We’ve been watching the Searching for Love submissions all week and going back and forth about which ones were our three favorites. We haven’t been able to agree quite yet.
After discussing your videos and showing them to some of our brand clients, we’ve got a good feel for what is salable to them and what they feel confortable sponsoring and buying. We recognize that there are some small things we’ll need to change in these webisodes to make them more appealing to our brand partners. So we’re communicating with our finalists what those changes should be and asking them to complete those changes over the next couple of days.
We decided to spend some extra time because we really want to come to our clients with the best possible work. We’re working hard for you guys to make sure we’re selling the best possible shows we know you can make.
That being said, these are the seven finalists that we’re going to boil down to three for the $5000 development deal:
Marcboese’s Sarah’s Search
GreenSkyMedia’s Guy Trouble
Zeltrine’s Love Search
DevinWilliamBone’s Dew You Love Me
Levoyage’s Searching Santa
FilmJeff’s Michael is Searching for Love
IlanaDonna’s Monogamy in the City
Good luck, y’all!
[tags]xlntads, webisode, video, series, searching for love, dating[/tags]
June 5th, 2008 at 5:34 pm
From the creative brief:
“Conclude with the decision to sign up for online dating. E-harmony is a popular choice, but is not a sponsor of this project.”
Some of these seven finalists make no reference to online dating at any point. Why are they even being considered if they didn’t follow the instructions?
June 5th, 2008 at 7:29 pm
ARE YOU SERIOUS? So no attractive people shot on HD with original musical score, and award-winning Director. Okay. Bye-Bye. Congrats to the Finalists~
June 6th, 2008 at 3:52 pm
@Arden - we’re working with these videos to revise them. We haven’t nailed down our clients for the shows yet, but hope to soon. The creators who win will probably customize their show a bit more anyhow.
@CreativeCollaborations - We dug your vid man, but we gotta narrow the field somehow.
June 8th, 2008 at 6:49 pm
Gotta say, I’m with Arden - several of your finalists were over or under time, as well… How seriously do you expect us to take your creative briefs if you don’t disqualify folks who don’t adhere to your requirements and, worse, you choose them as finalists?
June 9th, 2008 at 2:01 pm
@Ann - we certainly don’t mean to bend any rules here, but we were looking for the best content. If someone goes overtime by a few seconds, we’re hardly going to disqualify them. This assignment was sponsored by XLNTads because we feel like we’ve got clients who would probably buy one of these shows. That’s why we’re hosting them. We’re picking the videos we feel were the best of the bunch.
While we’re definitely strict on the contest rules, the Creative Brief is meant as an outline and not a letter for letter description of what we want. The whole point of allowing all of your creative minds at an assignment like this is to see all the awesome things you come up with.
June 9th, 2008 at 4:59 pm
Congrats to the finalist! Hey Mark you say, “the Creative Brief is meant as an outline and not a letter for letter description of what we want.” That leaves a lot of room for interpretation. When making a video most people try to follow the guidelines. Perhaps it can be better structured next time. Just a thought.
June 9th, 2008 at 6:52 pm
@Allan - Good idea. I know this tends to get a little murky. The main point I’m trying to make is that we’re trying to get away from the idea of a ‘contest’ and more along the lines of a creative content marketplace. Maybe we should make a note in the Creative Brief about “The following subjects are MANDATORY:” and another one that says “The following subjects are SUGGESTIONS:”.
The bottom line is this: our brand clients and we want the best possible content - be it commercials or webisodes - and will buy that content accordingly. If there is a mediocre video that comes in at the exact time against an awesome video that’s a few seconds over, we’re going to choose the awesome video 10 out of 10 times.
The difference here is that XLNTads is not a place for ‘consumer engagement’ per se (like those big contests on YouTube), but rather we see ourselves as a place for semi-pro videographers to get their work in front of major brands and to connect for further paid work. That being said, we’re working very hard on a new release (called it XLNTads 2.0) that’s going to be awesome and address many of these issues.
Thanks, everyone for your feedback here. We know we’re not perfect and we love to hear what you have to say. Please feel free to continue posting here or email or IM me directly! Thanks!
June 10th, 2008 at 12:57 pm
Haha! Don’t get so upset I’ve never seen one dime from this site. My work doesn’t really thrill xlntads team or more importantly the sponsors - but it’s a open ended contest.
It can be discouraging, but that’s the deal with contests. I’ve lost everytime without exception - but It’s funny how some people get into a big huff. You have to put your ego aside.
Contests are like gambling in a lottery - it’ll never be fair - there will always be factors you never know that take place behind the scenes that will slide some into victory and some into last place.
Awards, camera format and physical looks have nothing to do with hitting that narrow window that means success. It usually depends on who you knows more often than not
Congrats to the winners! You’ll be eating well soon! Urr.. gotta go turn these cans and bottles in at the supermarket to hopefully buy another mini-dv tape pack. (Roughly 100 for those who might need to do that too)
June 10th, 2008 at 3:52 pm
Thanks, John! We hope you win something soon.
June 11th, 2008 at 11:32 pm
Just have to say… John, your posts always impress me. I also hope you win something soon.
June 13th, 2008 at 5:25 pm
[...] be working hard on selling all seven of the finalists, we hope everyone will do well in the [...]