On the morning of July 12th, filmmaker and self-professed “video contest junkie,” John Scaletta received a surprising e-mail from Mofilm.com. Mofilm just wanted to let him know that his 2nd place winning Chevy entry from the Mofilm Tribeca competition would be airing on FOX that night….in the middle of the MLB All-Star Game.
John, his producing partner Craig Bass and his family and friends were left in shock. At no point had Chevy or Mofilm ever mentioned that something like this might happen. But sure enough, their ad played right in the middle of one of the biggest sporting events of the year. Here is is:
2nd Place winner, Mofilm’s Tribeca Competition. Prize: $4,000
It’s really an excellent short film and I can’t believe it didn’t take first place. But John and Craig have done several fantastic video contest entries in the last year and a half. Maybe you remember this ad they created for last year’s big Godaddy contest. It won an honorable mention spot, $15,000 and also aired on TV:
And the duo also won a 2nd Honorable mention in the 2nd installment of Godaddy’s contest with this commercial. Except the prize for that one was $25,000! And yes…this ad also ran on TV for a while.
So that’s three national commercials in about 18 months. That’s pretty damn impressive. I saw those 2 Godaddy ads run a bunch of times on cable. And this year, 11 Million people watched the MLB Allstar game! If you want to learn more about how these guys operate, here’s a neat (but long) news story about John and Craig’s video contest adventures. Watch it if you like to feel jealous!
Though January is already 19 days old it still feels like we’re in that gray area between the old year and the new. So before we get too deep into 2011 I thought we could take a look back at the top video contest entries of 2010.
Now I could ramble on for a paragraph or two about how much video contests changed in 2010, the record-breaking amounts of money that were won and the ways technology has enabled freelance filmmakers to create more professional looking videos. And then I could top it off by explaining why it’s a safe bet to say that User-generated content is going to be an important part of the future of advertising and blah, blah, blah. But anyone reading this probably already knows all that stuff! The factors I just listed are the reasons we all keep making video contest entries; the money and exposure are awesome and the rewards just keep keep getting bigger and bigger and bigger.
So let’s skip the exposition and get right to the good stuff; VCN’s VIDEO CONTEST ENTRY OF THE YEAR! Now I know what you’re thinking…it’s got to be “Underdog,” the Crash the Super Bowl entry that aired during the Super Bowl, scored #2 on the USA Today Ad Meter and won its creators a $600,000 bonus, right? Wrong! That choice would be to easy. Instead I’ve decided to recognize a different 2010 Crash the Super Bowl winner; SNACK ATTACK SAMURAI by Ben Krueger and Cole Koehler!
2010 Crash the Super Bowl finalist. Prize: $25,000 and aired during the Super Bowl:
So why Snack Attack Samurai? Well to start, it’s a great ad, it made it to the Crash the Super Bowl finals and it scored enough votes to air during the 2010 Super Bowl. But this humble, little video earns top honors this year not because of how much money it won (just $25,000!) but because of what it accomplished. By a fluke of timing, Snack Attack Samurai wound up playing near the end of last year’s Super Bowl right during a particularly exciting moment in the game. The next day, Nielson announced that the ad wound up being the MOST WATCHED COMMERCIAL IN THE HISTORY OF TELEVISION.
Like I said, this sort of happened by chance but it is still an incredible accomplishment. 100 Million people in the United States saw this ad on Super Sunday. That’s 1 out of 3 Americans. More people saw that first airing of Snack Attack Samurai than saw Avatar during its entire theatrical run. So why is this a big deal? It’s a big deal because in the roughly 80 year history of television, the commercial that wound up with the biggest audience ever wasn’t made by a team of marketing geniuses from Madison Avenue and it wasn’t produced by a humongous production company and it didn’t feature any big name stars. It was made by two dudes in Minnesota and it cost a tiny fraction of what most regular TV commercials cost. And here’s the craziest part of all…..those 100 million viewers? THEY DIDN’T CARE WHO MADE THE AD OR WHERE IT CAME FROM. Though a lot of them probably knew Snack Attack Samurai was part of the Crash the Super Bowl contest, to most viewers it was just another Super Bowl commercial. And to me folks, that means we’re entering an age when there aren’t any more “big guys” and “little guys;” there will only be the “talented” and the “untalented.” The playing field is getting very even, very quickly.
