I decided to go out on a limb and enter another video contest after a long break. FVAP.gov, the federal absentee voting site, is hosting a contest wherein people can win $1,000 in five different categories. Unfortunately (but fortunately for me) it doesn’t seem to be too well publicized. And it’s one of the few contests these days that allow just about anyone to enter, regardless where you live or what citizenship you hold.
As an absentee voter myself, I took the opportunity to familiarize myself with the website – it really is easy, and I’ve got my ballot request printed out and ready to mail. My daughter furnished the idea for the video (we collaborate well on this sort of thing). But we needed monkey footage – where to get it?
This is where a local wildlife rehabilitation center came in handy. We went to Na/ankuse and explained our case, and Marlice was kind enough to offer us a deal that made sense for our budget and the purpose for which we were filming. We went on a later afternoon with the youngest group of baboons and filmed for about 2 hours. Note: although the setting sun makes for great filming, you have to get the angle right to make sure their faces are lit, without throwing your own shadow on them. This takes some practice.
And then we had to find someone with a proper British accent. And then with a bit of video editing magic and some time at the electric piano, viola – here it is. We actually ended up making two entries out of the one video.
The main entry:
The shorter version:
