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A five-minute video posted "in loving memory of Tyler Nichols" has been seen more than 11,200 times since it was posted a day after the 13-year-old killed himself at a Southgate school.
The polished production -- which has a soundtrack, slides and footage from a candlelight vigil – was created by ninth-grade schoolmate jake Lobb. It's at the end of this article.
Lobb, 14, is an avid filmmaker with has 70 videos at his YouTube channel, which has 723 subscribers . Until now, his most popular clip was a 2011 short with 3,100 views.
"Fly High Ty," as the heart-wrenching tribute to Tyler Nichols is titled, passed the 10,000 mark Monday night – the day Jake and other students returned to Davidson Middle School. "It's amazing -- I thought it would just be seen by a few people from our school," Lobb says.
Recognition widened Tuesday aftermoon as national journalism blogger Jim Romenesko posted an item about Lobb as "a reminder than anyone can report reliably now." (Disclosure: He quotes a blog post by this Deadline Detroit contributor.)
"You will never be forgotten" says a dedication to the eighth-grader who killed himself Thursday in a school bathroom. The video features snapshots of Tyler at various ages with family and friends and scenes from a community candlelight vigil.
Jake Lobb, 14, is in ninth grade at Davidson.
He was at school that unforgettable morning and shot footage hours later when about 300 people gathered outside Anderson High. Lobb also asked online for photos of Tyler, chose appropriate music and used Google to find an uplifting quote for a closing slide.
The aspiring filmmaker, who taught himself videograpohy and editing "as a hobby," didn't know the younger schoomate. "I just felt this was the right thing to do out of respect," Lobb told Deadline Detroit in a phone interview Sunday shortly after returning from visitation for Tyler at Molnar Funeral Home in Southgate.
"Making this video was the hardest thing I have ever done," Lobb tweeted on Friday. "Crying and editing just don't mix."
Images are accompanied by a haunting country song , "Why," recorded in 2009 by Rascal Flats. Allen Shamblin and Robert Mathes wrote about a 17-year-old friend's suicide in lyrics that include these stanzas:
It must a been a place so dark, couldn't feel the light
Reachin' for you through that stormy cloud
Now here we are gathered in our little home town
This can't be the way you meant to draw a crowd
Oh why, that's what I keep askin'
Was there anything I could have said or done
Oh, I had no clue you were masking a troubled soul, God only knows
What went wrong and why you'd leave the stage in the middle of a song . . .
Who told you life wasn't worth the fight?
They were wrong
They lied
And now you're gone
And we cried
Near the video's close is a renowned author's message for anyone feeling despair:
"When you get in a tight place and everything goes against you, 'til it seems as though you could not hang on a minute longer, never give up then, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn."
-- Harriet Beecher Stowe