So that’s why Snack Attack Samurai gets our “entry of the year award.” But what was the BEST contest entry of the year? Well, chances are you’ve probably never seen this one. Our pick for the Best entry of 2010 was a short film called NUIT BLANCHE. It won first place and 100 grand in LG’s “Life’s Good” oneline film fest. The goal of the contest was to create an HD video based on the theme, “Life’s Good.” Though I suspect that Nuit Blanche wasn’t specifically shot for the contest it’s undeniably awesome and was THE BEST VIDEO CONTEST ENTRY OF THE YEAR:
Grand Prize Winner, LG’s Life’s Good HD Film Fest. Prize: $100,000:
Crazy right?? If you wanna have your mind blow, check out this “making of Nuit Blanche” video. Pretty much every effect was done digitally which means in 5 years, high school kids will probably be making videos with equally sophisticated effects.
Next up, here’s THE BIGGEST WINNER OF 2010. Yep, it’s UNDERDOG from the Crash the Super Bowl contest.
Crash the Super Bowl winner. Prizes: Won $625,000 and aired during the Super Bowl:
I think this video might also deserve the unofficial title of “Beardy’s Favorite Winner of the year.” The $600,000 that Underdog won was technically a bonus for scoring well on the USA Today Ad meter. Those bonuses were not guaranteed so you could also consider our next ad to be the “Biggest Winner of the year.” But let’s call this one THE WINNER OF THE BIGGEST GUARANTEED CONTEST PRIZE. It’s entitled “Russell’s Notebook and it won first place and $250,000 in the big Godaddy summer video contest.
Grand Prize Winner, Godaddy Summer contest. Prize: $250,000:
Can't embed this one so click to view
$250,000 by the way happens to the be largest guaranteed video contest prize EVER. The ad has also supposedly played on TV but I haven’t seen it air myself.
Next up, here’s THE MOST VIRAL VIDEO CONTEST ENTRY OF 2010:
Crash the Super Bowl Finalist. Prize: Won $25,000 and aired during the Super Bowl:
EVERYBODY (and their Momma) has watched and re-watched this ad. I didn’t like it when I first saw it but it really grew on me. Doritos really knew what they were during when they picked House Rules as a finalist last year. The ad became a viral hit even before the Super Bowl and to date it’s been viewed almost 10 Million times on the Crash the Super Bowl youtube channel alone.
So those were the big winners of 2010. But here’s a quick list of some of the other video contest entries that scored big last year.
These two commercials were made for a Poptent Assignment for Quiznos. The ads wound up airing on TV for months and they are so well made that I’m guessing few viewers would ever guess they weren’t produced by Quizno’s regular ad firm:
VALUE MENU! Purchased by Quiznos. Price: $7,500.
U-543. Purchased by Quiznos. Price: $7,500.
Godaddy actually ran two big video contests in 2010; a “Spring” contest and a “Summer” contest. The winner of the “Spring” contest and $100,000 was entitled “Go Momma” and the ad aired on TV a bit. But I think the big winner of that contest was actually the SECOND Place ad; FingerFighting.com:
Second Place Winner, Godaddy Spring Contest. Prize: $50,000:
Though Fingerfighting.com won less money, Godaddy aired it on TV like crazy. I still see it run every once in a while! And the Phoenix-based filmmakers who made it actually won another $25,000 runner-up prize in Godaddy’s Summer Contest with an ad called Isawbigfoot.co. I talked to the director of the ad a few weeks back and he said Godaddy is actually airing the ad in India.
Here’s another video contest entry that made it to TV. This promo was shot for a Zooppa-run contest for TMZ and won first place.
First Place Winner, TMZ promo contest. Prize: $10,000:
First Place Winner, Are You Debit Smart Contest. Prize: $5,000:
HUMAN HEAD. Purchased by Fed-ex via Poptent’s Fed-Ex assignment. Price: $5,000.
