Barats and Bereta

Barats and Bereta is a sketch comedy group consisting of Luke Pierre Barats and Joe Daniel Bereta. Formed in 2003, the duo originally made videos to amuse friends, often combining real and fictional acts. These videos eventually made it onto their website and onto YouTube. Their viral videos have also earned them the description of an internet phenomenon.

History

Barats and Bereta met while attending Gonzaga University, where they were both active in the theater and broadcasting departments, respectively, and led the Gonzaga University improv comedy troupe GUTS (Gonzaga University Theatre Sports). They began posting their viral shorts on YouTube in early 2006 and quickly become a pop culture phenomenon. Their rapidly growing fan base consists of millions of on-line viewers that span all demographics on popular websites such as YouTube, Break.com, MySpace.com, Funny or Die and CollegeHumor. By the end of 2006, the duo had landed representation with CAA (Creative Artists Agency) and manager Dan Farah of Farah Films & Management, an overall development deal with NBC Universal, and was featured in Variety’s well respected Comedy Impact List, which named them two of the fifty most influential people in comedy in 2006. They started off 2007 by creating, starring in, producing, directing, and editing a pilot for NBC Universal. They continue to perform improv regularly with Spokane's Blue Door Theater troupe [ [http://www.bluedoortheatre.com/players.htm Blue Door Theatre - Spokane Improv - Players ] ] .

Several of their videos ("Mother's Day", "Completely Uncalled For", "Windward Reports: Cubicle War 2006" and "The Other Son") have been featured on the front page of YouTube, and one of their most popular videos, "Completely Uncalled For", attracted over 1 million views on its first five days on the site and now has almost 6 million views. One of their other most popular videos, "Mother's Day" has over 6 million views on YouTube.

Videos of theirs that have eclipsed a million views on YouTube are "Mother's Day" (6 million), "Completely Uncalled For" (5.8 million), "Kanye Hands" (4.2 million), "So Smooth" (2.1 million), "Auto Insurance" (1.9 Million), "The Other Son", "MANtage", "Winward Reports: Cubicle War 2006" (1.8 Million), "PC Fratboys" (1 Million) and"Barats and Bereta Theme Song" (1.2 Million). If you add up the view total for both versions of "The Good Word" (regular version and "Redux") and "Suburbanites" ("Sans Bookend" and "Censored"), they each have over 1 million views.

YouTube video chronology

2005

2008

*approximate, as of **views from Break.com

Television

Barats and Bereta's continued success at creating popular videos soon led to interest from beyond YouTube. Several major networks, including NBC, MTV, and HBO, vied to work with the talented duo. NBC won the fight with a one year contract offering a six figure development deal. Although This is Culdesac, the sketch comedy pilot they produced, directed, wrote, edited, and acted in under contract, was not picked up by NBC, their next television project, a more traditional sitcom, was. They will be writing the show for NBC and may also be given roles in it. A movie idea pitched to an independent studio was also purchased from them in 2007.

Awards

For their two-man stand up routine, they won the Brickwall Amateur Comedy Competition in 2005. In the same year, they won first place at the Spokane First Night Film Festival with their short film, "Just Wonderful". In 2006, Break.com named "Mother's Day" the #8 best internet video of the year. In 2007 they won Best in Show at the regional Addy Awards and a Silver Addy at the Northwest Addy awards for their 2 min short Windward Reports. Their "Completely Uncalled For" short was also nominated for best comedy video in the first ever YouTube Awards. At the end of 2007, "The Sexy Milk Jump", a video created with Ricky Stern (A.K.A LazyDork), and Ben Relles, took first place in Canon's inaugural Battle of the Viral Video Superstars competition. Most recently, their MANtage video won a top ten videos of the year award in the first annual Best of Broadband (BOB) Entertainment Awards presented by OnHollywood.com. [ [http://barney.gonzaga.edu/~lbarats/about.html Barats & Bereta Productions ] ]

ee also

*Fame beyond YouTube

References

External links

* [http://www.baratsandbereta.com Official Website]
* [http://barney.gonzaga.edu/~pwilderm/PicsVids/bbp/ Old Official Website (Note: media will not play)]
* [http://www.youtube.com/BaratsAndBereta YouTube Page]
* [http://www.benmakesmovies.com/videos.php Ben Makes Movies.com Videos] - Some of these videos feature Barats and Bereta
* [http://www.juxtaviews.com/2006/10/24/interview-barats-and-bereta/ Interview with Luke Barats]
* [http://mashable.com/2006/09/27/youtube-stars-land-tv-deal/ Barats and Bereta's YouTube success]
*imdb title|id=0966594|title=This is Culdesac