'Office' parody by Lake Co. teens a YouTube hit
Ashley Gorson said she was floored when she saw her fan video linked to a blog written by Jenna Fisher, a star of the television sitcom, "The Office."
"I couldn't believe it," the 18-year-old Hawthorn Woods resident said. "I was so happy to see that she liked the video. It was incredible."
Thanks to Fisher's kudos and some creative writing and editing by Gorson and 18-year-old Brad Etter of Long Grove, the video "Ryan Started the Fire" had more than 100,000 views on YouTube in one week from fans of "The Office."
Another member of the hit NBC sitcom, co-star Rainn Wilson called it "one of the best Office fan videos ever" in his blog on Twitter.
"We are absolutely floored that so many people have seen it and like it," Etter said. "Seeing Jenna and Rainn mention it in their blogs was great."
Fan videos - where fans re-edit footage of television shows and movies to music - are popping up more frequently on YouTube and other multimedia sites.
The nearly four-minute video created by Gorson and Etter intersplices scenes from the last five seasons of "The Office," over Billy Joel's song "We Didn't Start the Fire." They changed the song's lyrics to include important details and issues about the show.
The web address is: www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPcuwZlJShE
The idea was based on an episode in which character Ryan Howard - played by B.J. Novak - started a fire in the kitchen of the office.
Gorson, a freshman at DePaul University studying graphic arts, said she was inspired after watching the episode where Wilson's character - Dwight Schrute - sings "Ryan started the fire" into the camera.
"It was pretty rough trying to rhyme characters and sayings from the show, but it worked," she said.
The duo focused lyrics on their favorite lines from the show.
"We love 'The Office' and some of the stranger things that are mentioned in the show," Gorson said
Etter, who sang lead and backup vocals in the video, said he kept laughing while trying to lay down the various soundtracks in the video on a digital recorder. The film student from Flashpoint Academy of Media Arts and Sciences in Chicago said there was a 24-hour marathon editing session to merge the video with the new song.
"We put it on YouTube and the hits started rolling in," he said.
The video was uploaded to YouTube on Feb. 13, Gorson said, and had more than 20,000 hits within 24 hours. The highlight came when Fisher and Wilson announced the video on their blogs two days later.
They're planning another fan video, this time about the television show "Heroes."
"We love that show too," Gorson said. "But, we are waiting for the inspiration to hit us, just like it did with this."
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