1/20 UPDATE: A reader sent me a link to this video that won the Mofilm American Idol Walmart competition. Apparently this ad even aired during the American Idol Finale. It’s pretty good. Prizes won include a trip to LA, tickets to the American Idol finale and thousands of dollars in cash and Walmart Gift cards.
Man oh man…I think I really overdid things this weekend. So much candy…so much beer…so much wig hair clinging to my face. (i was a viking.) I got so sidetracked by halloween that I’ve totally been slacking on covering one of the biggest pieces of Video Contest News of the year; the announcement of the winners of Godaddy.com’s massive summer video contest. Readers have been asking me if I was going to comment on the results and I will…but just not until after I re-cooperate a bit. (I had a shoot yesterday and today so I’m really backlogged on my re-cooperating.) Anyways, a friend of the site suggested that I do a new post so that readers could share their thoughts about the winning godaddy videos. I think that’s an awesome idea so that’s what I’m doing right now.
So click the link below and watch all the winning ads. Then come back here to share your thoughts, complaints, jealous rantings etc. in the comment section of this post. Like I’ve said, I’ll have more to say about the contest soon so look for a more detailed post to come in a couple days.
http://videos.godaddy.com/godaddy-commercial-contest.aspx
UPDATE: As I mentioned last week (when we totally got it right when we announced the leaked name of the winning godaddy entry) I really like the first place winning commercial Russell’s Notebook. It was easily the best video submitted. Our pals over at my favorite website onlinevideocontests.com did an interview with the Russell’s Notebook team. Check it out to learn how they were able to pull off such an ambitious and cool entry:
UPDATE #2: Oh wow. I just checked our traffic logs and VCN got a record number of visitors during the month of October! Thanks to the interest in the godaddy contest, October’s traffic just barely beat out January’s when we got a ton of Crash the Superbowl-related traffic. If you’re new to the site, thanks for visiting! If you like what you see, why not bookmark us or subscribe to our RSS feed?
Yesterday I posted the news that Godaddy had postponed the announcement of the winners of their humongous until October 27th. According to the contest site, the winners were originally supposed to be announced “on or around October 18th.”
After the post went up I got a tip from a reader that said that some or all of the winners of the contest had been notified. Now if you just won a giant cash prize in a video contest, what’s the first thing you’d do? Call your mom? Sure, ok. Then what? You’d probably start spreading the good news across the tweet-o-sphere, right? Well I checked twitter and the word about who won is out, big time. So here, one week early is the grand prize winner of the Summer Edition of the Godaddy commercial contest!
Godaddy First Place Winner. Prize: $250,000:
Ok, I can't actually embed the video here on the site. So click this image to watch it.
You’ll have to wait until next week to see the “web only version” I suppose. Now I watched all 215 entries in this contest and “Russel’s Notebook” is probably the video I would have picked as the first place winner too. It looks amazing, it has a ton of production value and the song is even kind of catchy. And tapping into Glee phenomenon was just a stroke of genius. So it’s no surprise at all that this won. But what is surprising is who made this video. It was created by a group called Wayside Creations. Wayside Creations is the team behind the very excellent IndyMogul.com and the web series Back Yard FX! I actually have Indy Mogul listed in our side bar under “Video Contest Resources” because it’s such a great site. Last year, I even won $2,000 in a video contest using muppet-like puppets I learned how to build thanks to an episode of Back Yard FX. So if you’ve never checked out the site, it has a lot of very handy tricks for low-budget filmmakers on there.
Speaking of low-budget, I just checked the Indy Mogul forum and apparently, this entry only cost about $500 to produce. Amazing. But obviously, the filmmakers probably have a ton of resources at their disposal. So today’s lesson is this; if you have good gear and skilled people who know how to use it, you don’t need to spend a ton of money to make a great video.
