Last week I posted the winner of the “Life’s Good” HD online film fest sponsored by LG.  The winner was a very, very impressive HD short film called “Nuit Blanche.”  You can see it by clicking here. But frequent video contest winner and friend of VCN, Lucas Ridley wrote me and explained that the whole contest was sort of one big clusterf%&k.  Lucas is a hang glider and submitted an excellent entry in LG’s “Sports” category.  You can see it here: A Leg to Fly on.

Though he submitted his entry on time and followed all the rules, for some weird reason, LG basically acted as if the entry didn’t exist.  Lucas’ dealings with LG were so odd that I asked him to share his story.  This is from Lucas:

Here’s the history:

* Made this film specifically for this contest in about a weeks time

* Made the Oct 16th deadline (had to mail in a physical DVD)

* Receive identical emails (on 16th and 17th) from two different people asking if this has been entered any where before and has it won any awards, my responses go unacknowledged.

* entries begin to appear on their website and youtube channel, except mine so I emailed on Oct 22nd asking when and where mine will be viewable, same day response was: “We’re not posting anything new for a while till we process the entries.”

* Nov 3 emailed to see if I could post the video to my personal account, response again came the same day: “OK to post on your personal acct.”

* Email sent on Nov 16th goes unanswered (month after entry deadline and my video is still not up anywhere): “Hi, I’ve looked at your updated website and youtube page and can’t find my submission, “A Leg to Fly On” on either of them? I’m kind of worried about what that means? Can you please give me a heads up? Thanks”

* Email sent on Nov 23rd gets answered the next day: “Hi, I’m just following up from my email a week ago since I haven’t heard anything yet.

From the response I received when I sent in my video it seemed that there wasn’t any problem with my video but I still don’t see it up on your youtube channel or your website. Please inform me of the status of my short film. Also, I never read in the official rules anything about a top 12, but there is a top 12 on your youtube page. Please let me know, I spent a lot of time and energy on this and I’m not getting a response back. Thank you” >>>>their response>>>> “Lucas

Not all films entered were posted on the LG FilmFest YouTube site. Keep watching the lgfilmfest.com site for more news about contenders.” >>>> That was the last I heard from them – and they never posted any more news about contenders.

* Over a month goes by and still my video is not viewable on their youtube channel nor on their website so I email them again on Jan 1st to no response: “… I was hoping you could give me a quick update on my film? I was also looking for the contest rules, but they were taken down …”

* Jan 10th follow up email with no response: “Hi, 10 days ago I emailed about getting information on where my short film is since I still have not seen it displayed on your site or on your youtube channel. Please advise, thank you”

* Jan 25th, my last email to them: “Hi, I am very concerned now that I have not heard any news or received a response from this email address in two months and the winners will be announced soon. Is my video being seriously considered for this contest? Thanks”

If you managed to read through that, there was no indication that my entry would have been disqualified for any reason, and they acknowledge that they did receive it.

Sketchiness:

* Lack of communication after it was obvious they were never going to put my video up on their website (my entry that I posted to my personal youtube acct has more views than all of the entries in the Sports category combined, so it’s not like it wasn’t watchable).

* Removing the official rules from their website

* they originally had entries like “The Moon – Vancouver Film School” which is like a year old, and clearly not made for this contest, but they renamed it something else and put it up like it was an entry, but since have taken it down.

* The quality of the other entries seem like they might be a similar story. Nothing created specifically for this contest (which wasn’t part of the contest rules or anything – to my memory at least since they’ve taken the rules down too -, just adds to the peculiarity), but it seems they just hand picked existing films out there, to give the illusion of high quality associated with the brand LG.

* There are only 5 entries shown for the Sports category. So it wouldn’t be a limitation of space. (did i mention that my single video has more views than all 5 of those entries combined? Not bragging, but just saying, it’s not like my video was unwatchable)

* The duplicate emails from two different email addresses asking if my film had won any awards before, of which I never heard a response from either, after my response to them.

* The “Top 12 Films” category on their youtube channel, now has been changed to just “Top Films” – neither of which were outlined in the official rules (again, to the best of my memory, but I’m 99.99% sure about this, since they took down their official rules)

My concern comes from a worry about the mistreatment of creators of content, like those reading this right now. My advice for the future is to never waste your time creating content for an LG contest in the future, because it won’t be given a fair chance and you will be ignored at best (unless it is a contest properly administered through youtube, like the one they did about two years back). I have learned, and advise others to do this, to copy and save the official rules of any contest you enter so you have something to fall back on if the rules are mischievously taken down, which if they are, you probably aren’t going to hear back from them anyways, but it never hurts.

