A Tour of YouTube’s Los Angeles Studio
Bunkered beneath a cliff a couple miles north of Los Angeles International Airport sits arguably YouTube’s most important real estate: YouTube Space LA. Google broke ground on the filmmaking studio last year — converted from Howard Hughes’ airport — and has opened it up to the video site’s creators to borrow equipment like TV-quality cameras, shoot their series using green screens and man newsroom-style control rooms.
Next month YouTube will begin to extend the invitation to brands, a handful at first and up to 100 by the end of 2014 (and will open up an East Coast counterpart in downtown Manhattan next year). The idea is to improve the quality of marketers’ YouTube content and indirectly play matchmaker between those marketers and YouTube’s creators who flit in and out of the production facility.
Basically YouTube Space LA aims to be online video’s version of the Chateau Marmont or Chelsea Hotel. Advertising Age took a tour of the studio to see what marketers may expect.