I checked our web stats this morning and I was surprised to see that we got a big spike in traffic yesterday. It only took me a second to realize why; yesterday was October 18th. And “on or around October 18th” was supposed to be day that Godaddy.com announced the winners of their gigantic “summer” commercial contest. But the 18th came and went with no announcement. We don’t have any scoops for you about who won but I just checked the Godaddy website and the contest page has been changed. It now says:
WINNERS ANNOUNCED: On or around October 27, 2010 at GoDaddy.com
So if you entered this contest and figured you’d lost because you hadn’t been contacted yet it seems you’ve still got a shot. The odds are still really stacked against you though! I just did a quick count and it looks like Godaddy recived 215 entries this time around. Sure, last time Godaddy ran a video contest they got over 500 entries but keep in mind, that first contest was only for 30 second commercials. For this one, filmmakers had to create up to 120 seconds worth of content. I’m kind of amazed that so many people would be willing to do so much work for free. 215 two-minute entries equal 860 thirty-second entries!
We’ll post and review all the winning ads as soon as they’re announced so be sure to check back here on (or around) October 27th.
If you’re a filmmaker who wants to come off as someone who knows what they’re talking about, I recommend throwing the word “trope” around every so often. It’s a very handy term but use it sparingly. Over-use it and you’ll just sound like a pretentious jerk talking out of his ass. I found a lot of dry definitions of “trope” online but I like this explanation from tvtropes.org:
Merriam-Webster gives a definition of “trope” as a “figure of speech.” In storytelling, a trope is just that — a conceptual figure of speech, a storytelling shorthand for a concept that the audience will recognize and understand instantly.
Above all, a trope is a convention. It can be a plot trick, a setup, a narrative structure, a character type, a linguistic idiom… you know it when you see it.
You know in a horror movie when a person is in the bathroom looking into the half-open mirror on a medicine cabinet and then they close it and the new angle reveals a ghost-girl or something behind them? That’s a trope. The goatee as a tip-off that a character is evil? That’s a trope too. Alcoholic cowboys with troubled pasts, hookers with hearts of gold, babies that act like grown ups, grannies that rap, dogs that talk; all these clichés are story-telling tropes. The audience understands what they are as soon as they see them, no back-story needed.
Understanding tropes is especially important for video contest filmmakers because video contest entries are usually just 30 to 60 seconds long. There’s little room for depth or rich characters so tropes are sometimes a handy short cut. Using a ubiquitous character-type or idea can work for smaller contests but relying on tropes in big contests will normally land you right in loser-town. When a company like Doritos or Godaddy or Butterfinger goes looking for “user-generated content” they are hoping to find something totally new and off the wall. If they wanted the same old ideas they’d just save themselves the trouble of holding a commercial contest and hire an ad firm.
So tropes, especially character tropes, should be avoided lest your contest entry be seen as amateur, unexciting and unoriginal by the contest judges. Even if your video is exceptionally well made it will suffer because in large contests, more than one filmmaker will probably use the same trope you did. To help you avoid falling into a trope-trap, we’re starting a new feature here at Video Contest News; Know Your Trope! Every so often we’ll dedicate a post to identifying and dissecting tropes that are popular among video contest entrants.
This time we’re going to start right at the top with the trope that I probably see more often than any other; ZOMBIES! Every video contest I see that has more than say, 40 entries will probably wind up with at least one or two zombie-themed submissions. Why? Well there are lots of reasons but I think the biggest are that zombie videos are cheap, easy and even fun to make. It’s also an incredibly obvious idea so you see a lot of new filmmakers and young filmmakers sticking zombies in their entries.
Doritos’ annual Crash the Super Bowl contest is absolutely plagued by zombies; presumably because it’s run during October and contestants have horror movies and haunted houses on the brain. Plus it’s the only time of year where you can walk into walmart and buy fake blood and zombie make up. So it seems like every 10th video in the Crash the Superbowl gallery features a 20 year old guy, covered in blood, acting like a reanimated corpse. (side tip: no video contest sponsor will ever pick a winner where the actors are covered in fake blood. If you must feature zombies don’t make them the bloody, 28 Days Later kind.)
