TAZM PICTURES

Looking for something productive for the kids to do until school starts again?  Check out the Write it, Film it video contest being sponsored by Reading Rockets.  The contest web site reads:

‘Central casting’ at AdLit.org and Reading Rockets is looking for young, creative writers and filmmakers to participate in our Exquisite Prompt “Write It, Film It” Video Contest. Here’s your chance to flex your scriptwriting and film director muscles! We can’t promise a stroll down the red carpet on Oscar night, but we can promise a chance to win fabulous prizes and 15 minutes of fame on YouTube. Open to kids ages 7-18.

The site offers seven prompts the kids can choose from – basically a video assignment or challenge – and they have to write a script and produce a 3 minute video that meets the guidelines.  This is a great idea because it requires a bit of research, creative thinking, writing, and the most fun part – shooting and editing a video.  Hurry though – it ends Aug 30!

It’s interesting to browse the video contests different companies are hosting, via sites like onlinevideocontests.com.  The contests to make ads for companies are not only a good way for companies to get new ideas and approaches, they can also help an “unknown” with talent get discovered – take Jared Cicon, for example.  Now you can show your stuff making an exciting video…about fonts.  Needless to say I’m not planning to enter this one, but I am curious to see what people come up with.  People get excited about a lot of different things, and typography shouldn’t be excluded.  Check out the contest info at Fantastic Font Film Contest.

Good news and bad news – my entry to the US Army Combat Readiness / Safety Center’s video contest was approved, but so were a load of others!  The contest has been running since October, but like most video contests, most of the entries will be rolling in close to the 30 April deadline.  So far, I still believe I am in the running for one of the cash prizes – I believe it’s “up to” $2,000, $1250, and $500.  If I win, the cash will go into a pot of money I am saving for a much faster and more capable video editing workstation.  Oh, and of course, there is the “Safety Emmy”!

You can see my entry here. I have another one planned, but am waiting for watermelons to come in season (they say the commissary will have them next week).  Don’t ask.

It may be a bit silly, but I think my animations are pretty snazzy. The reflective belt and the animation toward the end with the helmets is done using simple stop-motion on a blue screen background.  With the helmets it was a bit tricky because I hadn’t thought it through – blue and grey biking helmets can’t really be selected out using a blue screen background – the chroma key tool makes ALL the blue transparent.  So I had to create a “virtual” red screen – blue’s natural opposite – by clipping the helmets out with photoshop, surrounding them with pure red, and then saving as a jpeg.  Then, in Premiere, using the chroma key tool and making the red transparent.

The moving words in the beginning are done with Anime Studio (35 buck program that has lots of potential once I get over the learning curve).

And of course plenty of blue screening throughout the running and biking scenes – I couldn’t figure out how else to keep a steady camera shot while running and biking.  I wanted a kind of “morph” effect on the same background.  I admit you can tell I’m running in one place…

And finally, the day and night scenes used behind the biking and running shots are exactly the same scene.  I tried doing a series of shots at dusk, but if you don’t have a $$$$ camera it ends up looking grainy.  So I simply darkened the background.

Regarding some of the other entries – check them out!  The one with the speed cop is kind of clever, and the guys in the “Tacos” clip do a pretty good job.  I also think the MADVC guys did a good job “thinking outside the box.”  Quite frankly, most of the videos are drinking-and-driving videos, which is definitely a challenge in the Army.  Not to single out any single video (because you never know) but I know some of the more creative Army Commanders would consider suspending punishment if a DUI offender were to educate his/her peers in a contest like this one.  It’s important to highlight the problem from the perspective of those who can speak from personal experience, but wouldn’t it be a hoot if one of them also managed to then win 2 grand?  That having been said, one of the very first entries, a music video titled “I’m a PFC now” is a pretty commendable job of doing just that.

For a few months now, Vimeo has been hosting a video contest called “The Story Beyond the Still.”   OK it’s hosted by Canon, but on Vimeo.  It’s a wonderful mix of user-generated content and crowdsourcing, in that users are challenged to create a two- to four-minute HD clip that tells a story, prompted by a single still shot.  The first chapter is provided by Vincent LaForet, and from his final still, the story continues.  You can browse the contest rules and finalists at the contest’s group page - it’s fun to look at the different directions the story has been taken by different filmmakers.  The only part I find a bit confusing is that each filmmaker, of course, has to use different actors (but I confuse easily).

