Since the dawn of man, pistachios have been just these tasty little nuts that always happened to be around exactly when you were craving them.   No one ever planned ahead of time to buy Pistachios, they just appeared when they were needed.  But last year, a brand called “Wonderful Pistachios” decided this had gone on long enough so they started putting Pistachios in pretty bags and then marketed the f&*% out of them with commercials featuring Z-list celebrities like Levi Johnston.

One tier of the company’s marketing campaign was a commercial contest.  Wonderful Pistachios picked 10 finalist videos and then let “the public” decide the best one.  First place was good for $25,000.  The people have spoken and here’s the winner:

First Place.  Prize: $25,000

Some of the finalists were pretty lame so I’m kind of surprised the public vote yielded a decent winner.  The video’s got nice production values, fancy editing, good music and lots of nut shots (you know, shots of nuts.)  So it’s a job well done.  But I think the guy that made THIS entry got robbed:

Runner up.  Prize:  $500.  Prize declined by filmmaker

Apparently, the director of that entry thinks he was robbed too.  His name is Michael Boudin and he’s won more that $60K in various video contests.  I know that because a few weeks ago, Films4Prizes.com did a video Q&A with him.  You can see it here. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXT77SZHU3s

After the winner was picked, Michael was offered a $500 runner-up prize.  He turned it down though.  I’ll cash just about any check that comes my way but I think he made the right call.  As Michael explains on youtube, he believes in his concept and plans to re-shoot the idea for a different contest.  If he had accepted the 500 bucks, Wonderful Pistachios would have been able to do whatever they wanted with the video, concept and script.  Basically they offered to buy it for a few hundred bucks and said “no deal.”

So think about that the next time you see a bunch of legal mumbo jumbo in a contest’s official rules that state that all entries become the property of the sponsor once you submit them.  That’s total B.S.  Your work is yours until you SIGN over your rights of ownership.  You always have a right to say, “No thanks” and you shouldn’t accept just any amount a company offers if you don’t think it’s a fair price for your work.