Inside the making of a YouTube sensation with the documentary ‘Presenting Princess Shaw’
Standing onstage in a Tel Aviv theater, Samantha Montgomery looks out on a crowd of admirers. Fighting back nerves and tears, she belts out her original song “Give It Up” to her largest audience to date. Officially gone are the days of trotting to New Orleans open mikes hoping to make it big, to have even the fewest of attendees embrace her talent. Princess Shaw, the name Montgomery performs under, has finally arrived.
But making it to this point was as much her own doing as it was that of a stranger almost 7,000 miles away who stumbled on an a cappella YouTube video of hers and, with some tinkering, made her a global Internet sensation.
Montgomery’s rise is chronicled in the documentary “Presenting Princess Shaw,” opening at West Hollywood’s Sundance Sunset on Friday.
Though a couple of years have passed since her online profile exploded, she can’t believe her luck.
“I’m still in awe of all this ... that’s going on that I’m not used to,” Montgomery said of having and promoting a documentary about herself. “I’m a starving artist. I’m a normal chick. All this ... is beautiful, but it’s a whirlwind.”
Montgomery is a Chicago native. After moving down South, the 40-year-old started working at a nursing home. In addition to her certified nursing assistant duties, she sang to entertain those gathered in the home’s common area.
After work, Princess Shaw — acrylic nails, apple-red hair extensions and braces in tow — took to YouTube to satisfy her performing passion. Though she writes her own lyrics, her inability to play any instruments prevented the budding vocalist — evocative of Macy Gray meets Amy Winehouse — from crafting completed tracks. Someone online would be able to help, she thought. As her wish largely went unmet, the videos became confessionals where she opened up to an audience of fewer than 100 about childhood abuse, relationship issues and other life turmoils that plagued her.
Halfway around the world, in Israel, both Ophir Kutiel and Ido Haar were intrigued by Montgomery’s authenticity and raw talent.
“It’s hard to say in words,” Kutiel said of what attracted him. “I just remember finding [her video of “Give It Up”] and listening to it over and over. Something about her caught me.”
Kutiel creates video mash-ups of amateur YouTube performers. Known as Kutiman, he is a composer, musician and video artist who rose to prominence in 2009 with the online music video project “Thru You.” It combined existing instrumentals — a toddler practicing piano scales, a guitarist demonstrating chords, a drummer or violinist in a personal jam session — with a capella, original lyrics to form unique songs. None of the people in the videos knew they were being used in the project. When Kutiman began exploring the project’s follow-up, “Thru You Too,” Montgomery’s “Give It Up” became the first track and the inspiration.
Haar, a documentarian and friend of Kutiman, was interested in the stories behind the unknowing vocalists drafted into the project. He set out to do a film about them, but after visits with numerous subjects, Montgomery stood out as worthy of the full movie. Though already “highly moved by her courage, directness, openness and unique talent” as displayed in her videos, after their first meeting — arranged through a Facebook message — he wanted to capture “the important therapeutic role that music, writing and creativity played in her life,” he said.
He tracked her on and off for about two years, starting nine months before Kutiman, without her knowledge, uploaded his version of “Give It Up” on Sept. 12, 2014, more than a year after Montgomery had uploaded her original. Within days, the remix had amassed more than a million views. When she saw it, she was stunned.
“I had no idea that that was happening. The melody was more than I could ever wish or hope for,” she said.
It would take her some time to put two and two together, that a random man named Kutiman in Israel had created this video with her song at the same time that Haar, who had been flying to and from Israel, was following her around. It wasn’t until she saw a New York Times article about Kutiman and the video, and a confession from Haar, that she realized what had taken place.
Months later, Montgomery boarded a plane to Tel Aviv — she had not previously had a passport — to meet Kutiman for the first time and to perform in a showcase highlighting “Thru You Too.”
But the documentary goes deeper than just her discovery. At one point, before the video drops, the lights in her studio apartment are off because she can’t afford to pay the bill. Her car at one point also rests on cinder blocks because someone in the neighborhood has stolen the wheels — she had only ever seen that happen in movies. She also speaks at length about the end of her relationship with an ex-girl-friend and the physical and emotional abuse she faced as a child.
“People go through this,” she said, denying any hint of regret. “You may not go through it, but someone is in their house right now without lights. Their car is being repossessed. It happens. It’s reality, and it’s life.”
Montgomery’s direct approach to life is what has driven her throughout the completion of the documentary, recording her first album with Kutiman (release date to be determined) and the experience of watching “Presenting Princess Shaw” play the Jerusalem, Toronto and Austin, Texas’ South by Southwest film festivals. She’s very much aware it could all end at any moment, and surprisingly she’s OK with that.
“I guess I’m a weird person or artist, but it is what it is,” she said. “If it ends tomorrow, I did this ... Sometimes, you don’t make it to the big stage, but I made it to some stages.”
And theaters too.
MORE:
Review: ‘Princess Shaw’ picks up good vibrations via YouTube
Get your life! Follow me on Twitter: @TrevellAnderson.
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