The most followed Canadian is making a movie

Will 10-60 seconds on TikTok translate to a feature film?

Seven days ago, CallMeKris, aka Kris Collins, posted a TikTok with the caption, “When you wrote a movie just for for fun 6 months ago, and now you’re on your way to another country to shoot it with your bffs.” As I write this, she has shared “Day 6 of Filming” on Instagram, so I think it’s safe to say this could be a feature film and not just a short.

Honestly, I’m surprised more people are not talking about it. In this new day and age of TikTok and social media influencers, executives and filmmakers committed to the success of eyeballs on films are dying to know:

• Does having a social media influencer star in your movie move the needle?

• Are they valuable when they are in longer form “content” or are they only bringing value when they talk about it?

• How large or small of a role matters?

• Why does this matter?

• Does having a social media influencer attached to your project help with financing?

• Does having a social media influencer attached to your project help with the “green light”?

• Do social media influencers have a super power like A-list celebrities to function like their own movie studios?

• Does content matter for social media stars?

• Does content translate into being preferable for one genre over another (ie comedy, drama, sci-fi, action etc?)

• Does audience demographic make a difference?

• What value do social media influencers hold in the space versus celebrities?

• Does platform matter? (Ie Tiktok vs Youtube vs Instagram etc)

TikTok was an official partner of the Cannes Film Festival this year, with many influencers in attendance that were a part of films the festival, or a part of promoting films in the festival. The highest percentage of leads ever in Sundance World Premiere features this year were social media influencers with followings. While I can no longer find the article/statistics to back that up, a number of podcasts and filmmakers I follow that attended Sundance referenced that this year. While indie films historically having a challenging time of making their money back, many filmmakers are trying whatever means possible to bring eyes back to cinema, and especially outside of the mainstream.

I blissfully remained ignorant to Tiktok during the pandemic, spending more time outdoors hiking and enjoying nature. A half hour down the road, a hairdresser started posting comedy sketches on Tiktok, and became the most followed Tiktok star in Canada. Previous to the pandemic, Kris worked on hair for Riverdale and some other television shows, and had done a small role on set, but never pursued acting professionally. After her success on Tiktok, she successfully transitioned over to Youtube, bringing her following over to longer form content, and higher pay. On TikTok, she has over 50 million followers, and on YouTube, she has over 10 million.

During my first zoom acting class in Vancouver, my acting teacher asked if I knew Kris Collins, the TikTok star, insisting that I looked a lot like her and shared similar mannerisms. Intrigued, I finally broke down to look at TikTok, joined the cult (just kidding), and followed her. I get it: same nose ring and similar hair cut.

In all of my time on Tiktok, I have always thought, if I was a budding comedy star, this platform is perfect. People LOVE to laugh and sitcoms are full of quick punch lines and jokes that I can see a world where that crosses over. (There definitely are some success stories at this point like Liza Koshy, King Bach, Quinta Brunson) But what about drama or other genres? Is there any crossover or path to succeed when people don’t want to spend 5 minutes on your dramatic scene?

As someone that has spent most of my life valuing and developing my craft, I both fear for this direction of the industry, but I also see some empowerment in the power belonging to the creator, rather than just the system. It is wild to me, that after one video, Chick'-Fil-A girl signed with UTA (one of the big four talent agencies that CELEBRITIES sign with) and Kris is signed with Gersh (another big hitter) in the industry, when actors work and perfect their materials to sign with an agent to hopefully get them auditions to land them the role(s) that change their career.

On her TikTok post about filming, thousands of comments poured in of “Can’t wait to see the film” and “Wow you kept this a secret” and lots of support. When I checked her name on IMDB, her star meter has never surpassed 30,000-40,000 which for reference, Florence Pugh has hit “1” multiple times, and even Katy O’Brian hit “1” when Love Lies Bleeding got rave reviews at Sundance. The average person may not check out IMDB first, especially if followed from social media, but the star meter is an “indication” of how many times a person’s profile was looked at during a 1-week period.

I checked her profile to see if she was mentioned in any industry articles like Deadline, Hollywood Reporter, etc to find that no press reports have been released. Either, the industry doesn’t care as much as we think they would, or they have a reason they are trying to keep a tight lid on this until filming.

