The deadline to enter Godaddy’s commercial contest was last Friday and it looks like they received in the neighborhood of 530 entries! I say “in the neighborhood” because I counted all the entries myself and after scrolling for that I long my counting probably suffered some. 530 entries is a major accomplishment but what’s especially noteworthy is the QUALITY of those 530 entries. Sure, there are a ton of videos in that bunch that make you wonder “what were those people thinking?” but a significant percentage of entries were serious attempts to make a good, TV-quality commercial. I was amazed to see that most entries were shot in wide screen HD too. Yes, $100,000 is a lot of motivation but in Doritos’ Crash the Superbowl contest, millions were at stake. But the average quality of the Godaddy entries blows away the quality of the average Crash the Superbowl entry.
So, I think this really marks the start of a new era in video contests. Things have changed a lot in just the 7 months that have passed since the deadline for the last Doritos contest. More people are now able to make better quality videos with a new wave of cheap, easy to use cameras. The playing field has become very level, very fast. Even my own entry turned out better-looking than my past projects because I just bought a new SLR that also shoots HD video. I think it turned out well, so permit me to show it off. Watch in 1080p mode for the full effect:
If you watched a lot of the other Godaddy entries, you probably noticed that mine is kind of different from the typical submission. I was surprised that so many filmmakers went with the “hot godaddy girl does (blank) in a sexy way” angle. There were some really good “sexy” entries but I figured that if Godaddy was going through all this trouble to get fresh material, maybe they are looking for something totally different. So I thought I’d feature a different kind of a godaddy girl in my ad; a girl who actually builds a website using godaddy.com.
I had a few other strategies for this contest. My plan was to jam as much interesting stuff into 30 seconds as possible to create a Rube Goldberg-esque story. Hopefully, the spot moves so quickly and is full of so many small gags that online viewers will automatically hit “replay” as soon as it ends and if it were on TV, viewers would pay attention when it popped up on their screens. And any ad that viewers want to watch more than once succeeds on at least one level.
But my big theory about my video was this: Everybody…hates…hipsters. Even hipsters hate hipsters! (one symptom of hipsterism is denial mixed with disdain for their own kind) Despite all the anti-hipster sentiments floating around the zeitgeist, I’ve never seen a commercial that captures those feelings.
Actually, this whole ad was loosely inspired by the blog Look at this Fucking Hipster. It’s a blog that posts nothing but shots of hipsters douching it up. That blog, like so may other popular blogs (Icanhascheezeburger, Cake Wrecks, post secret, etc) wound up getting a “blog-to-book-deal.” In fact, the trend has become so hot that there’s even an awesome parody blog out there called “Look at this fucking idea for a blog to book deal.” (http://fuckingbookdeal.com) If you have some time to kill and enjoy internet meta humor, check it out.
So what about you? Did you get your godaddy entry done in time? If you want to use VCN to hustle for some votes, just a post a link to your video in the comment section and I’ll move the link into the body of this post. (make sure you use the link godaddy provides when you click the “share this video” button under your entry.) I’ll get the ball rolling; if you like my video and dislike hipsters, why not do me a favor and rate my entry 5 stars?:
FEBRUARY 8th, 2010 UPDATE: In the post below I explain that I suspect that my Casket-full-of-Doritos idea for the Crash the Superbowl contest might have been stolen by another team of filmmakers. Well, the suspicious entry, “Casket” went on to score a spot in the finals and last night it aired during the Superbowl. Since I first wrote this post I’ve learned a lot about the other entry and I am more convinced than ever that I was plagiarized. For a more up to date version of this story, click here: http://videocontestnews.com/2010/02/08/dueling-caskets-full-of-doritos/
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Beardy is camping out to buy tickets for tonight’s 12:01AM screening of Twilight so while he’s away I thought I’d step in and do a little self-promotion. I also wanted to share my Doritos hard luck story. Like pretty much anybody reading this site, I submitted an entry for this year’s Crash the Superbowl contest. And here is that very entry now!
Be honest, it’s the greatest thing you’ve ever seen right? I’m super proud of my submission but I know that the competition out there is tough. And I was totally ok with the fact that with thousands of entries coming in, 6 teams of professional filmmakers with deep pockets and Red cameras and fancy dollies would probably come along and take all the finalist spots. And like I said, I was totally cool with that. But then….I saw this:
Ahhhhh! Some team of professional filmmakers with deep pockets and a Red camera and a fancy dolly came along and filmed an idea a whole lot like mine! Man, that’s a bummer. The coincidences between that spot and mine are just crazy, aren’t they? When 4000 people each try and come up with an idea for a commercial for the same product there’s obviously going to be some overlap, but damn, there’s a lot of overlap here. Of course, I’ve seen a lot of CTSB entries that have really similar ideas. (For instance, how many Doritos-as-a-paper-football and dorito-loving-zombies spots have you watched in the last few weeks?) But of the 2200 or so Crash entries I’ve watched, I don’t think there are two of them that share more common elements than these two casket-full-of-doritos entries. I mean, it’s not just that both videos are funeral scenes. It’s that both videos include:
1. A dead man’s last wish to be buried in a casket full of Doritos
2. A funeral for that guy that turns out to be fake
3. A big, framed photo of the “dead” guy enjoying a bag of Doritos next to the casket
4. Shots of that guy in his casket buried up to his face in chips
5. A climax in which the “dead” guy gets his comeuppance when the casket of chips is knocked over
That’s sort of a lot of similarities to squeeze into 30 seconds, isn’t it? I have to wonder, what the heck happened here? Is this just a case of really bad luck or is the CIA monitoring my brainwaves as part of some kind of scheme to control the masses via secret messages hidden in a superbowl commercial? There’s no chance that another team of filmmakers were somehow (gulp) inspired by my entry, is there?
