memory that really stands out to me is
When you're going to go out and shoot our brand deal for Assassin's Creed 4 Black Flag
So it would be softened actually giving us a pretty solid budget to shoot a cinematic video and we had rented
Actual tall ships to go out and film upon that would be out on the ocean with like actual crews and pirates
We're doing an actual big budget thing at that point
you know something we had been dreaming up doing forever and we had all of
Our gear laid out here like this whole place just filled with boxes
And like we're trying to live here at the same time not just me and sand bike for people it was right around this time
Studio for up and up so studio 4 is another unit in this building
it's actually always have that wall so studio that you guys see in all the videos and
The idea of having a studio where we could work in another place where you could live and not having them be the same spot
We're starting to get from really appealing and it was just really after that that we end up renting studio for that started the whole
Era of you know, the new quarter crew videos and your corridor videos all the things that you guys basically know it's going now
So the craziest thing about all this YouTube stuff is that I never expected to be doing this for more than like two or three
Years. I always felt like oh
this is just like a stopgap as we figured things out before we get work on a movie set or work for a studio or
You know, somebody hires us to maybe work on a TV show or something like that
Like we've done a series and we've done movies you do them and then it's like well
Now what?
You keep doing youtube
I think the reason we keep coming back to it is because of you guys because of the audience because as an artist
There's nothing more rewarding than having people watch your work
It's easy to forget all that and not be thankful for how amazing YouTube is for
artists you look at Rendon how he's gone from doing behind the scenes on the Sam and Nico channel to
Doing visual effects on the corridor Channel and now doing educational science-based videos on the core crew Channel
I guess our attitude with corridor has always been to make it a thing that helps us do what we want to do
Try to find a way to deliver
The art to the people that want to see it and at the end they make the art that you want to make
Why do you care about what we do here? Why do you come watch it?
Why do you why do you why did you listen to us? Tell the story of corridor?
I'd be curious to know why because it getting really deep do this for 10 years
Like I've spent a third of my lifetime doing this. It's crazy
I started making videos with Sam when I was 14. I guess this is a 20 year anniversary of us making videos together
20 year anniversary of making videos. So behind this American flag is
Studio number three the place we just to work
it's our
intention right now that Juanita leaves that we
Take our studio and we begin using that space as part of it. Maybe a lot more space to do cool things
Maybe we can get the archery range back a green screen a slide probably a rope
Hey, maybe the guillotine channel will get filmed again over the past two years
He basically doubled in personnel and now will double up in size. It was getting pretty crowded. That every is at home right now
So it's not as crowded as it used to be but back in 2008
There was five buddies that pursued their dreams of filmmaking down here at Hunter Street and one by one. They left Jimmy Wong
out Freddie Wong out
Brandon Laatsch out
myself Sam
Wow and all there was that remained was Nikko until now he has finally left to become a fully grown man
No longer
Will he live in the apartment with all his post college mid-twenties memories and so for that I feel like we should pull one out
Sorry
I
Don't know I feel like we just got relegated to like little square on the endcard call reporting them
Shrinking down into the end corner of the screen there
All you gotta say is enjoy our stuff please consider subscribing it's been a great 10 years. I look forward to many more yeah, I
I love you.
It's covered, huge commitment, Nico.