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OK, GO watch this super cool music video

Posted by Dan L. on November 4th, 2013

Every once in a while I’ll see a video contest entry that includes a technique or a trick that’s so clever I get mad that I didn’t think of it first. Case in point: the winner of OK GO’s “I’m Not Through” music video contest. The greenscreen gimmick in this entry is totally brilliant and yet incredibly simple. Congrats to the winning director, Nelson de Castro for creating a unique video that perfectly fits OK GO’s style.

I’m Not Through winner. Prize: trip to the 2013 Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity:

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B&H’s “That’s Not What it’s Meant for” winners

Posted by Dan L. on September 26th, 2013

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I like B&H. I’ve sent them a lot of money over the years and they always sell good gear at fair prices. I also think it’s kind of cute that their website is down half the time in observance of Jewish holidays. And I’m not being sarcastic. It always bothers me when religious folks try and come up with elaborate schemes to get around the rules of their own religion. For example, did you know that Amish workmen can use power tools? It’s only a sin if they actually buy the power tools and own them. The same thing goes for cars and cell phones etc. I myself was raised Catholic and let me tell you, the only thing Catholics love more than making up rules is figuring out ways to get around those rules. Recently a Catholic friend of mine said that some day she wants to have a spring wedding a few weeks before Easter. Technically it will be Lent then but for the right price you can hire a Catholic priest to show up and give everyone a one-night “dispensation” so that they can eat meat at the reception.

So anyway, if you’re going to be religious, you should go big or go home. If you think that God doesn’t want you to work on the Sabbath then you shouldn’t hire people to work on the Sabbath for you. Whoever is running B&H photography takes that kind of stuff seriously. Their website shuts down every Friday and right now they’re not taking any orders for the next 50 hours because they’re observing a Jewish holiday known as Succos. That might not be the greatest business move but I can respect B&H is doing. They’re like the Walter Sobchack of the electronics world. Walter doesn’t roll on Shabbos and B&H won’t sell you a lens during Succos.

So as a tip of my secular hat to B&H I thought I’d share the winners of their “That’s Not What it’s Meant for!” video contest. This was actually one of the most clever contest ideas of 2013. Filmmakers were asked to submit videos of photo and video gear being used in idiotic ways. I watched a lot of the entries and some people really came up with some ridiculous/dangerous stuff. My personal favorite was the guy who used his boom pole and wind muff to dust the top of his shelves.

B&H selected a set of 10 finalists and then let the public pick the winners. Here are the top 3 videos, in order. First prize was a Canon 6D or a Nikon D600, second prize was a Canon Rebel SL1 or a Sony Alpha Nex 5R and third prize was a Canon Powershot or a Nikon Coolpix.

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Bridgestone’s (surprisingly good) “Teens Drive Smart” winners

Posted by Dan L. on August 18th, 2013

I don’t usually post the winners of “teen” video contest because as you’d expect, all the entries are shot by goofy kids and the winning videos are pretty much guaranteed to suck. But all of the winners of Bridgestone’s “2013 Teens Drive Smart” contest are actually kind of great. For this contest, teens were supposed to create short films about the importance of Safe driving. The top winners will all receive scholarships to the schools of their choice.

Bridgestone wound up getting more than 1,000 entries for this contest. A public vote determined a set of 10 finalists and then a panel of judges selected the winners. After the voting ended, Bridgestone awarded the grand prize to a young lady named Nicole Ricketts. Her bio says she’s currently perusing a degree in Business Administration. And that’s a damn shame because this girl is a natural born filmmaker. Her video is beautifully shot and perfectly edited. This ad alone could probably get her accepted by pretty much any film school in the country. So hopefully she’ll take her scholarship money and transfer to UCLA, ASAP.

