Stillwater Grad's 'Our Story in Two Minutes' Video Nears 10 Million Views on Youtube

A 2012 Stillwater Area High School graduate’s final Cutaway Productions project titled, “Our Story in Two Minutes” has has taken on a life of its own.

Joey Bush posted the video on YouTube about a year ago, and it is closing in on 10 million views and more than 4,000 comments.

Bush set the video to the song “Mind Heist” by Zack Hemsey and gathered photos from all over the Internet to show the story of the world (from a westerners’ vantage point as one commenter points out).

Bush just finished his first year at Iowa State University, where he is an Honor student stuying computer engineering. 

"When I first saw this video, I thought it was great, but I didn't think it would create this much interest," Cutaway Productions instructor Debbie Drew told Stillwater Patch last year. "Joey is a very creative and unique individual, and as you can see very talented."

The Cutaway Productions course is run like a business, Drew said. Students get credit for the course, but it is not funded by the school district.

Students apply or are recruited into the class and immediately start working with clients on public service announcements, music promos and training videos, Drew said. The money made from the projects, pay for the equipment.

In this case, Bush wasn't working with a client so he created this video.

"If they don't have a client, I say do something to impress me," Drew said.

And that's what Bush did.

He is really meticulous, so he spent weeks changing around the pictures he gathered for this video, Drew said.

"If a video doesn't meet Joey's very high expectations, he scraps it," Drew said. "I've seen him scrap some really great videos, so I was just happy to see him finish it."

In the caveman part of the video, Bush used a photo of Tom Hanks in the movie "Castaway."

"He did little things like that throughout," Drew said. "This video shows his quirky humor and definitely tells a story through his eyes. It shows that he doesn't take himself too seriously."

Some of the comments accuse Bush of stealing the images and music.

"It's important to note this is for an educational purpose," Drew said. "There is no stealing intended. These students know what copyright is."

Bush plans on taking engineering classes in college, Drew said. "He does video because he loves it and is good at it."

So what was Bush's grade on this project?

"That's a question asked a lot in the comments on YouTube," Drew said. "Yes, he got an 'A' on this project."