It's funny that the mainstream media picks up this subject.
"What's that? Hohoho, seems like the someone tries to get in on our action!
Back off pal. Lying to public is our cake."
He posted this comment on the blind man video yesterday.
"Hi.
Seeing as everyone is making such a big deal about this video I thought I'd address the issue and come completely clean.
YES, this video is in fact staged and the majority of the people you see are in fact actors.
First of all I'd like to just apologise to my loyal subscribers whom I call my #mates that were effected and I hope you understand why and what motivated me to do this as you read along.
Now let's take this back to before the shoot:
(This idea was not copied and I only realised that this idea was in fact done similarly about a week after I published it.) I came up with the idea and thought it'd turn out to be an interesting video to shoot IF I could get a just a few people to take my $50. I contemplated on going to a bad area (which could be considered as 'The Hood' for anyone reading from the U.S) to shoot to get the reactions I needed but I took a second thought and thought to myself 'Why risk going out in 'The Hood' to lose some cash when I could just grab a few actors and get the shots that would be needed' So I decided to try it out and put a casting call out for actors to shoot a social experiment. I asked a few actors that applied and asked them if they were down and a majority of them were interested and enthused about the idea.
The intent behind the video was just to send a message and to make you think. We all know that individuals like that do exist and I personally know people with a disability that have been taken advantage of in a similar situation so I thought 'You know what, why not do a video based on someone taking advantage of a person with a disability?' and so this idea came up.
On the day of the shoot far to many actors appeared than expected (I was expecting quite a lot of people to drop out) so I instructed them to do 2 scenes. One as them appearing honest & one appearing dishonest. I specifically told the actors that if I were to use the footage of them appearing dishonest there faces would be obscured to protect their identity. One individual even asked me to cover the brand of the shirt he was wearing which I complied. (NOTE: I have footage of all of this from behind the scenes of the shoot. One individual even complimented my channel saying that they were really excited to view the end product)
After the video was up I have had a majority of the actors involved message me saying they loved the video it wasn't until I accepted invitations from the media for TV interviews that is when all of this went south. I had the top 3 TV networks in Australia basically fighting over me pressing for a TV interview. Initially I wasn't going to do any but then I reconsidered and thought to myself 'Why not?' as most of the stuff they put out to air are all lies what difference will this make. After all this is just a silly YouTube video that's intended to make you think. I basically 'trolled' everyone through the interviews via Channel 7 & Channel 9 (Channel 10 were smart and pretty much knew the video was staged and decided to back out from the interview).
After this much exposure this is when 1 of the actors (will not mention who) tried contacting me. At the time I was at a gig and could not answer my phone. After I was finished I went through my voice mail and messages. The voice mail is actually quite disturbing if you'd listen to this. The voice mail was extremely aggressive and this individual was clearly angry.
Here's why and here's something you don't know:
These actors were NOT "paid" actors. (Even when asked by the media "Are they paid actors?" I said no they are not"paid" actors.) They were clearly told and it was clearly stated this gig was not paid and even in the release form they signed it clearly states "They authorise me to use, reproduce, and / or publish photographs and/ or video that may pertain to me - including my image, likeness and/or voice without compensation." Now 1 or 2 of these 'actors' are trying to claim that they had no idea what the footage was going to be used for and are trying to do anything to get their recognition and/or compensation and hence I'm receiving 'legal threats' (which don't scare me one bit).
I have gone through all of this with my legal team and managers and I have so much evidence that would back me up in court. I have text messages, voice mail messages, screen shots, release forms signed (waivers), video footage behind the scenes stating the use of the footage, and more importantly faces have been obscured to protect their identity & voices re-edited the might I add took AGES to edit to cover every single frame of the face.
At the end of the day there were no legal boundaries crossed and the only thing I want to apologise for is staging a prank. I honestly thought I've never stage a prank but it happened and I'm sorry for that. What I've learnt from this is **** 'staging' pranks. WAY to much ******** to deal with but I guess we learn from our mistakes and move on.
Another thing I'd like to add is my content is clearly not for everyone. If you enjoy my content, good. If you don't enjoy it, nobody is forcing you to watch it. Also the media tends to twist things a lot but if you knew the behind the scenes of some of the interviews you'd understand why I reacted to how I reacted.
Anyway I just wanted to apologise to my #mates once more and let you guys know that I love you and thank you for all the support you've given me. I have some really cool original ideas coming up and I can't wait for you guys to see them!!
NOTE: I think I've covered everything I wanted to cover and I feel so much better after writing this post so I'm just going to leave it at that. I don't see any reason to delete the video as it still sends a good message.. So now you know the true story behind all the controversy that's currently going on."
He had a social experiment about honesty where he pretended to be blind, gave actors he hired a 50 asking for change for a five. The actors thought they were playing villainous characters and were under his direction the whole time. Since he was passing this all of as real for it falls under falsified coverage and the interviewers called him out on it.