First Place Winner. Prize: $25,000 scholarship:

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Bridgestone stays there’s a chance they may actually air that video as a PSA so you might actually see it on TV some day. I was kind of surprised to hear that the finalists in this contest were picked through a public vote because all of the other winners are pretty good too. I was particularly impressed by the writing and the effects in the video that won 3rd place:
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Third Place Winner. Prize: $10,000 Scholarship:

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If you’re a big fan of teen-made short films about safe driving habits, you can head here to watch the rest of Bridgestone’s Top 10.
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Green Day gives a kick ass video a lame ass prize

Posted by Dan L. on August 1st, 2013

Last year Green Day went nuts and released 37 new songs at once. The tracks were spread out over three albums entitled ¡UNO!, ¡DOS!, and ¡TRE! To promote the new records, Green Day launched a video contest on the crowdsourcer site, TalentHouse. Filmmakers and fans were asked to create a short film or music video that was inspired by any one of the 37 new songs. There was a round of public voting but the guys from Green Day were the only judges whose opinions mattered. Here’s the video they picked as the grand prize winner. It’s by far one of the best music video contest entries I’ve ever seen. It was created by an aspiring animator named Kyle Stein who’s currently a Studio Art major at the University of Pittsburgh.
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I can’t even imagine how many hundreds of hours of work went into this thing. And you know what? The song, Nuclear Family, ain’t bad either. So the winning video is great but unfortunately, the prize that Green Day promised the winner is pretty lame. For his efforts, Kyle got interviewed on Green Day’s website and he’s going to receive a Canon EOS 5D Mark III DSLR and some accessories. But his entry isn’t even going to become the “official” music video for this track. (Here’s the . It’s nothing fancy.) It’s nice that Green Day is promoting this guy’s work but if they named his submission their “official” music video they’d really be helping out his career. I mean seriously, “produced and animated the official music video for the Green Day track, Nuclear Family” would look pretty damn good on a college kid’s resume, wouldn’t it? Or at the very least the band could have tossed him a couple grand for his efforts. Tons of musicians are now getting their music videos from contests like this but normally the bands wind up paying at least $5,000 to the winner. The good news is that the director the winning video does seem pretty happy with his prize. You can read more about this kid and his process in his official interview for GreenDay.com.

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Pringles’ “Force For Fun” winners

Posted by Dan L. on July 5th, 2013

Pringles’ Star Wars-themed “Force For Fun” commercial contest was one of Tongal’s biggest competitions ever. There was a $75,000 prize pool and Pringles even promised to use the winning videos in a new online ad campaign. The company wound up buying 7 videos and all of them are currently on Pringles’ youtube channel. Here’s the entry that came in first:

Pringles’ First Place Pick. Prize: $25,000:

That video was created by the two filmmakers who used to produce the web series BackYard FX, Justin Johnson and Erik Beck. Unfortunately BackYard FX is now defunct but Johnson moved on and created the Galaxy’s Best Video Contest site, onlinevideocontests.com. And it looks like Beck and Johnson have a new Youtube Channel under the name TheIndieMachines. It’s got some pretty ridiculous stuff on there including that’s gotten close to 2 Million views. If you only watch one funny cat video today, make it that one. And if you do only watch one cat video today, you need to get your priorities straight. It’s Friday and the day after the 4th of July. No one’s going to get any real work done today so you might as well kick back and watch some cat videos until 5PM.

Oh actually, If you like Star Wars and Pringles (I sure as hell do) then you’ll probably enjoy all the winning videos from the “Force For Fun” contest. Head here to check them out: http://tongal.com/project/TheForceForFun

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Folgers announces their 2013 Jingle Contest winner

Posted by Dan L. on June 29th, 2013

Folgers’ annual jingle contest doesn’t usually get much attention but it’s actually one of the biggest video contests in the world. In 2011, the contest received more than 3,000 entries. Now that I think about it, this year’s Crash the Super Bowl contest only got about 3,000 submissions. So it’s very possible that the 2013 Folgers Jingle contest was BIGGER than the 2013 Doritos contest. That’s kind of surprising since Doritos literally offers millions of dollars in prizes in “The Crash” but Folgers only gives out one prize of $25,000. Folgers probably gets so many entries because their contest is so easy to enter. You don’t have to hire actors or write a script. All you have to do is perform your own version of the classic “The Best Part of Waking Up…” jingle. Oh my God. Can you imagine being a judge in that contest? I’d never want to drink a drop of coffee again after hearing thousands of people perform the same song over and over and over.

