A filmmaker from LA named Angela Kholer won both the $10,000 jury prize and the $10,000 audience award in the “Your Amazon Ad” contest. On the contest page there’s a little story about how the video was created. Their concept was to do an Ad for the Amazon Kindle:
“On a plane from Japan to Thailand, we brainstormed ideas and sketched out little stories that our character could fall into following different literary genres. We scribbled out pictures on napkins and made a flip-book, putting the little scenes in different orders. The day of the shoot, we gutted a pillow to make clouds and smoke (a last-minute addition) and did the commercial in one seven-hour take.”
Here’s the video. I can’t embed it so click on the image to view it:
Pretty f#%&ing amazing right?
In all, the filmmakers shot more than 300 frames for their human stop-motion animation. That was a huge amount of effort and those folks certainly earned their winnings. However…there seem to be a lot of disgruntled people on the Amazon contest site. Some of the other contestants are upset about Amazon’s choices for the finalist slots. People are complaining that the five finalist videos (which you can see here) are too good!! Ha! Is that a refreshing change or what!? Usually other contestants are mad because the winning videos suck. In this case, contestants are mad because Amazon only selected videos that seemed (to commenters on the contest site) to have been created by professional filmmakers.
I have actually seen these types of complaints before. Non-pro video contestants feel like they are given false hope by contest organizers. They assume the contest will be for amateurs only so they shoot a video with their Flip camera and assume they have a shot at winning a big pile of cash. But then when a slick, HD video is selected as the winner they feel like the “little guys” never really had a shot at winning.
I can sort of understand this line of thought but yo…..$20,000 was up for grabs! It always amazes me that in every big contest half the entries will be poorly shot, badly lit and have terrible sound. Why would Amazon want to give thousands of dollars to an amateur-looking video?
Even though so much money was at stake there seems to be a real “anti-budget” mentality in the discussion boards on the contest site. Contestants who didn’t have much money to spend feel that people who are already rich enough to own high-end cameras had an unfair advantage. There’s even one discussion where contestants proudly compare their hyper-low budgets.
Like I said, I get the frustration but “best video wins” is the name of the game. If you’re new to video contests here is one thing you must lean and accept: Production Quality DOES matter. You don’t need a super expensive HD camera and full crew though. I once won $5,000 in a contest using a $250 camera from Walmart…which I returned after the shoot.
Videos need to be compressed to be posted to the web and that compression really levels the playing field. As long as you can SEE all the action that is taking place in your video and as long as you can HEAR everything that is going on and as long as the script is good enough that the viewer CARES about what is happening then you will have a shot at winning. You just need to learn how to make the most out of the gear you have. Just look at the video that started this discussion. Did it really take a lot of money or expensive gear to shoot that? No way. The only things it took was creativity and ingenuity. As long as you have plenty of that you’ll be a serious contender in any contest you enter.
If you’ve ever been to a film fest you’ve probably seen a short little video bumper promoting the festival that run before the screening starts. They’re always very unique and fun. Well the New York Film Festival needed a promo bumper for this year’s festival so they put out an open call for submissions on poptent. This call was kind of unusual for the site since the fest is non-profit and there would be no cash award. However, the fest did give out a “super” VIP package and the selected festival trailer will be shown throughout the New York Film Festival and will then be shown in theaters year round before other screenings.
That right there is actually a pretty sweet prize. Getting a film into the NY festival would be great for anyone’s filmmography but to have the festival as a client and to have your work screen in theaters and in Lincoln Center(!) would be a really nice resume builder. Here’s the video that was chose by The New York Film Festival:
That’s really slick. I like it. If you want to see something crazy though, check out this video that was one of the finalists:
That video was created by three US Marines while serving in Afghanistan! More details about the guys who made it can be found here. To see more submitted videos, check out Poptent’s blog: http://www.poptent.net/blog/
Ok, that video is just awesome. If there’s one thing I love it’s sandwiches and if there are two things I love it’s sandwiches and bears. That video is great for a lot of reasons but for one it just goes to show that you don’t need a fancy camera or slick editing to win a contest. Sometimes all you need is a funny idea and a stuffed bear. So kudos to Evan and Carl. Nice work. The canned bear roar coming from the motionless bear is what totally makes this one.
I really enjoy entering video contests. Each contest I enter is a new creative challenge that requires a different solution. Thanks to the contests I’ve entered I’ve become a much sharper filmmaker so it’s a great way to improve your skills. And of course, I also really like winning and getting big checks in the mail for my work.
But there’s a lot about video contests that frustrate me. Contest organizers sometimes don’t play by their own rules and sometimes contestants just flat out cheat in an effort to win. And that’s why I started this blog. My hope is that if someone shines a little light on the negative aspects of video contests, people will be forced to do better and play fair.
I think the thing that bothers me most about video contests is the lack of civility and good sportsmanship. Greed, jealousy and desperation can make people go a little crazy. Throw in the anonymity that the internet provides and you’ve got a recipe for sabotage and trash talk. For example, in a score-based competition, how many times have you seen your star rating drop mysteriously in a very short amount of time? How many times have you gotten ugly, anonymous comments about one of your videos? Do other contestants really think that the judges will see that youtube user “rudeboy742” thinks your entry “sucks goat ass” and then think to themselves, “yeah! This video does suck goat ass!?”
A few days ago I wrote about suspicious voting activity in the Butterfinger contest. The next day, someone going by the name “Douche Pumper” (yes, that’s what he called himself) left a very angry, very depressing comment on that blog post. Here it is:
Wow. Talk about someone who is bitter about being fat and having a small ding-dong. You think anyone really wants to listen to some fat, red-bearded turd ramble on about how disgruntled he is over video contests? They don’t. Loser.
Get a life and get a job, you lazy f—. And, better yet, why don’t you make your own videos and actually compete in these contests. Then someone might actually care about what you have to say. Until then, have fun watching your website float off into the ether of Internet sites never visited.
It’s always the fat guys with little ding-dongs who start sites like this. Like Harry Knowles.
Anonymous Coward. <—That means you. Not my signature.
It’s obvious what has happened here, right? One of the contestants in the Butterfinger contest saw that I was questioning the suspicious voting activity and are pissed that I suggested that they may have been doing something less than ethical to win that contest.
Except….that’s not what happened. Though the comment was left anonymously it was pretty easy to figure out where it came from. I added a fancy piece of code to this wordpress blog that tells me where visitors are from and how they got here. I checked the program logs and saw that the comment came from a visitor from Dallas, TX who arrived at the site via a google search for the name “Justin Spence.”
A few weeks ago I did a blog post about a Dallas filmmaker named Justin Spence who I believe flagrantly plagiarized the work of frequent video contest winner, Jared Cicon. Mr. Spence seemed to copy Jared’s 2008 winning Taxlsayer.com video for a contest held by ForRent.com. I feel that he not only plagiarized the concept he even copied the tone and pacing and locations of Jared’s video. I wouldn’t have even mentioned it on the site except that Mr. Spence’s apparent rip-off actually won first place and 10 grand from ForRent.com. Jared graciously said he didn’t mind the plagiarism but Spence never bothered to get his OK until other people called him out on his theft. All around it was just a very uncool thing to do. To read the blog post that got Mr. Spence so angry, click here. And just so you can see I’m not crazy, here is Jared’s original Taxslayer ad:
And here’s is Justin Spence’s winng ForRent.com ad:
So anyway, it looks like Mr. Spence found the post about him while googling himself. He got angry and needed to unleash his venom (he also unleashed in a rather ugly way on the people on the ForRent site who also accused him of plagiarism.) But if Mr. Spence left a comment on my post about him then everyone would realize it was he who was obsessed with the size of my “ding-dong.” So he left the comment on the Butterfinger post to make it look like someone from that contest was the anonymous jerk. And that’s the part that really bothers me. Not only did he say a bunch of ugly (and wildly incorrect BTW) stuff, he also tried to frame one of the butterfinger finalists.