“TikTok Star CallMeKris Is Making Her First Movie” or “TikTok Star with 50 Million Followers Is Making A Movie” seems like it would be worthy enough to break the trades, so I have to ask myself why would they want to keep a project out? While I didn’t stumble across any articles about this project, the article linked to her IMDB profile titled “Digital Creators ReThink Hollywood As Some Push to Work On Their Own Terms.”

Isn’t that what we all want? To work on our own terms? To continue to own our content instead of giving up the IP to streamers and studios to pay off their debts?

Why does this matter?

For filmmakers, this could mean bypassing the gatekeeper agents to celebrities and going directly to the creator.

More energy and money will be spent on platforms to grow your own audience than casting director workshops.

Actors would rather spend their time growing a following than doing a million auditions in hopes of booking one role that could “maybe” change their lives.

Casting directors will redirect some of their energy into getting to know influencers instead of just named talent

Influencers will truly influence the next steps of Hollywood. They may have teams already in place to form a production company and make longer form content, rather than relying on the gatekeepers.

Would people rather meet an A-list celebrity or a social media influencer? Who would they rather line up for?

“Acting for social media influencers” classes and private coaching branding will emerge from both new spaces and legacy established studios.

Also as I am writing this, it is the one year “anniversary” of the historic dual-strike when SAG-AFTRA voted, overwhelmingly, to go on strike for 118 days. Unless you live under a rock, I am assuming if you are reading this, you know to some effect the long-lasting damage of this time and the major consolidation happening at the studios. It’s harder than ever to green light scripts unless you already having financing attached, but when you pair high interest rates with that, financing is falling through on many projects. Studios and streamers are canning series left and right to “write-off” the loss and free up their cash flow.

In these times, it often makes us wonder, is there another way? But despite the strikes, influencers have been an essential and low-cost marketing tool for studios to promote their films. Agents submitted their influencer clients in hopes of being picked for Barbie. Most were not paid, but all expenses were paid for them to fly out, walk the red carpet, in hopes that they capture content to share and post for their followers to boost ticket sales. In turn, the influencers continue to build their following through the opportunity to be at a premiere and have cool content to create and add buzz to a film. While film ads can feel impersonal, influencers can add emotion and trust from the trust they have built from their audience.

“Influencers now place a crucial role in shaping public opinion and influencing consumer behavior.” - Begonia

A study shared on LinkedIn now shows that 12% of people said they heard about the film they just watched from TikTok.

“Which social media platforms is in the top 5 when it comes to where audiences heard about the film they had just watched? If you guessed Instagram, you're wrong.

Comscore data from May 2024 uncovered 3 offline sources and 2 online.

20% Cinema posters/display
18% In-cinema trailers
17% Friends and family
15% YouTube
12% TikTok

Posters is part of every single P&A budget. How often is TikTok?”

This data is from Nikolaj Mathies, shared on LinkedIn

Can influencers “influence” the film industry’s historic practices and pave the way for a new and better system?

In France, many film sets operate in 8-10 hour days instead of the 12-16 hour norms in North America. What if separating from the traditional system actually allows us to create a more sustainable work system? Is it possible? No sexual harassment? More female directors and producers? Treating one another as humans instead of robots?

If influencers actively choose to create their own way and continue to own their IP, do we have hope at a new, creator-focused, sustainable system?

After Kris’s rise to fame on TikTok, she appeared in a cameo role on Amazon Prime in an episode for "Kids in the Hall," She was also in a music video for Nickelback’s "San Quentin." According to Collins' interview on Breakfast Television, she intends to use her popularity on TikTok as a launching pad for other ventures. "I definitely do want this to be somewhat of a stepping stone, and I'm trying to get more into, like, the traditional space into TV and maybe movies," she stated.

An entire Reddit thread is dedicated to Kris Collin’s life, updates, etc, and when scrolling the comments talking about her television appearance, a user commented “Kris’ acting is the best part of her content. Those skits are sharp, the characterizations are funny, her insight is on point.” - tellmethatstoryagain

Yes, I meant to post this a second time. This photo brings up the exact question I posed in my first SubStack article about the rise of influencers in Hollywood: How the hell does one have time to create short form content while working on a longer form piece of art?

I guess I feel a little bit better that no one has quite figured it out, and unless you can afford a full team, we all have to pick and choose our focus from time to time.