India is seeing an emergence of a new generation of YouTube creators who are capturing the color, music, humour, and drama of India more creatively than ever before. In fact, Indian creators are now amongst the top contributors in Asia when it comes to driving time spent on YouTube watching videos. Recently, we also celebrated milestones for two of our Indian creators AIB and TVF, who reached over 1 million fans within two years on the platform. To support this incredible community of YouTube creators and foster the next generation of talent, YouTube has partnered with one of Asia’s largest and most renowned film schools, Whistling Woods International, to set up a new YouTube Space in Mumbai.
Located in the heart of Mumbai’s film & television production hub Filmcity, Whistling Woods International has been rated one of the ten best film schools in the world by ‘The Hollywood Reporter’, running undergraduate, postgraduate and short programmes in practical filmmaking. Through this collaboration, India's popular up-and-coming YouTube creators, as well as their students, will have free access to Whistling Woods’ studios, high-end audio, visual and editing equipment, in addition to training programs, workshops and community events. We’re already in advanced stages of setting up the place and we’ll be opening the gates for all creators soon.
This collaboration follows in the footsteps of our YouTube Spaces in Los Angeles, London, Tokyo, New York City, Sao Paulo, and more recently in Berlin. Since the first Space was launched in 2012, creators have visited YouTube Spaces over 100,000 times, we have had over 800 events and workshops and our partners have created over 11,000 videos.
Like all of our production facilities, YouTube Space Mumbai will be a place where creators can collaborate, innovate and experiment with new content for audiences around the world to watch and love. It’ll also offer opportunities to:
Learn: From training programs and workshops to master classes, there are opportunities to get hands-on experience from industry leaders, and learn to use high end production equipment, production techniques, and YouTube best practices.
Connect: Attend events, meet fellow creators, spark new ideas and share experiences on how to succeed on YouTube.
Create: This is a space for creators to bring stories to life. They’ll have access, for free, to studios and all the latest audio, visual and editing equipment that will enable them to experiment and create great videos that fans will love.
The YouTube Space Mumbai will be another way for YouTube to help foster creativity, entrepreneurship and partnership with top video creators in the country and around the world. It’s amazing to see what Indian creators have already been producing and we are excited to see what is coming next. As these creators at Whistling Woods ask us, tell us what you’d like to produce if you had a Space. Use the hashtag #ifihadspace on social media to let us know, and also sign up to our newsletter for updates about the Space.
Posted by David Macdonald, Head of YouTube Spaces, Asia Pacific, who recently watched EIC: Education Then vs Now, filmed on location at Whistling Woods.
