If you have a camera, a piece of paper and 5 spare minutes you should probably go ahead and shoot an entry for the Infolinks “Double with a Bubble” video contest. This video will tell you everything you need to know about entering:
So that’s it. Take some footage of yourself showing off a bubble or a sign that says the word “double” and you could win one of 61 prizes. 61 PRIZES! Sure, 40 of those are t-shirts and tote bags but Infolinks is also giving away 10 video cameras and 10 ipods. Plus the best video of them all gets $1,000.
The deadline to enter is January 1st and so far, only 10 entries have been submitted. So if you’re a cheap bastard and you’re heading to a Christmas party next weekend, bring a camera and some bubble gum with you. You can tell your friends that your present to them is that you will shoot, edit and upload a “Double with a Bubble” entry for them!
Lending Tree is running a video contest to promote its new “You to the rescue” campaign on the contest site, Tongal. The top prize in this one is 5 grand and you don’t even need to come up with your own idea! Five approved concepts have already been posted and are just waiting for people to film them. The deadline was originally supposed to be a few days ago but even though 20 entries had already been recived, the contest deadline was extended until Monday, November 2nd.
That might mean that none of the 20 submitted entries are good enough to take the top prize. So you have three days to swoop in and win this one! Cancel your Halloween party and get filming.
Whenever I see a contest that’s got really confusing instructions or is about a really unappealing subject I always seriously consider entering. Why? Because if I think the instructions are confusing and if I think that the topic is unappealing then probably 90% of filmmakers will feel the same way. If a contest is hard to enter, enter it. It might take a lot of time and research to get a strong concept together but if you do a half-way decent job the sponsor will be thrilled that they got at least one non-crappy entry.
I mention all this because for the last few days I have been trying to wrap my brain around a contest called AntiHIVirus. Yes…it’s a video contest about HIV. Specifically, the goal is for filmmakers to create PSAs about HIV prevention.
But here’s the catch; the ads are to be aimed at an international audience. Therefore, contestants are encouraged to use little or NO DIALOGUE.
This is a very, very attractive contest to enter. Here’s why:
The winners are picked by judges
There is no public voting
There are three top prizes: $5K, $3K and $2K
The subject matter and the no dialogue thing will discourage a lot of people from entering.
There is one big “con” to this contest though. All entries are hidden until after the submission period ends. So you don’t know if 2 people have entered or 200 people have entered. But really, who the heck wants to make a dialogue-free spec PSA about HIV?? I shoot video contest entries for topics that I think will be fun to cover. And this contest does not seem fun at all.
After days of trying to think of a good concept for this one I’m throwing in the towel. The deadline to enter is October 13th. Can you come up with something by then?
This next contest we heard about thanks to super-video contest winner HappyJoel. In fact, it’s HIS contest. After having some fun doing an imitation of Rodney Dangerfield for Conan’s “Please blow up my car” contest, Joel decided he needed to encourage others to also channel Rodney.
The rules of the contest are amusing so I’ll just post them straight from Joel’s site. After years of being frustrated by the limiting rules of other contests, Joel decided to keep the restrictions on his own pretty loose:
“You must submit a video of your best Rodney Dangerfield impersonation.
ALL THE JOKES MUST BE ORIGINAL! YOU CANNOT USE ANY OF RODNEYS OLD ROUTINE! Just jokes IN THE STYLE of Rodney Dangerfield.
Post YOUR video as a response to MY video by midnight October 4th, 2009. Winner announced Monday, October 5th. Here’s the link for my video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5Hm-UFvWtQ
1st PRIZE: $50 iTunes Gift Card
2nd PRIZE: $25 iTunes Gift Card
3RD Prize: My intern and I will call you and say hi.
Since it’s my own video contest, I’m finally going to run one the way I wish they all were run. The winner is to be determined by me and me alone. There is no time limit minimum or maximum. I am picking based solely on which one I think is the funniest. I don’t care about production value, I don’t care if it was filmed with a webcam, cell phone or HD CRX-500 or whatever the hell it is. NO age limit. Any Nationality. Just make it funny, make it watchable, and make it feel like Rodney.”
So far, only 2 people have entered and one of them is Joel’s personal assistant for hire from India! The assistant’s entry cracks me up but I think it’s ineligible to win. Still, it’s funny so I’ll post it as inspiration.
So there are two itunes cards up for grabs and only one entry so far! This one definitely qualifies as “ripe for the plucking.” You know what I like best about this contest? That the winners will be announced the day after the contest closes. Joel understands that in any video contest, the waiting is the hardest part.
Once in a while here at the Video Contest News we’ll be profiling contests that are just begging to be entered and won by anyone with an ounce of talent. I’ve been trying to come up with a good name for this category of video contests and the most fitting phrase I can think of is “ripe for the plucking.” Yeah, it’s kind of corny but hey, there are a lot of open contests that are seriously ripe and ready for you to come along and win them.
“The winning videos will be used to educate people with psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis about valuable resources they can access to connect with other psoriasis patients. Your mission is to show psoriasis patients the value of these resources.”
There are lots more details on the website. Long story short, Psoriasis sucks and the goal of the contest is to educate people about how they can fight it. Psoriasis Cure Now is awarding TWO $5,000 prizes and EIGHT $500 prizes! Holy crap, that’s a lot of money. The deadline to enter is October 20th BUT…if you get your entry in by next Monday, September 14th you will qualify for “EarlyBird” Prizes. There are two categories to enter “Walk” and “Web” (again, check the website for the full story) and one Earlybird entry from each will get $1,000.
You hear that you lazy bastards!? If you enter by Monday you will have a shot at winning one of two $1,000 earlybird prizes. And guess how many entries there are right now….EIGHT!! Eight entries and $2,000 is up for grabs! You can see the “Walk” entries here and the “Web” entries here. Can you top those? Do you have some free time this weekend? If so, bust out that camera and bitch slap psoriasis with your talent and win that EarlyBird prize!
Seems like every marketing guy and their momma is trying to entice us Joe Handycams into shooting ads for their company these days. There’s a lot of cash and a ton of prizes waiting to be won in online video contests and if you have even a smidge of writing, shooting or editing skills, all that awesome stuff could be yours. So you guys focus on winning ‘em and we’ll cover the aftermath of your glorious victories and/or pathetic defeats!
Video contests can get pretty ugly. Organizers do not always want to play by their own rules, other contestants flagrantly cheat and poorly run competitions cause frustrations for everyone. Wish you could bring a problem to the attention of a contest’s organizers but you’re worried that you might be branded a no-good troublemaker? We can help. Let us know about your problem and we’ll try and kick a little ass on your behalf. E-mail us at Videocontestnews@gmail.com.
