Evlyn Reed, 9 and her brother Linus, 7, on set to film a YouTube video with Natham Graham also known as Unspeakable, James Amendola and Gabriel (Gabe) Cook, who are childhood friends of Grahams and star in a lot of his videos (Submitted photo)

Linus and Evelyn Reed explore a Lego Block truck prop on set while filming a YouTube video in Houston, Texas. (Submitted photo)

The adventure started when Evelyn, a third-grade student at Beaver Local Schools, who enjoys watching the Unspeakable channel on YouTube caught a video with Unspeakable (the gaming name for YouTube personality Nathan Graham, telling viewers that if they wanted a chance to meet him to film a commercial for FruitBlox gummy snack company and submit it.

Cody said the children have been watching Unspeakable’s channel for a couple of years and described it as good, clean entertainment and said it was silly, but clean, so he and Laura allow them to watch it, while limiting how much YouTube they watch.

“He (Unspeakable) has several YouTube channels geared toward elementary and middle school kids, which focus on playing video games and filming wacky scenarios with large props and flashy vehicles,” Laura said. “His largest channel has close to 20 million subscribers.”

Evelyn approached her parents with the idea of them filming a commercial for the contest. Cody said they were resistant to the idea at first, but Evelyn’s persistence won them over, and she convinced them to do it.

Cody said he was being a Debbie Downer about it and thought it would be a lot of work and they wouldn’t win so why bother.

“My dad wasn’t with it at first, but I convinced him,” Evelyn said. “So, eventually we started doing it. We filmed the video.”

The family sat down and wrote a script.

Cody said when writing the script, they thought of a chase thing and tried to highlight things that they thought YouTubers would like.

The video had to be based on Unspeakable’s new gummy snacks called Sour FruitBlox, Evelyn said.

Evelyn described the video saying it involved her going up into their treehouse, where Linus, a first-grade student at Beaver Local Schools, was eating the FruitBlox and was unwilling to share them with her. He fled the treehouse and tried to escape in a go-cart with Evelyn chasing him. Cody and Laura also make an appearance in the video which can be viewed on Laura’s YouTube channel.

They then enlisted Laura’s Brother Reese Kelly who went to school for film, to record the video, which he did with his phone and then edited it and sent to Laura who submitted it for the contest.

The family then waited to hear the results of the contest.

Cody noted the date to announce the winners came and went without the family hearing anything, and they thought they didn’t win and kind of moved on from it.

“The day came where we were going to find out and we didn’t hear anything and then about two weeks later we heard something, but we couldn’t find out because it went to my mom’s spam folder, but we found out a few days later because she realized that,” Evelyn said.

A couple of weeks later, Laura received a second email saying they were contest winners, and it turned out it took a little longer to determine the winners because the contest received more submissions than anticipated.

The Reed family was one of the top three winners selected from more than 1,000 entries.

The prize was a free trip to Houston, Texas for the family where the children would meet the Unspeakable crew and film a YouTube video for his channel.

Cody and Laura wanted to be certain that the win was real and not some type of scam and began researching the company and making phone calls too to verify it was real. Once they realized that it was for real. They told Evelyn and Linus and requested time off work and obtained excused absences for the children from school, so they could make the trip to Houston, Texas to film the video with Unspeakable with four other children.

Evelyn said when her parents told them they won, she asked them “for real” and when Laura said yes she screamed.

Cody said his initial reaction when finding out they were selected as winners on his birthday was a surprise, but he was also skeptical until he confirmed that it was real.

“I didn’t know we could win I didn’t even have my hope up it was like one in a million,” Linus said.

The family took the trip Oct. 14-16. During the trip they spent.

While in Houston, the family spent a 12-hour day on an approximately 70-acre filming compound. When they weren’t filming, they got to check out the prop room which was filled with Nerf and Orbie guns and check out other props such as a double decker bus filled with packing peanuts which they played in and got to sit in a Lamborghini and ride in miniature Tesla vehicle. The children were given a tour of the filming location.

Evelyn said the filming experience was different than anything she was used to, but she liked it.

Linus said it was fun, but kind of scary because he didn’t know the people and he is a little shy.

When asked how they felt after filming the video, Linus said “good”. Evelyn said she was excited. “I have always wanted to be famous kind of,” she said. “I want to do it again. That was fun for me.” Linus also said he wanted to do it again.

Cody said it was a learning experience for all of them because they did not know what went into a video and how much editing, retakes and shots it took, and that was a surprise for the kids.

Evelyn said that when watching videos now she thinks about the amount of work that goes into them and it’s interesting to think about how long it takes for different videos to be made.

Evelyn, who wants to be a lawyer when she grows up, said that acting in a video hasn’t changed her mind on that and she still wants to be a lawyer.

Linus now wants to be a YouTuber when he grows up.

“It was definitely a once in lifetime opportunity. I don’t think any of us will ever forget about it,” Cody said. “It was great opportunity and something that doesn’t happen every day and I think we are all just really appreciative to have been a part of that.”

The family is not allowed to release any information on the video until its release on Unspeakable’s YouTube channel. The anticipated release date is Nov. 8. The video is described as engaged in fun childish antics while challenging their salesmanship skills.

kgarabrandt@mojonews.com