I always like hearing what people use too. I use a DVX-100B….which I don’t actually recommend for video contests. I bought it because I shoot documentaries. The footage looks good on a TV but I never have been happy with the look of the videos when I post them to the web. Ia actually was pretty disappointed with the way this AMC video looks. We shot super fast and I didn’t want to spend time putting up lights. So I had to adjust some colors and brightness in editing. Without a lot of light, it’s easy to mess up your footage with a DVX. For editing I use a very old version of adobe premiere that I like very much. It’s super simple to use. I bought Final Cut Express last year and haven’t used it to edit one thing yet.

My non-HD videos are going to start looking old fashioned when they go up against more and more HD videos. So I have to upgrade to HD soon. Problem is, I’d want an HD camera that I could also use for documentaries. That means spending a lot of cash.

I have two favorite websites for that:

http://onlinevideocontests.com/

http://films4prizes.com/

Both of those sites list tons of contest. What I like to do is “sort by date due” and then look for contests that have deadlines about 2 weeks away. By that point the contests have been running for weeks so I check out what videos have been posted. If I don’t see any clear winners, I start writing. If no clear winners have been posted a week before the deadline I’ll shoot and submit something. A lot of times I will shoot just a day or two before the submission period ends.

~Robert C.