Web Video / Bright Sun Films

Bright Sun Films (formerly Bright Sun Gaming) is a YouTube channel run by Canadian filmmaker Jake Williams (found here), notable for it's Abandoned series. The channel makes documentary videos about abandoned locations, as well as bankrupt companies and cancelled series/projects.

The series started off as a gaming channel (hence the former name), but that quickly changed after uploading a video by the name of "Something Neat" talking about the abandoned River County water park. Said video proved to be much more popular than the gaming content^note normal gaming videos by the channel got double-digit views; this one was the first one to get quadruple digit views, and after a followup video on River County, the first Abandoned video, covering Disney's Discovery Island, was officially released, and due to the reception it received, Abandoned became a series. In February 2016, the channel rebranded itself to Bright Sun Films, dropping the gaming content^note most of it has either been unlisted or removed, but some of the older videos do still exist if you wish to view them, and focused mostly on Abandoned. While most of the content that is produced falls under one of the following series, there are cases that are uncategorized and does not fit in the format of one of the series presented.

On January of 2020, Jake announced his feature length documentary, Closed for Storm, about the Six Flags New Orleans park, which was released on July 6th, 2021.

Series produced by this channel include:

• Abandoned: The most popular series on the channel, this documentary series focuses on locations that have been, well, abandoned, giving a historical retrospect of the location(s), as well as explaining why it was eventually abandoned, and what it's current fate is. As previously mentioned, started with a video on Disney's Discovery Island, which was later remade. Occasionally, episodes on this show will be follow-ups to videos he previously made where he explored abandoned locations.
• Cancelled: A series Jake created to compliment Abandoned, this focuses on things that don't entirely fit within the Abandoned format, such as cancelled TV series, amusement parks that were never finished/never started construction, and video games that were never made. Started with an episode on Terra Nova.
• Bankrupt: A series that takes a look at some of the most fascinating corporate bankruptcies (i.e., airline companies, cruise lines, banks). Started with an episode on Pan Am airlines.
• Explore: A series where Jake and his crew will travel to an abandoned location and film their experiences, giving a brief summary of the location.

For a similar channel focusing primarily on theme parks, see Defunctland.

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This YouTube Channel contains examples of the following tropes:

• Artifact Title: The channel's URL is still "Bright Sun Gaming" despite having, well, abandoned such content long ago^note whether or not YouTube won't let him change the URL or he decided to keep the URL as is is unknown.
• Darker and Edgier: Although the series is relatively middle of the road tone-wise, one notable example stands out: the house shown in "Lost in Time", which is..disturbing, to say the least, with the first recording tape (audio-only, thankfully) being of a mouse struggling to escape from a sticky pad trap. And as they explore more of the house, they begin to paint a picture of a man who, thanks to mental illness, became disconnected from reality, both mentally and physically.
• Downer Ending: The video on the Glass Bank. Frank Wolf, having been basically bulled by the city of Cocoa Beach for his refusal to part with his penthouse on top of the Glass Bank, killed himself, and the city tore down the whole structure, having become an eyesore to many.
• Going Down with the Ship: Captains Francesco Schettino and Yiannis Avranas of the Costa Concordia and Oceanos respectively refused to follow this trope as expected, as mentioned in the videos on said ships^note both captains horribly managed their ship's evacuations; Yiannis was lucky that no one died, but still had to deal with the fury of the crew and passengers; as for Schettino, he was later charged with manslaughter.
• His Own Worst Enemy: Jake has found a few cases where a company fails because their business decisions are so poorly made that they comes across as self-sabotage more than anything else.
  • Ames Department Store - This Northeastern American Discount Store Chain had a habit of buying up struggling regional brands. The company had hoped they could turn these ventures around for profit, but instead they ultimately hurt the company and contributed to its filing for bankruptcy protection in 1990, getting out of it two years later. However, in 1998, the now barely-profitable Ames decided yet-again to buy out another struggling brand, Hills Department Store, to expand. This created a downward spiral that caused Ames to file for bankruptcy a final time in 2002 before finally going out of business.
  • Blockbuster- After its peak in 2004, Blockbuster began to view Netflix as a threat and opted to create its own DVD-Rental-by-Mail service^note  This was before Netflix would create the internet streaming service it's known for today , which turned out to be fairly successful for the company. However, in 2007, the company decided to dissolve its online services and Mail Rentals to focus entirely on physical in-store retail, which unsurprisingly was a fatal mistake for the company. And finally, the company opted to stop charging late fees on its rentals, which cut a significant portion of its sales income. All these revenue losses led to the company's demise in the 2010s.
    Jake: So is it really Blockbuster's Fault that caused their outcome? Well, Kinda... Yeah.
  • Kodak - Even though the company created one of the first true digital cameras back in the 70s and did see some potential, they decided to kill off the project since film sales accounted for up to 80% of its sales income and did not want to impact this ^note  Also, for decades digital photography could not produce the same level of high quality images that film photography could. But this notion became moot as digital photography began to evolve . In fact, Kodak would then have a history of outright refusing to switch to digital. This ultimately allowed other companies, like Sony, Canon, and Nikon, to get a head-start in the growing digital camera market by the 90s & early 2000s. By the time Kodak finally invested in digital cameras & photography, they only did so cautiously and still held onto its film division, without really trying to develop the technology like its competitors. It all was too little too late. The current Kodak is unrecognizable; it’s now mainly a printing company and a shell of its former self.
  • Sears - Despite being the largest retailer chain in the world at one point (or perhaps because of it), Sears couldn't fathom not being such. It simply believed it would always have a customer base. As a result, they did not see other brands like Walmart or Target as serious competition until it was too late. They also failed to update with the times, and were still using technology and general practices from the 80s well into the 2010s, along with not really investing in internet sales or even having a serviceable website. All of this led to customers simply losing interest in the out-of-date brand and choosing other retailers, in-store or online.
• It Will Never Catch On: Discussed in the Blockbuster episode - in 2000, they were offered the chance to buy a small DVD mailing company for $50 million. Because Blockbuster was still doing very well at the time, they turned down the offer. Said company, Netflix, would later end up dwarfing Blockbuster, who would wind up filing for bankruptcy in 2010^note although as Jake notes, buying Netflix wouldn't have changed that much in the long run, since if Netflix didn't come up with the idea of video streaming, someone else (i.e., Hulu) would have, and at best, Blockbuster would've only delayed their bankruptcy.
• Running Gag: As the Abandoned series has gone on, the year 2008 has become something of one within it, due to the 2008 Great Recession resulting in many of the videos' subjects being either unfinished during construction (i.e. the Revel, Fontainebleu, and Echelon resort-casinos) or otherwise financially ruined (such as Hard Rock Park). The 2020 recession resulting from the COVID-19 Pandemic is also on its way to this status.
  Jake: (in the Fontainebleu Las Vegas episode) As construction went vertical, the global economy went the other way. And I bet you're thinking to yourself right about now that taking on billions in bank loans developing a tourist-centered project, especially one that big, was a bad combination... and you're absolutely right. The 2008 recession has become a bit of a theme lately on my channel, so you'll know that having construction projects that are heavily leveraged off of loans during this time was extremely risky.
• Violation of Common Sense: Another Blockbuster related example - when it became clear that mail order/streaming was the way of the future, the company inexplicably began to focus on physical retail, even closing down their existing mail-order DVD business.
• What Could Have Been: Invoked at the video about Split/Second (2010) 2, where the Sequel Hook at the end is discussed.

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