How we got invited to Google and YouTube

Last week we gave our first presentations along our Road to Oprah tour. The presentations were at the HQ of Google and YouTube. How we ended up at Google and YouTube is just another case of our producers helping us in ways we could have never imagined. It was a hectic dash to get our bio-bus and credit-stand caboose road ready, but everyone on our crew stepped up, and we had an all round awesome adventure. Story and Pics below...

Above: Google's zero gravity after presentation. Below, YouTube CEO Chad Hurley jumps into producing with The 1 Second Film :)

Last week we gave our first presentations along our Road to Oprah tour. The presentations were at the HQ of Google and YouTube. It was a hectic dash to get our bio-bus and credit-stand caboose road ready, but everyone on our crew stepped up, and we had an all round awesome adventure. How we ended up at Google and YouTube is just another case of our producers helping us in ways we could have never imagined.

When we started planning this tour, Google and YouTube weren't even in our dream map of possiblilities- it's not like you can apply to present at these places. I didn't even think to try. Our invitations happened organically in a way that really show how this project has grown.

Our invitation to Google started two years ago. Jess was living/working in New York when she stumbled across our Sundance Video clip on YouTube. She donated online to become our producer, and even ran around NY posting fliers about our film. Two years later, Jessy received our Producer Newsletter #5 announcing our Road to Oprah tour- Jess now works at Google; she passed our newsletter around and arranged for us to visit as part of the Google speaker series. She also gave us a place to stay :)

Meanwhile, something very similar happened independently to bring us to YouTube. Over a year ago I had given a flier to a nice lady named Cara at a movie theater in Los Angeles. Cara later moved up to San Bruno where she began working for YouTube. She also received our newsletter, passed it around YouTube, and arranged for us to visit and perform with our band.

Both invitations came within a week from one another. My surprise soon gave way to being incredibly nervous- but fear was soon swallowed by the bottomless pit of things to do to prepare. Getting invited to YouTube and Google turns out to be the easy part- getting to YouTube and Google in a 1993 converted school bus towing a credit-stand caboose with a travelling band is a whole other challenge.

We rearranged our tour dates to take a mini-tour up to the bay area. This would serve as a test run for our bio-bus, caboose, and crew before embarking on our 10,000 mile 30-day journey. We began busting tail to get our stuff in order; booking events, building our bus, finding insurance, registration, bio-diesel fueling stations, a PA, a generator, etc. etc. millions of little details.

Sarah Peters and Julie Crockett took over booking the tour, coordinating events with our producers around the country. Levi, with the help of dozens of volunteers, built and painted the bus on weekends and nights after working day jobs. I worked on getting registration, insurance, fundraising, contacting sponsors, etc.

So, after several weeks and weekends of work, with the help of dozens of volunteers, we were preparing our first launch date- Wednesday night of last week. Levi and I had stayed up til 4am the night befor putting together the caboose- we spent the night in the bunks and drove the bus to an automotive electrician to hook up the trailer brake lights to the bus. Then we had to get the bus back to the Armory to have the vinyl wrap installed-

Just as everything was coming together, everthing started to fall apart.

First, our camera stopped working- not a good thing for a documentary! Then, at 2 in the afternoon, we received a call from State Farm (who had approved us for insurance 2 weeks prior)- we were supposed to meet them to finish the paperwork; instead, State Farm suddenly changed their mind and said they no longer would insure our bus! This is at 2 in the afternoon on the day before we are supposed to leave.

Getting insurance for an RV converted form a schol bus for a non-profit cross-country tour is a challenge. It had to be last second because State Farm wanted to see pics of the conversion before bonding the insurance policy; so we started all the paperwork 2 weeks prior, ran all he drivers records, and got approved- but we needed tie to build the interiors. We had been in touch with a nice agent who had visited our bus said everything was going to be okay, and was going to meet us that Wednesday to finish the paperwork. Instead, her underwriters cancelled the policy because our bus had "Oprah" painted on it, which they felt increased the risk somehow? Not sure what sort of formulas these underwritters have, but we were basically left out to dry. We had told them all about the project, so it was a surprise when they pulled out.

We began a scramble to find another insurance provider at the last second, but were unable to find one on such short notice. So, Wednesday night, we had a group meeting. It was decided not to take the bus up to Google or YouTube without insurance. Everyone was really disappointed, but there was nothing we could do, and we didn't want to risk the entire project, even though we wanted these presentations to go very well.

The Google presentation was Thursday at 12 noon- it was a one-hour presentation, but the band wasn't going to perform, so we made a plan to break into 2 groups. Group 1 would drive up in a car to make the Google presentation, while group 2 stayed behind to try and find insurance the next day, with the hope of bringing up the bus to YouTube if successful.

We called the folks at YouTube and told them we might have to cancel cuz of the insurance situation. Everyone was really disappointed- YouTube had secured all sorts of permits and security- we were going to be the first band to perform live for them. But there was nothing we could do.

So Mike, Sarah and I drove up to Google at 6am in Sarah's car, with no idea what would happen.

