CLIPMANIA: World Wide Video - You are TV

CLIPMANIA visits internet video clown Rémi Gaillard in his hometown Montpellier in southern France.
CLIPMANIA takes a trip with Germany's first internet popstar Mina to the place her success story began.
And CLIPMANIA meets the senior members of the Amateur Film Club VIDEOaktiv in Jena, eastern Germany, who pioneered user-generated content in the dark ages before the internet.
From Super 8 to Super Video

Amateur filmmakers have been around a lot longer than the internet. In the old days they made their home movies using super 8 film, 16mm or, from the nineteen-eighties on, also on VHS. Clipmania met some of these pioneers of user-generated content.

In the summer of 1956 in communist East Germany, a young engineer Peter Gallasch and some of his co-workers set up a center for amateur filmmakers. Their employer, the Carl Zeiss Jena optical works, paid for equipment and film stock.
It was common at the time for East German companies to support employees' outside interests. The Jena film club survived the collapse of state socialism and is still going strong. Peter Gallasch is still a member and in charge of the club's extensive archive. Clipmania took a look around.From Schoolgirl to Popstar

The Internet is the new way to kick start pop music careers. Nowadays if you post a clip on a video-hosting site and it gets enough attention, the record companies come looking for you.

And that's exactly what happened to 14-year-old Mina. She became Germany's first Internet pop star, with her song "How the Angels Fly." It's about angels in heaven and a dead father who never said goodbye. MIllions watched it on the internet prompting Warner Music to sign her up and release a whole album.
Clipmania went with Mina to the recording studio where the success story began and spoke to her about how the internet changed her life.From Shop Assistant to Video Clown

Rémi Gaillard is the king of the hidden camera gag. He's taken the genre, dusted it down and given it a new twist. His simple and direct approach is great for provoking all kinds of responses from the general public.

Above all, Rémi Gaillard enjoys the freedom and flexibility that working for his own internet TV station gives him. He's his own boss and can have fun doing just what he wants. He's already produced 100 plus videos and made them available on his website nimportequi.com.
Staying true to his motto: You are what you do?
His career took off after he lost a job at a shoe shop. He decided to invest the time he then had perfecting his hidden camera gags. Now he has several financial backers. Clipmania tracked the video clown down to his lair in Montpellier southern France.

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• Fun