The judges that didn’t go insane selected and announced a slate of 10 finalists back in March. Then there was a month-long public voting period. But…votes didn’t actually determine the winner in this contest. The judges made the final pick and contests just got a few extra points if they did well in the voting. The winning musician is named Sawyer Frye and he’s from Carthage, NC. Here’s his video:

Folger’s Grand Prize Winner. Prize: $25,000:

Holy crap. Wait a second, that was sort of amazing, wasn’t it? I just now realized that I recognized the guy who won that contest. Last fall I did a blog post about a music video he did that won a contest sponsored by FireHouse subs. His FireHouse entry was so good that I said something like “If this guy keeps entering contests he’s going to make a fortune.” Guess I was right about something for a change!

Folgers really milked this contest and they made all of the finalists appear in little biographical videos. If you want to watch any of these or if you want to see the other nominated jingles, head here.

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JW Pet Company’s “2013 VideoDOGrapher” winner

Posted by Dan L. on June 25th, 2013

What is a VideoDOGrapher? Well it’s a Dog-Videographer, of course. Yes, dogs have mastered the art of filmmaking and if you ask me, they’re totally f-ing up the industry. Dogs are willing to shoot projects for milk bones and belly scratches so they’re being offered all the gigs that used to go to human videographers. Heh….I’m exaggerating of course. I’ve been accepting payment in the form of belly scratches for years now so I don’t really see dog filmmakers as much of a threat. Now if squirrels were to learn the art of filmmaking that would be scary. I bet squirrels would work for …….PEANUTS! LOLOLOLOLOL!

JW Pet Company just wrapped up a video contest for “videodographers” and the grand prize winner is going to receive a 2013 Jeep Wrangler. A panel of judges picked the winners in this contest (as opposed to a public vote) which is why the top video is actually good.

Grand prize winner. Prize: A 2013 Jeep Wrangler:

The AVR on that Jeep is $30,995 which means that the winning videodographer is going to get totally slammed when he does his taxes next year. When you “win” a $30,000 car you’re really sort of winning the chance to buy it for only like $6,000 because that’s about how much you’re going to wind up paying to the IRS. So if you ever win a car you should probably just sell it immediately and put aside some of the cash so you can pay your taxes later. Or you could just torch your old car and fake your death. But take that suggestion with a grain of salt because it’s the advice my dogccountant gives me pretty much I win any contest prize.

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Looking@Democracy winners

Posted by Dan L. on June 11th, 2013

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If I could sneak into the Library of Congress with some kind of magic liberty pen and scribble one legally binding amendment on the bottom of the constitution, it would probably be this: “No Person shall be elected to the House of Representatives more than three times and no person shall be elected to the Senate more than two times. The term for a member of the House is hereby expanded from two years to four years.”

You stick that amendment into the constitution and this country would become a very different place. One reason it’s so hard to make any progress in Washington is because too many politicians are worried about protecting their jobs-for-life. A member of congress can never stop running for office since because they have to face a primary and an election every two years. Maybe that made sense back in 1787 when life moved a lot slower but two-year terms are just causing chaos in 2013. I’ve had this term-limits/expanded term compromise stuck in my head for years and I was actually able to put it to use recently. I have a singer/songwriter friend named Anna and together we created a term limit-themed entry for the Looking@Democracy video contest. Challenge Post just announced the winners and the judges gave our little video a $5,000 Honorable Mention prize! Here it is.

Honorable Mention. Prize: $5,000:

Anna did most of the hard work of course but I hung the giant American flag so I’m calling this a team effort. I shot that video with my new Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 lens and I’m really happy with the results. Because the lens is so fast, I basically just opened up some windows and put up a single light to fill in some of the shadows. I was also able to set my ISO at 100 which means the image is sharp and grain-free. So be sure to watch that video in HD for the full effect.

The Looking@Democracy contest was actually pretty huge. In total they received more than 400 entries and there were $100,000 in prizes. There were 7 honorable mention awards worth $5,000 each. First place was good for $25,000, 2nd was $20,000 and 3rd was $15,000. All the entries had to explore a topic related to democracy in America. Here’s the video that won the grand prize:

Grand Prize Winner. Prize: $25,000:

If you feel like over-loading on democracy-themed contest videos, you can see the rest of the winners here.