#6. Global Trends

The extent of my knowledge outside film and entertainment news (or possible world catastrophe) ventures no further than the top trending videos on YouTube. If something is happening in the world like a global catastrophe, "lets eat something inedible" challenge, or cute cat videos, it generally ends up on the top trending list, keeping me updated enough to things outside of my interest. 

Over the last couple months, I have been capturing glimpses of a YouTube channel focused on a young spider named Lucas. The channel is promptly named Lucas the Spider. There were about 2 videos at the time and the third ended up in the Top 10 Trending. The video was only 31 seconds so I thought "Why not?" The video was called "Captured" and starts out with the title card with a small fuzzy spider with huge eyes and fuzzy hair that lets out a small childlike giggle. From there the video starts and the spider is in an ultra-realistic setting and the spider itself is CGI. (Though it is unclear to me if the setting was CGI or not and is only complicated in watching other videos on the channel.) The spider, Lucas, then recounts a story of how a wine glass was cupped on top of him. As he mentions his captor, a human like figure is seen in the reflection of the glass. As the figure walks away, Lucas exclaims its his time to escape and pushes the wine glass over an edge just enough for him to jump out.
  


The animation was neat, the spider was cute, and I watched the other two videos on the channel at the time. I didn't think much of it, it was only barely 2 minutes of any given day, but I did start seeing him pop up on my twitter and other social media. It wasn't a lot, but you'd see one or two people mention it every week or so. 

Flash forward to today, and I see another Lucas the Spider video in the top trending. It was #35, granted it's been a busy week with the Oscars going and such. I mention this small internet phenomenon only based on the hunch that Lucas the Spider might end up something bigger in the not so distant future. 

Plenty of effects artists get bigger movie jobs because of what they did online. Fede Alvarez directed and animated a film called Panic Attack! which garnered attention from director Sam Raimi (my fave) and got him the job to direct the 2013 remake of Evil Dead.  Or the film Pixels which was based on an idea done by French short film director Patrick Jean. 

The animator of Lucas the Spider is Joshua Slice who worked on big budget animated films such as Epic and Zootopia. Splice asked his nephew to voice the spider. Due to some of the love he was getting on social media platforms, he decided to make more. I wouldn't be surprised if Lucas the Spider became the face of a children's television show or movie in the years to come.


More on Lucas the Spider: Story 1, Story 2