{"id":1922,"date":"2025-10-29T17:04:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-29T17:04:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/filmfreeway.com\/articles\/?p=1922"},"modified":"2025-10-29T17:04:12","modified_gmt":"2025-10-29T17:04:12","slug":"christ-stuckmann-shelby-oaks-director","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/filmfreeway.com\/articles\/christ-stuckmann-shelby-oaks-director\/","title":{"rendered":"How \u2018Shelby Oaks\u2019 Director Chris Stuckmann Went From YouTube Critic to Filmmaker"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Over the last 16 years, Chris Stuckmann has become one of the most popular film critics on YouTube. His eponymous channel<\/mark><\/a> has more than two million subscribers and has amassed over 789 million views.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite this success, Stuckmann says, \u201cYouTube was a bit of a distraction\u201d from his ultimate goal of becoming a filmmaker. \u201cI\u2019ve wanted to make movies since I was a kid,\u201d he explains. \u201cYouTube was really just my way to connect with other film fans.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nine years after he and his wife, Samantha Elizabeth, thought of the story of \u201cShelby Oaks,\u201d Stuckmann got to step behind the camera. His feature debut mixes found footage with the supernatural, horror, and mystery genres to create a truly original experience. The film revolves around Mia Brennan (Camille Sullivan) and her attempts to find her younger sister, Riley (Sarah Durn), who went missing years earlier while investigating the abandoned town of Shelby Oaks.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here\u2019s how Stuckmann funded and made the horror movie, as well as his advice for burgeoning filmmakers.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Give the genre your own spin.<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n
\n
\"\"
Chris Stuckmann<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Before \u201cShelby Oaks,\u201d Stuckmann had seven or eight other spec scripts that he would pitch to producers to no avail. But \u201cShelby Oaks\u201d kept piquing people\u2019s interest, in part because the found footage portions could be shot efficiently at low cost.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat definitely perked the ears of a lot of producers,\u201d says the filmmaker, who soon made the project his priority. \u201cThat made me lean in and listen, because when you have nothing to your name in regards to credits, anytime anything starts getting heat, you follow the heat. As soon as \u2018Shelby Oaks\u2019 started getting interest from producers, it was very apparent to me that I was going to follow the heat.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In order to make the project stand out, Stuckmann decided to explore the found footage and horror genres. \u201cEvery time I would watch a mockumentary, I would always think: We are all aware this is fiction. Why can\u2019t we play around with it? Why can\u2019t we exit the lens of a nonfiction camera, enter the lens of a fictional camera the characters don\u2019t know exists, and play around with the mixed media format? That was always the idea.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stuckmann and Elizabeth turned their original idea into a sketch and uploaded it to YouTube in 2016. The pair had so much fun creating the video that it made them realize they were \u201ctired of not making things,\u201d he says. They\u2019d stay up all night discussing what to do with the story; their initial plan was to make \u201cShelby Oaks\u201d with their savings and put it on the platform.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, after repeatedly being told that he should just go out with his phone and make the movie, Stuckmann decided that he wanted to find funding so that he could fulfill his vision. \u201cWe live in a world where everybody\u2019s trying to make stuff,\u201d he says. \u201cEverybody has a camera in their pocket. It\u2019s oversaturated and harder to stand out.\u201d So Stuckemann decided to go to places full of people who could make his creative dream come true.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Go to film festivals.<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

The breakthrough moment for Stuckmann and \u201cShelby Oaks\u201d occurred at the 2019 Fantastic Fest, when he met Aaron B. Koontz, the CEO of Paper Street Pictures. Stuckmann had started to attend genre film festivals with the sole purpose of meeting filmmakers who were creating the types of films he wanted to make. \u201cThe secret sauce for me making \u2018Shelby Oaks\u2019 was going to genre festivals, meeting like-minded filmmakers, and just becoming friends with them,\u201d he explains.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stuckmann traveled solo to Austin for Fantastic Fest with the intention of making industry connections. But ahead of the festival, he told himself he wasn\u2019t going to overtly sell himself and plead to people for money to make his movie. Instead, he wanted to get to know them first, then bring up \u201cShelby Oaks\u201d and his ambitions organically.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While attending Fantastic Fest Debates\u2014an event in which film fans argue over a movie-related topic in a boxing ring before actually donning gloves and duking it out\u2014Stuckmann was introduced to Koontz by filmmaker-producer Josh Lobo. \u201cMe and Aaron just talked about movies that we\u2019d seen at the festival,\u201d he says. \u201cThat was it. Eventually, while the fight was happening, he asked me, \u2018Are you working on anything?\u2019 \u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stuckmann took the opportunity to pitch \u201cShelby Oaks\u201d to Koontz. \u201cIt was only a treatment at that stage,\u201d he says. \u201cBut he really loved the pitch. I left the festival with his email. I just kept in touch with him.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once the partnership was established, Stuckmann launched a Kickstarter<\/mark><\/a> campaign to further fund the film. The campaign ultimately raised $1,390,845\u2014quite a bit beyond its original goal of $250,000. Years of work, countless festival meetings, and one wildly successful crowdfunding campaign later, \u201cShelby Oaks\u201d hit theaters on Oct. 24\u2014proof that Stuckmann\u2019s patience and strategy paid off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here\u2019s how YouTuber Chris Stuckmann connected with producers IRL to garner interest for his horror film project.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":75,"featured_media":1924,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1922","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nHow YouTube Critic Chris Stuckmann Made His First Film<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The YouTuber with two million subscribers spent nine years making \u201cShelby Oaks,\u201d his feature film debut. 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