When San Diego high school friends Rocco Botte, Derrick Acosta and Shawn Chatfield started a local public-access TV show in 2003 to showcase their comedy skit videos about classic videogames, they also unwittingly became Internet video pioneers. “Public-access was our only outlet,” Acosta recalls. “There was no YouTube back then; we thought, ‘Let’s promote our TV show by putting our clips on the Internet.’”
“We like to be cinematic and artistic, but at the same time we’re very guerrilla and raw,” Chatfield says. “We’re running around, shooting from the hip, sometimes running from the police and sneaking into places we shouldn’t be,” Acosta adds, “so it falls somewhere in the middle.” The result? “You never know what you’re going to get with one of our videos,” says Botte. “It might be beautifully composed and shot, or it might be Shakicam stuff.”