The quality of the filmmaking, besides making me jealous, reminds me why I spend so little time watching television – here on Vimeo you can find countless 3-4 minute gems – I could sit and watch them for hours.

Take a look at the finalists so far – there will be 7 total:

Chapter 1: The Cabbie from Vincent Laforet on Vimeo.

Job Security from Runner Runner on Vimeo.

Chapter 3: The Beach from M. Keegan Uhl on Vimeo.

Chapter 4: Allison from Jeff Turick on Vimeo.

Patiently awaiting the results of two video contests I’ve entered:  Reel Insights’ monthly contest and a last-minute entry to WordPress.com’s “Give Thanks” contest.

In the Reel Insights contest, mine was the only entry for about two weeks.  Then there was a second with a couple days ago, and during the last 24 hours of the contest it seems the number rose to 13!  The monthly theme was “the Most Generous Person I know”, and some of the entries focused on convincing the public that “their” person was THE most generous, while I and some others focused on defining and understanding “generosity” – which is what I understood the assignment to be (despite the title!)

My entry is here:

But I think (in addition to my own, of course!) the most competitive entry is likely to be this one:

The second contest I entered was (admittedly) a rush job, but I found out about WordPress’ contest on Thanksgiving, being held from 23 to 27 November, on the 27th. So I put the entry below together. It’s limited to 30 seconds and tries to be a little different. Of course the next day I found out they had extended the contest to 4 December! Check it out, it’s only 30 seconds…

Imagine my surprise at receiving an email informing me TAZM Pictures’ entry in the video contest, “A Family Struggles with Going Green,” sponsored by Reelinsights.com, was selected as the Grand Prize Winner! This marks my second attempt at the documentary format, which is a challenge to do well – at least I think so.  The first attempt was on the Aschiana charity in Afghanistan. This was also the second video in which I collaborated with musician Dan Cooper. The first collaboration is still in Judging over at the Lonely Planet.

The contest was an interesting format, run to support an even more interesting business model for Snippies. The really cool thing is, if you take the time to read their instructions and FAQ carefully, they pretty much tell you how to do the whole thing – your job is just to find them the interesting people and viewpoints and assemble the pieces.  In order for them to confirm a “potential winner” (which my film currently still is) you have to send them all the releases a documentary would normally require, in addition to 30 minutes of relevant, pertinent raw footage.  The prize money is basically a purchase of this raw footage which has been highlighted in your video, which they then use for market research products.  In other words, this contest is accessible to anyone who knows someone interesting, knows the basics of operating a camcorder, and can edit video.  If you plan to enter one of their monthly contests (next month’s prize is $2000), wait a couple of months – I’m currently trying to figure out who is “the most generous person I know” (the theme of next month’s contest, which has already opened!  Check it out!

To reinforce the point that you, too can win one of these contests, here’s the winning video:

TAZM Pictures is back in the video contest business – double trouble, hopefully!

I’ve re-tooled an old video from Washington DC – in fact, this is the video that inspired me to start this site (with some friendly encouragement) – and entered it into Lonely Planet’s video contest.  Check out that one by clicking on the link for “gallery” on their YouTube channel (previous link) and selecting “cities” and “go.”  The contest is being administered by the same company that sponsored the Lowe’s contest I sent 3 videos for, but they’ve noticeably relaxed their standards.  In spite of the fact that copyright music are forbidden, and professional film companies are barred from competition, quite of the videos entered break both rules.  After the Lowe’s competition I sent them some “free” feedback (no response) about their refusal to entertain some entries while at the same time refusing to respond to queries from entrants, and it seems they are now leaning the other way – accepting any and all entries in the initial phase, and probably planning to shorten the list in the future.  Contrast this with the contest sponsored by The Learning Games Network (where my daughter won a SWEET laptop and iPod), where the sponsors went out of their way to give feedback throughout the contest, and even included a nice card with each prize.  Anyway, I’m glad to see they’ve taken a different approach and am interested to see who will be chosen as finalists (the judges will do that) on November 1.  Amazing prize package for that one, especially for aspiring filmmakers like me!  I can use your votes for the video (if nothing else, to make a good impression on the judges).