If Mr. Spence thought that what I said about his ForRent.com winning video was incorrect or unfair, he could have just e-mailed me and said so. I would have even been happy to post some kind of rebuttal from him or maybe even take down the original post. But instead, her spewed out a bunch of weird bile. Just for fun, I’ll address some of Justin’s points:
“Wow. Talk about someone who is bitter about being fat and having a small ding-dong. You think anyone really wants to listen to some fat, red-bearded turd ramble on about how disgruntled he is over video contests? They don’t. Loser.”
Not actually a photo.
Do you see what’s going on in this guy’s head? He doesn’t seem to realize that the mascot of this website isn’t an actual photo of me. I don’t look anything like that guy. I just thought it was a funny piece of clip art so I picked “beardy” as The Video Contest News’ mascot. The thing that really speaks volume’s about this person’s maturity level is his obsession with “ding dong” size. Why is Justin Spence so hung up on penis size? I’m no psychiatrist but I’ve seen enough episodes of Frasier to make an educated guess. Also, I am not disgruntled. I am totally gruntled with video contests! I don’t want to give an exact number but I have won A LOT of money thanks to video contests in the last two years. Also, Beardy’s beard is really more brown than red, isn’t it?
“And, better yet, why don’t you make your own videos and actually compete in these contests. Then someone might actually care about what you have to say..”
Why would someone be into video contests enough to start a blog devoted to them and yet never shoot entries themselves? For the record, I shoot maybe 3 contest entries a month and as I said, I do win….a lot.
It’s always the fat guys with little ding-dongs who start sites like this. Like Harry Knowles.
How does Mr. Spence know how big Harry Knowles’ penis is? I don’t know and I don’t want to know. Wait a second, they are both from Texas. Maybe…um, never mind.
At the end of Mr. Spence comment he slams me for writing this blog anonymously….and then signs off anonymously with the name “Douche Pumper.” (Why would he call himself Douche Pumper??)
Ok….so, I understand that the irony here is getting pretty deep. I write a blog under a pseudonym where I call out cheaters, bad sports and crappy contests and Justin criticizes me for doing that and then tries to make it look like some innocent contestant from the Butterfinger contest did it.
This is a good time for me to explain why I do things the way I do here on VCN. I’m very, very proud of my video work and it’s been very tempting to post about my latest wins here. This site could also be a great tool for building a personal fan base and for getting votes for videos when I need them. But I’ve decided that I should keep my work out of this blog, at least for now. The reason? I am worried about retribution from people like Justin Spence. Like I said, I want to see video contests cleaned up and so I’m going to be bringing attention to people who are making video contests less fun for the rest of us. Now imagine if my name and a list of my work was available on this site. Many video contests are basically popularity contests. If a guy like Mr. Spence is so bitter and angry that he has to make fun of a cartoon mascot’s beard and penis size then it’s not a giant leap to assume that he might also try and sabotage a stranger’s contest entries in retribution for them pointing out his inappropriate actions. Long story short, if you act like a jerk I am going to call you out on it. But I refuse to give bad people the tools to wreck my chances in whatever contests I’m currently in.
Video contests are awesome but guys like Mr. Spence make them less awesome. These are the guys that aren’t just satisfied with getting their friends to vote for their entries, they also have to get their friends to give bad scores to their competition. These are the guys that create fake youtube accounts so they can make it look like “the people” all agree that your work sucks. These are the guys start fights in the comments sections of a contest’s website. These are the guys that make us all look bad and these are the guys that convince companies that video contests are just not worth all the hassle. Guys like Mr. Spence are the ones that want to wreck a good thing. But you don’t need to let these angry people get away with it. If someone is harassing you in a contest, let us know and we’ll try and give them some of the attention they obviously crave so badly.
Video contests can get pretty ugly. If you're having a problem with a contest let us know! Maybe we can kick a little ass on your behalf. E-mail us at Videocontestnews@gmail.com.
Pretty f#%&ing amazing right?
