The stunt took weeks of preparation. Building a tank. Training with freedivers and magicians. Developing the filming schedule. The end result of t

YouTube’s Secret Weapon to Win the TV Streaming Wars: Its Top Creators

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2024-05-13 09:00:04

The stunt took weeks of preparation. Building a tank. Training with freedivers and magicians. Developing the filming schedule.

The end result of the effort, a new episode of YouTube star Michelle Khare’s series Challenge Accepted in which she attempted to recreate Harry Houdini’s deadliest trick, has since garnered more than 4.5 million views on YouTube.

The final product has a production quality that would rival what’s on “traditional” TV (in fact, magician David Blaine attempted a similar stunt for a 2006 primetime ABC special), but Khare produced the episode herself, for her YouTube audience. Related Stories TV 'Deadly Influence' Docuseries on Social Media Murders Set at ID (Exclusive) TV 'Bluey' Episode "Dad Baby" Now Streaming on YouTube After Not Being Available on Disney+

“For Challenge Accepted because we release very infrequently — unlike a normal season of television, it’s about 10 to 15 episodes a year — and within each of those episodes, we are representing a unique community,” Khare says in an interview. “So for example, in the video where I attempted Harry Houdini’s deadliest magic trick, we’re entering into the community of magic. And so as creators, we have the commonality of me as the host and our team and the amazing artists working on the project. But also we loved experimenting with magic-themed music. How can we refer to, you know, various big events in magic that have happened over history? So each episode that we do, we want to lean into that community and hear from that community how they want to be represented, and that really heavily informs my participation, the production, the hosting, post, etc.”