20-year-old Julian Bass became Tik Tok’s latest viral star last week when his superhero-inspired video went viral. In the 20-second video, Bass turns into some of his favorite characters with the help Hollywood-like special effects he created himself. Bass captioned the video, which now has over 22 million views on Twitter, “if y’all can retweet this enough times that Disney calls, that’d be greatly appreciated,” a few days later, he received a phone call from Marvel.
Bass started making videos nine years ago with Lego stop-motion and eventually worked his way up into making VFX by the time he got to high school, but his true passion was always in acting.
Most of the stuff I’ve learned over the years about filmmaking has been so that I could perform in pretty much any way I could imagine.
Julian Bass, The Hollywood Reporter
Bass’ videos were doing so well on Tik Tok that he was able to quit his job as a motion designer at GCPSTV, mentioning that the promotions from Tik Tok were more lucrative. Bass’ showcases his impressive VFX skills in superhero-themed videos and editing tutorials on Tik Tok. He began posting his videos on Twitter to get more traction in April, and it only took two months for him to catch the attention of Disney executive Bob Iger, Oscar-winner Matthew Cherry, Guardians of the Galaxy James Gunn, and more.
In an interview today with Good Morning America, Bass said he’s been contact by so many people due to the success of the video, and that people are even reaching out to his mother. The biggest surprise, however, was the call he missed from Marvel, luckily he was able to get back in touch with them. Bass hasn’t released any details on the conversations he’s had in the last week, but it’s safe to say this isn’t the last we’ll hear about the talented young filmmaker.
Check out the newest Tik Tok he created for his feature with GMA below.