I seriously was eating some of these like an hour ago
I can’t believe there are only 24 days to go before the deadline to enter the Doritos Crash the Superbowl contest. Time is flying by. So far, only about 100 people have submitted entries. Last year, Doritos received more that 1,900 entries! So to keep up with that number, 75 people a day will have to start uploading commercials. However it’s probably more likely that a thousand videos will be uploaded during the last week of the contest. There does seem to be a whole lot of interest in the contest at least. Even videos that just went up have hundreds of views.
But maybe there just won’t be as many entries this year? For one thing, most of the country has been a lot colder than normal this month. The area where I live has had rainy and colder than average weather for the last 20 days or so! That makes filming your big picnic scene or whatever kind of hard. But of course the big factor this year will probably be the economy. Last year the winners of the million dollar “snowglobe” commercial spent $2,000 on their spot. Know many people who are willing to spend that much money on a project that might get them nothing in the end, these days? I guess we’ll see. I have a feeling a lot of entries are going to be shot this weekend.
Doritos has made some nice improvements to the contest site in the last few days. For one, they mercifully added a “MUTE” button so that you could turn off the annoying rock music that plays in a loop. They also added a feature where you could link to or embed specific videos. So I thought I’d give it a try. Out of the 108 videos that have so far been submitted for the contest, these two are hands down, without question, the best:
The one with the shark is pretty good and was made by Jared Cicon who was a finalist in the contest in 2007 I think. That shark is by far the best prop and best sight gag used in any of the entries. The one with the guy putting his head through the roof IS one of the best of the submitted videos but I think by next week it will fall out of the running. For a video that relies on slapstick and action I think it’s lacking a really strong punchline and isn’t crazy enough for the superbowl. But still, it’s funny and pretty well done.
So, those are the two best entries. If the commercial you’re planning to shoot isn’t at least as good as these then you might want to go back to the drawing board while you still have time left.
UPDATE: Jared, the creator of the Shark commercial wrote a great blog post about the making of his spot and included some nice strategic tips. He even came to VCN and left an informative comment to this post. So to read more about “The Video Contest King” check out his website and click the “View Comments” button below to learn more about his Crash the Superbowl plans.
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Hey Beardy,
Nice post. Thank you for the vote of confidence on my video. I think you give sage advice about having a strong submission. I am even following it myself. I am in pre-production on my second spot. If I have the resources (time and money) I try never to put my eggs in a single basket. I will take the opportunity of this comment thread to shed a little light on who I am and what I do. My goal is to encourage the average Joe to understand the increasing opportunity for the freelancer in the advertising industry.
Most of my projects are done in my driveway, backyard, or in my house. I am a married father of four children. My wife works part-time to help make ends meet. Yesterday for example I made 12 chuffer trips to get the kids to and from their various appointments of school/dentist/after-school-activities. I do not lead a glamorous life, yet I have 4 national commercials to my belt after only 3 years in the business. I use a pair of pro-sumer Sony Hi-Def cameras that use mini-dv tapes. They are bottom of the rung when it comes to camera equipment/optics. I picked them up on Ebay for $2,000.00 apiece. Yes, I want to upgrade to a ‘Red’ one day, but that time will have to wait until I win a ‘Career builder’ type contest – pun intended.
The most important things I do to be successful during the commercial creation experience are:
1) I am willing to pay attention to detail during the editing process. This means trying new things and visiting the guru forums when I have questions, and not settling on the incorporation of a clip cut until I have figured out how to make it ‘flow’ with the story.
2) During a shoot, I wait to start ‘rolling’ until I have ALL the elements of cinematography in place. [blocking, cropping, focus, exposure, action], and I am willing to execute multiple ‘takes’ until I know I have it right.
3) I am objective. I am willing to kill my creative babies no matter how beautiful they appear. If they don’t move the story forward in a comedic and/or effective way, they are gone. Like everyone else, I sometimes create ‘crap’, but no one sees it, because I never publish it.
4) I am part of a creative peer circle that shares their work with each other for the purpose of having it ripped to shreds. No man is a creative island. We as individuals are only the sum of our singular life experiences. If we expect to be able to write/create something that has appeal to the masses, we then better get the help of some of those masses when creating it.
This has already become too long of a post. Sorry for taking up so much space on your blog Beardy. Thanks for including me in your discussion here at Video Contest News. I will be sure to stop on by more often. I am going to subscribe as soon as I post this.
Jared