Nashville's CinemaSins a YouTube hit

Back when they worked at Nashville's Regal Hollywood 27 movie theater 15 years ago, Chris Atkinson and Jeremy Scott looked forward to staying late on Thursday nights.

After closing time, they'd find the shipment of new movies set to premiere on Friday, load them up on the projector and have the dubious honor of being the first people in Nashville to see middling films such as "Jeepers Creepers" and "O."

"You end up every Thursday night watching one, two, maybe three," Scott recalls. "And the great majority of them are not good."

They'd take joy in pointing out plot holes, cliches and technical mistakes, and, most importantly, making each other laugh.

Fifteen years later, they're still picking movies apart, but they're not doing it after hours.

It's their job.

Atkinson and Scott are the co-creators of CinemaSins, a YouTube channel that humorously tallies the "sins" of popular movies. If you've ever come across a video that lists "Everything Wrong With" a film, you've probably seen their work.

Their most popular clip, "Everything Wrong with Frozen in 10 Minutes or Less," has more than 18 million views. Collectively, their videos have been watched more than 953 million times.

Success stories like CinemaSins have been a hot topic lately. Earlier this month, Forbes published its list of the highest-paid YouTube stars. Swedish video game player Felix Kjellberg (aka PewDiePie) topped the list with an estimated $12 million in pretax earnings.

CinemaSins didn't make the cut, but it is part of YouTube's "preferred" program for advertisers, and part of the top 1 percent of "pop culture" channels alongside Ellen DeGeneres and Conan O'Brien. YouTube analysis site SocialBlade estimates CinemaSins could be making as much as $1.8 million a year — or as little as $109,500.

Why the wide range? It all depends on how viewers interact with the ads. Whether they click or just watch, fast-forward or block them entirely with software, each action has a different monetary value.

At any rate, CinemaSins benefits from having "super-low overhead," as Scott puts it. Both work from home and do all of their video editing and production on personal computers. On an average weekday, Atkinson wakes up around 8 a.m., puts on a movie and gets to work listing its "sins."

"If it's about five minutes (in), and I haven't written anything, I start getting antsy," he says.

After the two compare their lists, Scott records the narration late at night, with a microphone propped on a stack of Blu-ray movie cases. It's when he does his best work, he says — and it's also when his neighbor's lawnmower won't be heard in the mix.

"When I said it was unglamorous, I meant it," he says. "I'm sitting in the dustiest, most unvacuumed office ever. I have cats, I just can't keep up with the dust and the fur. (I'm) usually in schlubby clothes that I wouldn't be caught dead in out in public. It's easier for me."

It's a humble setup, but the pair have serious ambitions. They've partnered with Nashville-based Made In Network, which produces and manages YouTube content for creators and brands. They've spun off CinemaSins into other video series, including Music Video Sins, Brand Sins and Couch Tomato (sample title: "24 Reasons 'The Passion of the Christ' & 'Man of Steel' Are the Same Movie.")

All of their movie-based videos rely heavily on clips from the movies themselves. "We couldn't do this without the footage," Atkinson says. Luckily for them, they've had hardly any interference from the film studios — even when they're tearing their picture to pieces.

"Studios are realizing the really tangible impact of viewership on YouTube," Made In Network CEO Kevin Grosch says. "Doing trailer mashups and all of these other (videos) end up spurring conversation. The more conversation around the movies, the better for them."

Scott recalls: "I got a call from a studio president two years ago, raving about a video. We had ripped on one of his films, and apparently, everything they had argued about before they released it, we talked about in our video. The first words he said to me on the phone were 'F-ing hilarious.' "

Feedback on their work comes to Scott and Atkinson 24 hours a day. Their global audience comments on every video, follows them on Twitter and Facebook, and talks among themselves on Reddit. They're constantly requesting new movies for them to cover or trying to unravel their nonsensical "Sin Counter" system. Videos of Scott simply driving around in his car and answering fan questions have been viewed more than 200,000 times.

Real-world encounters aren't nearly as frequent. But this weekend, Scott and Atkinson will meet hundreds of fans and fellow Nashvillians at the Geek Media Expo, a "multi-fandom" convention at the Sheraton Music City Hotel.

For some, CinemaSins' creativity is up for debate. Screenwriter Damon Lindelof said the channel was "ripping apart something that everyone loved instead of MAKING something (themselves)."

Scott and Atkinson say if you follow that logic, all critics are talentless. And it's an argument that doesn't hold water in the top 1 percent of YouTube, where cover songs, mashups and other videos based on existing material find huge audiences.

"That's just the way that talent gets discovered in this digital era," Scott says. "You find a cultural touchstone to talk about in a new medium, and you hopefully display your own talent in doing that, and you find a platform to show off your own original creation."

For both of them, that includes releasing books. The first, Scott's "The Ables," was released earlier this year. It might give them legitimacy in some people's eyes, but to their youngest fans — the legions of teens who watch their videos on YouTube — they're already stars. Scott tends to run into them at the movies.

"They tend to react like I'm somebody important. That's weird. But it's cool."

Reach Dave Paulson at 615-664-2278 and on Twitter at @ItsDavePaulson.

CinemaSins Live

Chris Atkinson and Jeremy Scott of CinemaSins will appear Saturday at the Geek Media Expo at the Sheraton Music City Hotel, 777 McGavock Pike. The convention runs Friday through Sunday. Tickets are $20 to $35 at geekmediaexpo.com/register/. Learn more at www.geekmediaexpo.com.

CinemaSins' top 5 videos

In less than three years, their "Everything Wrong With" videos have earned nearly 1 billion views. Here are CinemaSins' five most popular clips.

"Everything Wrong With Frozen" 18 million views. This was the duo's first crack at an animated film, and given its success, Sins videos for "Toy Story," "Tangled" and more soon followed.

"Everything Wrong with The Hunger Games" 13 million views. An early effort. The CinemaSins guys were almost out-nitpicked by devoted "Hunger Games" fans, who took issue with a few of their "sins."

"Everything Wrong with CinemaSins" 12 million views. Atkinson and Scott turn their critical eyes on their own output. Among Scott's complaints: "The narrator's voice is annoying."

"Everything Wrong with The Avengers" 12 million views. Superhero films are a constant source of sin for Atkinson and Scott.

"Everything Wrong with Avatar" 10 million views. James Cameron can't escape the CinemaSins treatment. The duo have dissected many of his biggest films, including "Titanic" and "Terminator."