My entry, Rest in Chips was uploaded on Friday, November 6th and the other video, The Casket, appeared online a few days later. I might be paranoid but I’m not crazy enough to think that the makers of the other entry saw Rest In Chips and then ran out the next day and rented a church so they could make their own version of my spot. So I was left with only one conclusion; this was just a giant coincidence…nothing more.
But then it finally hit me; I am an idiot. After I wrote my script I created and animated storyboard so I could see if I could fit my entire idea into 30 seconds. On October 6th, I uploaded that storyboard animation on to youtube. Then I sent the link to a few people and asked for ideas and feedback. During that time, the video was set to “public” and could be seen by anyone. One of my friends even said to me “why did you put that on youtube? What if someone steals your idea!?” And I laughed and laughed at that notion. And then I stopped laughing because I realized I had made a very stupid mistake. I named the video “Doritos Storyboard.” Because the word “Doritos” was in the title, any CTSB contestant who went to youtube to study last year’s winning entries or actual Doritos commercials could have found and watched my storyboard.
I’ve been burned by plagiarism before so I went back to youtube and deleted the storyboard. But by then it had already been up for like a week. A few days later, I changed some of the dialogue in my script and created a slightly tweaked version of the animated storyboard. On October 12th I uploaded that video to youtube except I named this one simply “dortest” so that it would be hidden from youtube’s search engine. It’s still online. Here it is:
I hate to think the worst of people like this but if you think I’m going overboard, try a little experiment. Open The Casket in one window and my storyboard video in the other. Then hit “Play” on them as fast as you can so you can watch them simultaneously. The shots line up better than Dark Side of the Moon and The Wizard of Oz. I can maybe understand that two separate filmmakers could come up with the same ideas, but what are the odds they’d use the same site gags at the same moments??
I really have no idea what to think about this. I know it’s just speculation on my part but I think I might have declare shenanigans on the makers of The Casket. At the very least, I think it’s plausible that somewhere out there, another filmmaker who was planning on entering the CTSB contest went on to youtube and searched for “Dortios” related videos. If they “Sorted by date,” my storyboard would have been right up in their face. The storyboard seems too crazy to ever shoot (seriously, what kind of a nut would get a real casket and have a real grave dug?) so maybe they assumed it would never really be filmed and so the concept was fair game.
Or maybe it was the CIA. I dunno. At this point I’m pretty open to any possibilities.
1/6/2010 UPDATE: Well, Doritos announced their Top 6 finalists on Monday and I was extremely disappointed to see that “The Casket” made the cut. For making the top 6 they receive $25,000, a trip to the superbowl and a chance to see their ad air during the game. If their ad does air, they could win a bonus of up to 2 million dollars.
After writing this blog post I contacted Doritos and informed them of my plagiarism concerns and explained the situation. I received a response saying that the Doritos legal team would look into the matter.
So even though the company’s lawyers knew there might be a chance the idea was stolen the judges decided to choose it anyway. Since 40% of a video’s score was based on “originality” I cannot understand how “The Casket” could have gotten a high enough score to make the Top 6. There were 4000 entries. Common sense tells you that a fair judging system would yield many videos that were just fractions of a point away from making the top 6. So a serious deduction in any category should theoretically sink any videos chances.
Now that Doritos has chosen “Casket” as a finalist, a new and even bigger problem has presented itself. Even if the idea was not stolen from me, “Casket” should have been disqualified because it infringes on my copyright. Copyright infringement can happen on accident but that does not give the infringer a free pass to benefit from their actions. Unintentional copyright infringement is still copyright infringement. My storyboard animation for “Rest in Chips” was first posted to the web the first week in October. The version that is on youtube now was uploaded October 12th. On October 29th I posted the first rough cut of my entry to my youtube channel. It, and several other rough cuts are still there. That first rough cut was on line 4 days before “Casket” was even filmed. And finally, my entry was uploaded to the contest site well before “Casket” was.
This all means that I am the owner and creator of the “Dead man has his last wish to be buried in chips fulfilled but during the funeral he is revealed to be alive inside the casket full of chips that gets knocked over” story idea. If a commercial was running on TV right now that was as similar to “Casket” as my entry, storyboard and rough cuts are, the judges would never have been able to select “Casket” as a finalist because Doritos would be sued for IP theft and copyright infringement regardless of whether or not the concept was intentionally stolen. My rights as an independent filmmaker are the same as a multi-million dollar corporation. Just because my storyboard or entry have not aired on TV, it does not mean my Intellectual Property rights don’t count.
Since Doritos knew that I was concerned about plagiarism and since they knew that I have proof that I was the first person to publicly release this idea, I feel personally offended that they chose to ignore my rights and concerns. Back in the newspaper days, they used to say “never pick a fight with a guy who buys ink buy the barrel.” Let’s update that statement for the modern age and say that you should “never pick a fight with a filmmaker who has a blog and nothing to lose.”
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.
