In 2008, Hilly and Hannah Hindi, two Las Vegas sisters with an already two-year-old self-produced internet show, decided it was time to move on. Their audience was no longer growing, and they began to wonder if they’d done all they could do with The Hillywood Show. So for one last hurrah, they poured every last resource they had into one big “Twilight Parody,” a song and dance number that was to be the culmination of everything they were about: dance, music, comedy, pop culture, and style. Nearly 6 million views later, they figure they might be on to something. Now, they’re churning out what’s fast becoming a true blueprint for viral videos.
Can you go through the genesis of The Hillywood Show?
Hannah: The show started back in 2006. AOL put out information, saying send us your own idea for a teen web show. So Hilly came up with this idea for mixing movie characters together. She did all of Johnny Depp’s characters. She asked me to film it and I did. So we sent it in and we came in third place out of like 100,000 entries, which was amazing. We had people that were watching this contest and were fans and wanted us to continue with the idea. We were younger back then and thought it would be a fun little hobby. Then eventually it started to become a passion.
Did you have a strategy for getting noticed? And did you receive any advice on how to do that?
Hilly: Honestly, we didn’t have any tactics or any special way of trying to get the show going. We kept getting some fan mail. So when we were continuing we had a little audience. But once we did the “Twilight Parody,” that’s when it went viral. Since then, we’ve been hitting what’s most popular and most talked about with celebrities and movies, and it’s really taken off. I don’t really know how to explain our technique other than to just make it entertaining.
Well, any advice for anyone else trying to start an internet show?
Hilly: I think the number one key is for them to be original. I think that’s what made “Twilight Parody” so unique. It was the first Twilight musical. So if someone wanted to say, “Well, I want to do that,” I’d say don’t do what we did. Do something different. That’s the way to make it bigger and better, to get someone to notice you.
What was the moment where you both realized people were noticing you?
Hannah: Actually, “Twilight Parody” was going to be our last video. Our audience wasn’t growing and we’d worked for two years and thought, “Well, maybe the ship has set sail.” Then it was like 100,000 hits overnight and it was like a wake-up call from the Man above. That’s when we really started putting the dance element in our videos, and I know fans always look forward to that as well.