So let’s look at some samples of the Zombie trope in action. A quick search on youtube turned up tons of really not-so-great zombie-themed video contests entries. But let’s start off by looking at two pretty cool ones:
Godaddy contest entry:
Doritos Crash the Super Bowl entry:
Doritos Crash the Super Bowl entry:
Those are the cream of the crop when it comes to zombie entries. But no matter how slick or funny or professional a zombie entry might be, it just won’t feel super-original because the zombie concept is pretty much played out.
Now I could list about 40 more zombie-themed contest entries (and most of them would just be from last year’s Crash the Superbowl contest) but instead I want to hit you with a two-fer. Check out these zombie videos and you’ll see that they don’t just share a common trope, but a common plot! Let’s call this idea the “Hungry Zombie Fake out.” Whenever you see a contest about a food item you’ll probably see an example or two of the Hungry Zombie Fake Out. I wanted to specifically point out this common concept because right now, dozens of filmmakers across the county are probably having a conversation like this in preparation for the Crash the Superbowl contest:
Filmmaker 1: Ok so picture a guy walking down a dark street, eating a bag of Doritos. Suddenly, he sees a horde of hungry zombies so he runs. The zombies chase him down and trap him in a corner…
Filmmaker 2: Oh no! He’ll be killed!
Filmmaker 1: But that’s our twist! The zombie pounce on him but not to eat his brains…what they really wanted was his bag of Doritos!
Filmmaker 2: Awesome! You call everyone we know to be zombies and I’ll go to Party City and buy one of those Gallon jugs of fake blood.
And now, a few examples of the Hungry Zombie Fake Out:
Snickers contest entry:
Hienz Ketchup contest entry:
Doritos (Canada) Viralocity entry:
Home Run Inn contest entry:
Doritos Crash the Super Bowl entry:
Doritos Crash the Super Bowl entry
Doritos Crash the Super Bowl entry:
Doritos Crash the Super Bowl entry:
And if all those entries aren’t enough to convince you not to do your own zombie-themed entry for the Crash the Superbowl contest, maybe this will. It’s an actual Doritos commercial that aired in Mexico that features a Hungry Zombie Fake Out!
Doritos Commercial (Mexico only)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJ6ytZipq0I
Because the Crash the Superbowl contest receives so many entries using the same tropes, we’re going to try and run this feature a few more times before the contest closes in November. Have you seen a popular idea that you think we should cover? Send your suggestions to Videocontestnews@gmail.com.
As we explained in our last post, Godaddy.com is sponsoring a ginormous new commercial contest. Actually, it’s more than just a “commercial” contest since contestants are supposed to submit 2 videos; a 30 second commercial and a 60-90 second “internet only” continuation of the story.
I’ve explained the contest to a few friends and they’ve all seemed kind of baffled by the amount of work that would be involved in entering. But it’s less complicated than it sounds, I think. If you’re considering entering, you might want to head to godaddy.com to see a bunch of examples of the kind of “TV” and “Internet Only” ads Godaddy has done in the past. Like this pair of videos:
That first one is the 30 second version of a commercial called “Speeding” that aired on TV. It ends with a graphic that says “see what happens next at godaddy.com.” The commercial contestants are supposed to do is also supposed to end with a similar graphic. The second video is the extended, Internet-only version of “Speeding.” It’s 2 minutes long and the first 30 seconds are the same as the 30 second commercial (minus the “see more now at godaddy.com tag.)
To see more of these types of official godaddy commercials, CLICK HERE and go to the “Video Archives.”
If video contests have an off-season, I guess it would be the summer time. There hasn’t been much news for me to report so for the last few months contests and this website have taken a back seat to other projects. For example…if you look to the right of the screen you’ll see an ad for the documentary I directed. It finally just got released on DVD so if you feel like seeing a crazy movie about self-professed nerds rapping about comic books and video games, check it out.