I had been all night and fell asleep immediately. After a little sleep on the road, I worked on my presentation in the back. Yeah, probably should have worked on that sooner, but there were other emergencies. So, I spent 3 hours in the back polishing the presentation. Naturally, right as we arrived, my computer crashed and everything was erased! I have no idea what happened. And no, it wasn't saved. Long story, but I actually couldn't save it- we had onl a test version of iWorks Keynote installed on the laptop which didn't allow us to save without an internet connection. As we pulled up to Google, we had a broken camera, no bus/crew/insurance, and no presentation. I just started laughing. Fortunately, there was 30 minutes before the presentation, so I was able to put most of it back together while Mike and Sarah got to tour Google and eat lunch. After some minor tech snaffus, tings went okay, all things considered.

I was a little nervous/intimidated at first, i'm still getting used to speaking in front of people. Everyone was really nice and several folks became our producers afterward, which iwas really cool. supposedly the talk will be added to the @google talk series, but i don't think it's online yet.

It was nice having Sarah Peters there; Sarah is a trained performer and she gave me a lot of tips afterward as to how to make improvements. After the presentation, Jess showed us around. It was cool to see these fliers all over:

Google is awesome. Such an amazing place! It's like some idyllic college campus where everyone is paid really well to attend, learn, and create. Free organic food, bikes, a vegetable garden, and es, even the occasional programmer cruising on a segway. Basicall, lots of really smart people who all seem really happy to work there. It was especially cool to see where they keep all my email.

Meanwhile, back in LA, Juli was up at the crack of dawn, on the phone for 4 solid hours, and unbelievably managed to find an insurance provider! She emailed the paperwork to us while we were at Google and we faxed in the forms and got everything in order; then Levi and the band started driving our bus up to meet us for our Friday YouTube presentation.

They had an adventure gettin the bus up; it took them an amazing 17 hours to get the bus from LA to San Fran, including a 2 hour breakdown (fixed thanks to Fred the good samaritan) and a night of rest in a cotton field:

We reconviened in San Bruno at YouTube's HQ, with bus, caboose, and all. The Evangenitals set up in the parking lot while I gave a presentation in the underground basement:

It was TGIF, so pretty much the entire company was there, including CEO Ghad Hurley. To make things even more intimidating, I had to present after Tay Zonday raised the bar with a rousing rendition of Chocolate Rain!

I was a bit nervous again, but everyone at YouTube is so laid back and nice- they were laughing at our project's videos and stories, and I soon relaxed.

it was really cool to be able to share this project with everyone at YouTube, I also got to thank them in person for creating such an amazing site, and for featuring our Sundance Video on their homepage, which helped us raise $7K to build our current site. Our current site now allows our producers to upload videos via YouTube that can be included in our documentary, so it sort of comes full circle.

It's funny, sites like YouTube didn't even exist when this project started. But they have created new platforms for collaboration and building community that didn't exist before, and have really made a dramatic impact on the world.

I got to meet Chad Hurley who really liked the way this project is attempting to bring so many people together. Chad is a super easy going guy; his background is in art and graphic design, so I think he really could appreciate how this proect has grown. He joined us in the parking lot to check out our bus and the Evangenitals, and signed up as our Executive Producer along with a lot of YouTube employees.

The folks at YouTube were super generous and supportive, everyone was donating, getting shirts, etc. and we raised enough to cover our fuel and food costs, plus a little extra to get us to our next stop! This is basically a line of YouTube folks waiting to become producers while the Evangenitals kicked it:

While this was our first stop for us with band, we also learned that The Evangenitals were the first band to perform live at YouTube! that's pretty awesome. Our main has camera busted, we shot some video with a borrowed PAL mini-dv camera. We will try to get some stuff posted on YouTube soon! We are still running around getting everything ready for the main tour, entering producer names, etc.

We also rolled up our bus and caboose through San Fran, posting up on Haight Street, and also in Berkeley on Telegraph. had a lot of fun, met a TON of cool producers, played some music, and raised a few more bucks to finish our film and keep going on the Road to Oprah. A few pics below, but check out our flickr set for more.

So things are off to a fun start! The bus works, our crew gets along great, and we have insurance!

We are back in Los Angeles gearing up for the rest of our tour. We are working on electric in the bus and building a deck today for the roof. If anyone wants to help, Levi is already at the Armory workin on it. Also, we are having our Cabaret Bon Voyage party tomorrow night, 9pm @ the Armory Center for the Arts in Pasadena...and yes, the World's Largest PotHolder will be there, so bring spare socks (clean).

Also I met with some producers from Current TV the other day and they are coming to our cabaret to make a Pod! I think Mickie from WorldChanging is going to be there as well. If you are in the LA Area, come check it out!It's going to be fun.

I'll try to keep up with shorter/more frequent updates. Things have ust been a little crazy.

Thanks everyone for all the support, and welcome to all our new producers. I have a few dozen more names to enter, so I think we are near 8,000!

more soon,

n