Even to Hollywood.

Two Massachusetts 20-somethings are using a $100 YouTube Inc. video as a launching pad into the potentially lucrative world of film directing.

Last November, Paul Cummings and Tony Fiandaca choreographed and starred in a homemade video featuring thumping techno music and a surreal, stop-motion battle royal. The short, titled “Tony vs. Paul,” was posted on YouTube to provide nothing more than a potential laugh for the duo’s family and friends.

After it was posted, the five-minute video found its intended audience and then some; calls from the West Coast were soon lighting up the lines.
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“We weren’t like, all right, this is going to be a hit! We had the goal of 10,000 views. That would have been a huge accomplishment,” said Cummings. “We entertained around 100 offers. I wish I could take credit for the promotion and marketing. Someone saw it, and it got passed around, and within in a couple of weeks it had a half a million hits.”

Those hits eventually paved a deal for Cummings and Fiandaca, both 27, to be represented as directors by the Hollywood production company Kachew!. The two also recently completed a series of three online, joint video promotions for Nestle’s Butterfinger and the upcoming Universal Studios Ping-Pong comedy “Balls of Fury.”