Second contest is Reel Insights’ monthly contest – this one is “A Family Struggles with Going Green.”  They have had a fairly forward-leaning publicity stance, seeking me out on Twitter (they are @reel_insights) and encouraging me to join.  The deadline was extended to Sunday night (as I write) and my video will join at least two others in the quest for a $1500 prize.  This is an interesting contest, where they give you detailed instructions and suggestions – very helpful if you’re not that experienced in documentary.  The idea is you produce a 3-5 minute video along the lines of their theme, and if you win, they ask for 30 minutes of raw video footage – basically this amounts to a purchase of raw footage from your 3-5 minute highlights.  Pretty stringent requirements for individual and property releases, really forcing you to think about every frame and giving an appreciation of what is required to produce a professional documentary piece.  Check them out – maybe we’ll see a video from YOU in an upcoming contest!

Both videos and contests also represent a new partnership with a musician who has agreed to team up from time to time in producing soundtracks.  See what you think!

Well, the smoke cleared and…the TAZM Pictures entry on the eCompliments video contest ended up in 12th place.  Things were going well; just as it looked like we would drop off the bottom (the lowest-ranked video was dropping off the “marquis”, one per day) the work publicizing the video on Twitter started making a difference.  It moved from 22nd all the way up to 7th.  Then out of nowhere comes a video about a high school (not bad, actually) and then some celebrity you may have heard of but I haven’t comes in at the last minute and blows everyone away.  It was unfortunately considering some of the causes winners would have donated to.

But it confirms my observation that the best video is not necessarily the one that wins.  The person who can rustle up the most votes will be the one that wins.  So I was bummed when we slid back to 12th, but it’s all part of the “game.”

A few days after the contest, eCompliments sent me an email with the following text:

Thank you contestants!

We will be running a new contest with new rules in January. Some of the anticipated changes include:

• A panel making the determination of  the winner based on a combination of factors, including the number of votes;
• The video requirements will be more tightly focused on “compliments” and “sharing the good”; and
• There will be a grand prize and prizes for second and third place.

So be sure to check back at that time!  We can’t wait to see your creativity again!

Share the Good,

Video Contest Team

eCompliments.com

Which is kind of cool because it addresses all the concerns I – and probably many others – had with the contest.  So I hope I can count on the same support we got from the Twitter-verse, friends and family in the next one.  See you in January!

After some recent small successes, we’re taking a shot at the eCompliments video contest offers a grand prize of $10,000 for the highest-rated video (as voted by the public) that compliments any person, place, thing, business, organization…you get the picture. As of this writing we’ve got 90 votes, behind the front-runner with well over 1,000 (how do they DO that???). You have to admit the winning video (Complimenting Strangers) is pretty clever though. These guys run a YouTube channel that has a quarter MILLION subscribers. Mediocre Films or something. And the troops (my topic) are falling less into favor these days – but hopefully not that much!. We’ve agreed to donate ALL of our winnings to a deserving military charity: The Fisher House, and thanks to some troop supporters our there on Twitter and elsewhere we have managed to scrape our way up from 28th place, to (almost) 8th! Which is a good thing, because every day that passes, another contestant is dropped from the bottom.

Some folks have reported problems in voting, but be persistent. I couldn’t register the first couple times around either (of course I voted for myself!). But I guess the registration keeps folks honest.

A bit about the video:  it’s a collection of imagery I took over the course of a 6-month deployment to Afghanistan, back when things were a little safer.  I wanted to solute all 42 nations’ troops, but unfortunately I was there with US Forces at the time so that’s what I got.  Lately when I go to Afghanistan we don’t get out so much to get such great shots.  My daughter narrates the script we put together to try and get our sentiments out in the 60 seconds we are given, and then at the end I made up the music, recording multiple tracks with a guitar – and an (!) accordion.  I think it sounds kind of patriotic, borrowing from a few well-known tunes

Hopefully you have a moment to give your support.  Although we have a long climb ahead of us, we’re not quite ready to give up! So if you have a moment, check out: Salute to the Troops in Afghanistan; and it only takes a couple of clicks and a confirmation on your email account to give us a vote.  A vote for this video is a vote closer to $10,000 (after taxes) for Fisher House!

While eagerly awaiting results of the $25,000 prize for TaxSlayer.com’s video contest (I’m not holding my breath) I entered 3 videos in the Lowe’s Spring Dream video contest. Sadly, they only accepted 2. Check out the site at http://www.youtube.com/lowes, and select “gallery.” There are 5 categories and 6 available themes, and each category will be awarded an awesome prize package from Lowe’s. Voting starts May 16, not clear on exactly how this is going to work. But every YouTube user can vote once a day!

The TAZM entries are below – the first two were accepted by Lowe’s, the third not. No idea why not – I think it’s kind of lame that they don’t tell you, too!