YTOTW: Watermelon Helmets, Purple Hair, And How Ryan Sylvia Makes Us Laugh At Singapore
SAYS take a look across the causeway at a pair of YouTubers who call themselves "Night Owl Cinematics". Ryan Sylvia are our YouTuber of The Week, get to know them a little bit better here.
By Darian Goh — 02 Mar 2015, 05:53 PM
Just down south of the causeway, Singaporean duo Ryan Tan and Sylvia Chan have been making waves on YouTube as Ryan Sylvia
"Night Owl Cinematics (NOC) is our cinematography company, founded by Ryan Tan and Sylvia Chan, hence our channel name Ryan Sylvia. Ryan is the main guy behind every video, as the director, cinematographer and editor. Sylvia is the creative person as the co-director, script writer, producer, cast/props/wardrobe/location in-charge and actor. Basically, we come up with all the content, and during production the rest of the NOC team comes in."
asia-city.com
Their company name, Night Owl Cinematics was partly inspired because of their late sleeping habits. However, it is at this time where they are the most productive.
"Because we are Night Owls, we sleep really late—five or six in the morning. The NOC team comes together for supper a few times a week and we just chat about everything. Sometimes during our random supper chats, ideas pop up. Otherwise, we discuss and research a topic we find interesting. Sometimes, we have sponsors who suggest concepts to us and we expand on their ideas. Our fans are our source of inspiration too. We have awesome people sharing video ideas. Many of our fans are now friends. Fortunately, ideas also strike while we are shooting; like when Ryan thought of our series - Hokkien Word of the Day when Franster (Mr Wong) used a Hokkien term that he didn't understand."
asia-city.com
The team originally used YouTube as a platform to improve their video-making techniques. When they uploaded their video "Shit Singaporean Girlfriends Say", it went viral with over a million views.
"Initially we started the channel with the aim of practising visual storytelling and improving our camera techniques. It was our third (random) YouTube video - Shit Singaporean Girlfriends Say that went viral. We went to bed after uploading the video as usual, but by morning friends were calling us and everyone was spamming our Facebook walls saying that our video went viral. Next thing we knew it was on STOMP/forums/radio/newspapers and people started requesting more videos."
asia-city.com
Another spontaneous video they did was "11 Reasons Why Singaporeans Complain". That video has around 2 million views. Not bad for an accidental video, right?
"11 Reasons Why Singaporeans Complain" was a completely spontaneous video. Initially, a friend wanted to shoot a music video that had a car wash scene. However he fell sick and didn't turn up. We decided to go ahead and do a car wash shoot for fun. We all ended up just laughing and playing with the water and soap. It was during Chinese New Year and people gathered outside their houses, pretending to be talking on their phones, but in actual fact, watching us."
asia-city.com
Thanks to the viral videos, both Ryan and Sylvia has had the opportunity to collaborate with many YouTubers both in Singapore and Malaysia. It's hard to miss Ryan's watermelon helmet and Sylvia's purple hair!
In their most recent video, they poked fun at typical gambling movies and how their storylines and plots are all too familiar...
Moving forward, the duo aims to improve on their skills, expand their horizons by meeting new people, as well as producing more serious films
"We will be exploring new things such as concepts, scripts, actors/ actresses et cetera. We’ll be looking into more serious films, while we upgrade our skills and equipment and try to be more consistent in our video in terms of schedules and production quality. One of the bigger things we’re doing now is exploring new cast members, at the same time meeting new people and having fun. We will also try to reward our fans via more giveaways and prizes from our sponsors."
mothership.sg
