Ok, this is a really, really, really obscure contest but the winning video amused me so I thought I’d post it. The contest was called “Bhangra Rocks!” What is Bhangra? The contest announcement on the Bhangra Rocks website explains it a bit:
“Bhangra – It is India’s quintessential dance form, that brings a smile on every face with the sheer melody of its beats and those footloose dance steps. Internationally recognized as the ultimate dance form of fun and enjoyment, we invite all you dance enthusiasts to shake a leg – bhangra style! Go as unique and creative as you can get. Go Bhangra on your favorite Punjabi track or on the latest number of your star hip-hopper. Bring on the beats, let your hair down and have someone record it while you enjoy to the desi (or not so desi) music.”
Though I was tempted to go bhangra on my favorite Punjabi track, I did not get around to submitting an entry for this one. Good thing too because these dudes would have blown me out of the water!
I seriously was eating some of these like an hour ago
I can’t believe there are only 24 days to go before the deadline to enter the Doritos Crash the Superbowl contest. Time is flying by. So far, only about 100 people have submitted entries. Last year, Doritos received more that 1,900 entries! So to keep up with that number, 75 people a day will have to start uploading commercials. However it’s probably more likely that a thousand videos will be uploaded during the last week of the contest. There does seem to be a whole lot of interest in the contest at least. Even videos that just went up have hundreds of views.
But maybe there just won’t be as many entries this year? For one thing, most of the country has been a lot colder than normal this month. The area where I live has had rainy and colder than average weather for the last 20 days or so! That makes filming your big picnic scene or whatever kind of hard. But of course the big factor this year will probably be the economy. Last year the winners of the million dollar “snowglobe” commercial spent $2,000 on their spot. Know many people who are willing to spend that much money on a project that might get them nothing in the end, these days? I guess we’ll see. I have a feeling a lot of entries are going to be shot this weekend.
Doritos has made some nice improvements to the contest site in the last few days. For one, they mercifully added a “MUTE” button so that you could turn off the annoying rock music that plays in a loop. They also added a feature where you could link to or embed specific videos. So I thought I’d give it a try. Out of the 108 videos that have so far been submitted for the contest, these two are hands down, without question, the best:
The one with the shark is pretty good and was made by Jared Cicon who was a finalist in the contest in 2007 I think. That shark is by far the best prop and best sight gag used in any of the entries. The one with the guy putting his head through the roof IS one of the best of the submitted videos but I think by next week it will fall out of the running. For a video that relies on slapstick and action I think it’s lacking a really strong punchline and isn’t crazy enough for the superbowl. But still, it’s funny and pretty well done.
So, those are the two best entries. If the commercial you’re planning to shoot isn’t at least as good as these then you might want to go back to the drawing board while you still have time left.
UPDATE: Jared, the creator of the Shark commercial wrote a great blog post about the making of his spot and included some nice strategic tips. He even came to VCN and left an informative comment to this post. So to read more about “The Video Contest King” check out his website and click the “View Comments” button below to learn more about his Crash the Superbowl plans.
Wowza. If you want to see some really, really good video contest entries, check out the videos that won the Etsy “Handmade Moment” contest. Submitted videos had to be under 30 seconds, promote Etsy (a neat site where people sell their crafts and homemade goods) and be based on the theme “A handmade moment.”
As you’d expect, all the winning entries were animated or stop motion videos featuring craft supplies doing crazy things. Also not surprisingly, the winners heavily featured adorable monsters and robots because monsters and robots are notoriously huge fans of crafting. Here’s a screen cap of the first place video (prize: $3,250) that features both a monster AND a robot. Click it to visit the contest site and see all the winning entries.
The opening of the remake of Fame came and went without much attention a few weeks back but to promote the release of the film, LG sponsored a Fame-themed video contest. They encouraged dancers, singers and musicians to film themselves covering the remade Fame theme song in whatever way they wanted. So a dancer could dance to it or a singer could sing it or a musician could play it. I’m sure you get the picture. There was only won prize and it was a whopper: $50,000. Here’s the winning video. I can’t embed it so click on the image to watch it.
Warning: Video contains mimes
Whoever shot that thing is really smart. Most of the other entries consist of a people who set their camera up in their bedroom or in their ballet studio and danced in front of it alone. The makers of the winning video went all out and made a super slick music video. I can see why it won but….I don’t know, it seems a little TOO slick if you ask me. This is one of those times when you have to wonder if maybe the sponsor hired a ringer to create a great entry. Except that doesn’t make much sense in this case. Normally I’d suspect a ringer if a company plans on using the wining video in their advertising campaigns. But the ad campaign for Fame is over. The contest itself was part of that campaign and the movie has already kind of been forgotten about. So everything is probably on the up and up. I’m going to guess that a lot of the kids who jumped around in front of their web cams and thought they’d have a chance at winning 50 grand will be upset that a pro-made video went on to be named the winner in this one. Again, the winning video was really well made but picking it sort of goes against the original “film yourself” spirit of the contest, I think.
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.
