You may mainly think of Snapchat as a way to send goofy selfies to friends, but the social network is increasingly being used as a more creative medium for aspiring filmmakers.
If you open Snapchat on Saturday April 23 and check out the Discover section of the app, you'll see a new channel showcasing the 10 best Snapchat stories in the US.
The short films were submitted through a Snapchat-sponsored competition with the Tribeca Film Festival, and the winners were chosen by celebrity judges that included Jessica Alba, Steve Aoki, Steve Buscemi, and yes, DJ Khaled. The rules of the competition were that all stories had to be shot exclusively in Snapchat and last no longer than a couple of minutes.
Tech Insider caught up with two winners of the competition — which, for Snapchat, is the first of its kind — at a flashy premiere party during the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City.
High schoolers Kat Vlasova and Brandon Miller spent six hours making a Snapchat story called "Pencils" with the hopes of getting flown out for the festival.
“I was in the middle of doing homework and I thought, ‘I’ll procrastinate to come up with an idea,’" said Vlasova, a senior theater student who downloaded Snapchat last year. "And then I thought, ‘Why don’t I use the idea of procrastinating on homework and getting distracted?’”
Their two-minute story begins with Vlasova studying calculus. She loses her pencil and dramatically chases a thief, played by Miller, into space and underwater to get it back.
Miller, a junior who also posts regularly to YouTube, said it took the duo six hours to shoot the 2-minute story after completing the storyboarding process.“Being here is definitely, definitely worth it," he said.
Vlasova and Miller's short is displayed front and center for 24 hours in the Discover section of Snapchat with the nine other winners. That means millions of other Snapchat users will see their work.
And, like everything else on Snapchat, their story will be gone in 24 hours.
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