I feel like this contest was just one in disguise to attract attention. Despite feeling like I fell into some advertising trap portrayed as a legitimate contest, I did still enjoy creating a short film that I’m proud of and others have seemed to enjoy, but I have learned my lesson to stay away from LG in the future and encourage others to do the same (to clarify this was LG Canada who put on the contest). Instead, spend your time on real contests that give our community a platform to display true user-generated work with a great deal of feedback and moderation and the best example of that so far has been the Doritos contest and I hope other contests begin to rise to that bar they’ve set, because this one feels like it took that bar and started clubbing baby seals with it. Okay, maybe that was a harsh ending, but a decent south park reference any way. What are your all’s thoughts on this? Did anyone else out there submit to this contest?

Ok, you’re back with Beardy now.  This is not the first time a suspiciously amazing video has won an LG video contest.  Last summer, I shot an entry for a contest were people where supposed to dance to the theme song for the new remake of FAME.  The Fame video contest was also sponsored by LG and at the last minute, an OUTRAGEOUS, over the top entry was submitted and wound up winning the $50,000 grand prize.  It’s called, The Art of Fame.

The Art of Fame and Nuit Blanche are the two most ELABORATE and professional video contest entries I have ever seen.  And both were made for video contests sponsored by LG.  Sure, both contests had big grand prizes and big money always attracts some pros, but is it possible that LG might be hiring or soliciting….ringers?  The winner of the $100,000 HD fest grand prize works for a well-known production company and the short was not created for the LG contest.  Is it possible that maybe someone at LG saw the short somewhere and then encouraged the filmmaker to enter it?

Sound far-fetched and pointless?  Well, guess what?  The head of a tech company once strongly encouraged me to enter his video contest.  The contest was his idea and he wasn’t happy with the submissions so went looking for someone who could do just want he wanted.  He saw some music videos I made on youtube and said if I made a similar music video for his contest I’d have a very good chance of winning <wink, wink.>    We stayed in touch during the whole production process and sure enough, I won.  My video was by far the best submission and the video even went viral but I never would have entered if I hadn’t been recruited by the sole judge of the contest.  So….ringers do happen.

Anybody else enter the LG contest?  If so, did you get jerked around at all?

It seems like this contest started taking entries forever ago, but the “Life’s Good” HD film fest sponsored by LG has finally announced their grand prize winner.  Contestants were supposed to submit films that were shot in HD and followed the theme of “Life’s Good.”  There were several categories (sports, fashion etc) but it was a narrative film that took the top prize of $100,000.

The LG winner is called Nuit Blanche and was directed by Arev Manoukian.  Here’s the official description:

“Nuit Blanche explores an experience many of us have lived before – a fleeting yet powerful connection with a perfect stranger. Set in a dark cobblestone street in the 1950’s, a man catches the gaze of a woman in a cafe across the street. This split-second moment becomes suspended in time, as the two gravitate towards each other in a hyper real fantasy where nothing can hold them back.”

I just watched all 3 minutes and 22 seconds of the short film and all I can say is “F*CK YES!”  I have seen some amazing video contest entries before but this is hands down the most impressive one I’ve ever come across.  It starts off slow but then gets awesome and finishes beautifully.

Grand Prize Winner.  Prize: $100,000

That’s outrageous, isn’t it?  My only grievance is that it seems like this was a pre-existing short film and that it wasn’t shot specifically for the contest like so many of the entries were.  The credits say that the short was “made in part with the support of the National Film Board of Canada’s filmmaker assistance program.”  In fact, it looks like the short was produced by the very successful production company, Spy Films.  Oh well, it’s still fantastic.  I mean, did you notice that the guy blew a piece of glass out of his way there at the end?  All those fancy effects and expensive production values and that little moment is what made the short for me.  It just goes to show that even in the CGI era we live in, the best films are those that use effects to express fundamentally human and universal ideas and emotions.

If you want to see just how much post-production work actually went into this short, click here to watch a video about the Making of Nuit Blance.

Warning: Video contains mimes

Whoever shot that thing is really smart. Most of the other entries consist of a people who set their camera up in their bedroom or in their ballet studio and danced in front of it alone. The makers of the winning video went all out and made a super slick music video. I can see why it won but….I don’t know, it seems a little TOO slick if you ask me. This is one of those times when you have to wonder if maybe the sponsor hired a ringer to create a great entry. Except that doesn’t make much sense in this case. Normally I’d suspect a ringer if a company plans on using the wining video in their advertising campaigns. But the ad campaign for Fame is over. The contest itself was part of that campaign and the movie has already kind of been forgotten about. So everything is probably on the up and up. I’m going to guess that a lot of the kids who jumped around in front of their web cams and thought they’d have a chance at winning 50 grand will be upset that a pro-made video went on to be named the winner in this one. Again, the winning video was really well made but picking it sort of goes against the original “film yourself” spirit of the contest, I think.