Post by crazy1993 on Apr 11, 2024 5:05:09 GMT
I'm new to the forums. I made this account to share this story and hopefully find this short film.
Catch'n Crazy is a short film made in 1999 by students of Johns Hopkins University. It used to exist on YouTube but is no longer available. It was a strange series of events that led me to originally finding Catch'n Crazy. Several years ago I discovered the online presence of a religious group known as Religion of Light. There was a number of strange things concerning this group that led me to investigate it further. The strangest thing was the gigantic online presence this group has while remaining largely unknown and while having seemingly no real world presence. I won't share too much about the religious group since this post is about Catch'n Crazy, but suffice it to say that Religion of Light is the largest internet rabbit hole I have ever encountered with dozens upon dozens of websites, blogs, social media accounts, and YouTube channels and yet it seems to constantly fly under the radar with very few people discussing it. It also stretches back at least as far as 2003 but probably farther.
Via one of Religion of Light's many websites, I found a YouTube channel associated with the group called Tewk Film. The videos were mostly generic slideshows with religious imagery and text. Hidden in a playlist, however, was a short film called Catch'n Crazy. The film looked to me to have been made with old school film reals but edited digitally (I'm no film maker so I don't know if this is the case, but it's how it appeared). It was a silent film about a man trying to escape from a mental hospital. There were end credits (that looked like they were made with windows movie maker or something similar) which named some of the students who made the film as well as one professor and the school Johns Hopkins University. It also stated that the film was made in 1999. The film had two songs accompanying it one of which was Crazy by Gnarls Barkley. It's worth noting that this song was released in 2006. The end credits also mentioned this song but they credited it as Crazy by "Charles Gnarley" including the misspelling of "gnarly".
I was able to find one of the people who helped make the film who now has a blog reviewing movies and sent him an email. He confirmed that it was a student project made by him and others in 1999. He confirmed the obvious assumption that the songs and credits were added later although he does not know why or by whom. He also said that some of the information in the end credits was false. For example, he was listed as sole cinematographer but he told me that it was really a group effort. He also noted that only him and one other person had their full names listed and everyone else only had first names listed. He said this was strange as many of the people with only first names listed put in quite a lot of effort as well. He also stated that he has no idea why his film was put on this religious YouTube channel, what the religion is, or how they got his film. In fact, it seems that he no longer had access to the film as he stated he wanted to find a way to download it and ditch the music.
Not too long after I contacted the blogger/filmmaker, Catch'n Crazy became unavailable. I still have the link saved and following the link leads to a page that says "this video is no longer available". I do not know if that means the video is privated or if it was deleted entirely. I'd like to find Catch'n Crazy if it exists elsewhere online, but I have no idea where to start. I have not named the blogger/filmmaker as I've already contacted him and I see no reason to contact him further. He had nothing to do with the removal of the film from Tewk Film YouTube channel
Catch'n Crazy is a short film made in 1999 by students of Johns Hopkins University. It used to exist on YouTube but is no longer available. It was a strange series of events that led me to originally finding Catch'n Crazy. Several years ago I discovered the online presence of a religious group known as Religion of Light. There was a number of strange things concerning this group that led me to investigate it further. The strangest thing was the gigantic online presence this group has while remaining largely unknown and while having seemingly no real world presence. I won't share too much about the religious group since this post is about Catch'n Crazy, but suffice it to say that Religion of Light is the largest internet rabbit hole I have ever encountered with dozens upon dozens of websites, blogs, social media accounts, and YouTube channels and yet it seems to constantly fly under the radar with very few people discussing it. It also stretches back at least as far as 2003 but probably farther.
Via one of Religion of Light's many websites, I found a YouTube channel associated with the group called Tewk Film. The videos were mostly generic slideshows with religious imagery and text. Hidden in a playlist, however, was a short film called Catch'n Crazy. The film looked to me to have been made with old school film reals but edited digitally (I'm no film maker so I don't know if this is the case, but it's how it appeared). It was a silent film about a man trying to escape from a mental hospital. There were end credits (that looked like they were made with windows movie maker or something similar) which named some of the students who made the film as well as one professor and the school Johns Hopkins University. It also stated that the film was made in 1999. The film had two songs accompanying it one of which was Crazy by Gnarls Barkley. It's worth noting that this song was released in 2006. The end credits also mentioned this song but they credited it as Crazy by "Charles Gnarley" including the misspelling of "gnarly".
I was able to find one of the people who helped make the film who now has a blog reviewing movies and sent him an email. He confirmed that it was a student project made by him and others in 1999. He confirmed the obvious assumption that the songs and credits were added later although he does not know why or by whom. He also said that some of the information in the end credits was false. For example, he was listed as sole cinematographer but he told me that it was really a group effort. He also noted that only him and one other person had their full names listed and everyone else only had first names listed. He said this was strange as many of the people with only first names listed put in quite a lot of effort as well. He also stated that he has no idea why his film was put on this religious YouTube channel, what the religion is, or how they got his film. In fact, it seems that he no longer had access to the film as he stated he wanted to find a way to download it and ditch the music.
Not too long after I contacted the blogger/filmmaker, Catch'n Crazy became unavailable. I still have the link saved and following the link leads to a page that says "this video is no longer available". I do not know if that means the video is privated or if it was deleted entirely. I'd like to find Catch'n Crazy if it exists elsewhere online, but I have no idea where to start. I have not named the blogger/filmmaker as I've already contacted him and I see no reason to contact him further. He had nothing to do with the removal of the film from Tewk Film YouTube channel