Anyways like I said, my focus has been elsewhere lately so a few days ago a reader had to clue me it to an especially big piece of news that I had somehow managed to totally miss. Godaddy is holding ANOTHER video contest and it’s already up and running! That’s kind of shocking when you consider that their first video contest ever just ended about 2 ½ months ago. (winners were announced on May 31st) Well Godaddy must have been really pleased with the results of their consumer-generated experiment because not only are they running a “summer” installment of the contest it will officially be the BIGGEST video contest in history with a guaranteed payout of $600,000 in prizes! First place gets you $250,000, second gets 150,000 and third place is good for 75,000. And if that wasn’t enough, FIVE runners-up will receive $25,000 each. That is seriously amazing. Plus, Godaddy won’t commit to airing the winning ads on TV but they imply on the contest website that they probably will do just that.
But extraordinary prizes require and extraordinary effort. Last time, all you needed to do was submit a 30 second commercial for the contest. This time, here’s what you need to do to enter:
Create a 30 second commercial for godaddy.com. The last 5 seconds of the ad though must be a video supplied by godaddy that says “See more now at Godaddy.com.”
Create a 60-90 second follow-up to your commercial (featuring the same characters) that will be featured on Godaddy.com
This one is optional: If you are really feeling ambitious you can attempt to make THREE commercials and THREE web-only shorts. If you win, and if godaddy wants to use your “campaign” you will receive an additional $100,000.
Even if you skip the “campaign” stuff you’re looking at creating about TWO MINUTES of content with zero guarantee it will pay off. Wow. That is a huge gamble and I don’t think a ton of filmmakers have the nerve to try and pull it off.
Once you get past the basics, the requirements get even more interesting. Check out this instructional video godaddy posted about entering the contest. I can’t embed it so click the image to watch it on the godaddy site.
If you didn’t watch the video and just continued reading, let me recap what that hot blonde girl had to say. Right off the bat, godaddy wants to make it clear that this contest is for “aspiring or actual TV commercial makers.” Later in the video, they say something that I have never, ever seen a video contest sponsor say before. They explain that your video must be TV quality and if you are planning on shooting your ad with your cell phone or your dad’s old camera, you need to come up with a new game plan.
In most contests (Crash the Superbowl being the most obvious example) tons of people enter who have no chance in hell of winning because they don’t understand that the sponsor will only pick winners that look like real TV commercials. So godaddy seems to be intentionally discouraging novices from entering. I think that’s very big of them. Most contest sponsors are happy to let people waste time and money making entries that could never win because of technical reasons. I guess they do this because later they can boast about how many entries they got.
Last time, Godaddy received a little more than 500 submissions for their commercial contest. I’m really interested to see how many they get this time around. I’m thinking maybe 100? But of that 100, most of them will be pretty damn good. So the big question remains: Should you enter? It’s a tough call. To help you decide, try taking this little questionnaire:
1. Do you have access to an HD camera that can shot TV-quality video?
2. Are you willing to spend at least a few hundred dollars shooting your submission?
3. Do you have the talent, time and energy to create 2 minutes of video content between now and September 30th.
4. Do have access to pro-level lighting and audio gear?
5. Do you know people who can use pro-level lighting and audio gear?
6. Do you have a really, really, REALLY good idea for an ad?
7. Are you crazy?
If you answered NO to any of the above questions you should probably sit this one out. Me, I think I’m going to go for it. I have what I think is a very good idea and in fact, I might even go for the “campaign.” If I do though, it’ll probably be the only video contest entry I’ll be working on for the next 2 months. In fact, if I do godaddy I’ll probably have to skip the Crash the Superbowl contest.
Speaking of…the timing of this contest and the prizes offered really make it seem like Godaddy has decided to make their contest THE user-generated video contest of the year. Doritos usually announces the start of the Crash the Superbowl contest in September so Godddy has managed to beat them to the punch. And last year, Doritos gave each finalist $25,000. Isn’t that money going to look like chump change now that Godaddy has raised the states so astronomically high?
Oh, one more important thing to note. ALL winners in the Godaddy contests will be picked by judges. Last time, Goddy let the “community” pick some of the winners and of course, most of the videos that won the “popular vote” weren’t great. You’ll be able to rate videos on the contest site but votes and ratings have zero effect on the final outcome. Nice.
