Normally, I don’t write about other people’s video contests, but this one I couldn’t resist.

Yesterday, TechCrunch blogged about a young man who made a pretty awesome video for a McDonald’s jingle contest. He made it to the finals, and only then someone found out that he is the same guy who a dozen or so years earlier had held up a McDonald’s at gunpoint!

Well, here’s something that’s so ridiculous it couldn’t be made up. McDonald’s teamed up with MySpace to create a new jingle for the 40th anniversary of the Big Mac. The original song (two all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce…) was created back in 1974. Over 1,000 user created songs and videos were submitted - the winner’s jingle becomes the official Big Mac song and will be featured in a McDonald’s Big Mac TV commercial.

Enter 29 year old Tamien Bain, who held up a McDonald’s at gunpoint when he was 14, was convicted as an adult and served 12 years in prison.

I’m not sure whether to laugh or cry, but one thing is for sure. This dude knows how to make a pretty bangin’ video! And he also just discovered a new way of making a video go viral.

Big Mac Chant

Tags: video, contest, mcdonalds, viral

This video was all the rage around the Interwebs last week. Turns out, it was a fake. It’s a commercial to promote the director, Timur Bekmambetov’s new film! Crazy, huh?

But man, it sure got me thinkin’… I bet you could to a lot of neat stuff with that ’security camera’ look. Which reminds me, this band made an entire music video with other people’s actual security cameras!

Tags: viral, video, commercial, creative inspiration

I don’t really know how I would classify this ad, but it sure is funny. And cute. And ingenious. And easy to make. I know it’s not in English, but you’ll get it.

[Thanks for the tip, I Have the Info]

Tags: creative inspiration, xlntads, video, viral, advertising, commercial

My friend Dave has this great new blog about the start-up business environment in Philadelphia called Phillypreneurs. He did a short interview with me the other day over video iChat. We talked about some cool points in there, viral vids, business, and more. Have a look!

Tags: phillypreneurs, xlntads, startup, video, interview

Today, one of the biggest and best blogs on Earth (and one of my daily reads) Read/Write Web posted a long piece on YouTube ’stars’ and how they, and others, can parlay their fame and video skills into business. It’s a pretty basic primer on the things we know, but the writer did include a long bit at the end about prosumer video makers doing the commercial thing. They didn’t mention us by name, unfortunately, but I wrote this response:

We’ve built a whole business around the idea that there is a huge (and growing) market of semi-pro and freelance video makers who are more than talented enough to tell brand stories. We’re putting their work in front of our major brand clients like Anheuser-Busch and Nestle to great praise. I definitely believe that this kind of content has great potential because people have a thirst for creation. And they’re only going to get better.

I believe in the future, you will see a creative class of videographers who make money from several revenue streams. They’ll make video ads for their neighbor’s restaurant, commercials for Nestle through sites like ours, video blog segments for their friend’s band and comedy skits for their YouTube Partner channel - making money at all of them.

It’s the rise of the multi-faceted media maker.

What are your thoughts? Can it be done? Are we heading in the right direction?

Tags: video, xlntads, commercials, business

Just in case you hadn’t noticed the wee lil’ list on the side bar over on the right, XLNTads is all over the place on the interwebs. Why not head on over and share a little love and friend us up? We’re on MySpace, Facebook, YouTube and more.

Oh, and in case you were looking for a little more social media humor, check this out:

[thanks, adpulp!]

Tags: social networks, xlntads, friending, video, humor

Who doesn’t love a good musical? And a bit of family drama. Well, if Meat Loaf is in it, you can’t go wrong! That dude’s a barrel of laughs. But if you can’t get him, the musical-cum-commercial is always a hit.

[Thanks for the tip, Leah!]

Tags: creative inspiration, commercial, advertising, meat loaf, go phone

I just came across this pretty awesome website that I think could be really valuable to all you videomakers out there. It’s called Soundsnap.com. From their about us section:

Soundsnap is the best platform to find and share free sound effects and loops- legally. It is a collection of original sounds made or recorded by its users, and not songs or sound FX found on commercial libraries or sample CD’s.

According to the popular social media blog, Mashable:

Soundsnap is an online resource that promises to share “pro-quality” sounds, samples and loops with the world of audio experimentalists and songsmiths without any cost to the end user. Yes, royalty-free, non-exclusive, sublicense-transferable and high-fidelity recordings are what the site is advertising, and having given it a good once-over, I’ve concluded that for those of you out there who like to dabble and like to assemble lots of little things into larger, interesting things, the site is a real pleasure to use.

Pretty awesome, yeah? I know I’ll be using their service - both to share my own samples and to download some to use in my videos.

Tags: video, resources, soundsnap, music, sound effects, fx

Okay, not really their money, silly. They’re just characters in a couple movies. But we’re coming in quick to the deadline for our Harold & Kumar assignment, and all ten of those $1500 prizes are still up for grabs. Get your video in soon. We’ll start picking the top entries a week from today.

Just for kicks, I wanted to share a great one with you guys. (No, this doesn’t mean they’ve won anything, or that New Line has picked their video, or that they are guaranteed to win. It’s just that I like it and wanted to share because it made me laugh and they did a good job.)

Featured: onespartan’s Obey the Master:

Tags: harold and kumar, new line cinema, xlntads, video, advertising

Boy, this is beautiful, isn’t it?

Tags: creativity, creative inspiration, schweppes

It’s a no brainer to look to a guy like Michel Gondry for inspiration. The man’s been blowing the doors of visual creativity for years. He’s a genius (see Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind), but how about this awesomeness!? He went ahead and remade his own trailer for his upcoming film Be Kind Rewind. So DIY, so fun, so lo-fi! We love it. See, you don’t need a million bucks to make a commercial. (Thanks for the tip, IndyMogul!)

Tags: michel gondy, video, be kind rewind, funny, creative inspiration

Anheuser-Busch’s Bud Light is working on an interesting new twist to their already legendary Super Bowl commercial hype (Bud Bowl, anyone?). They are using a YouTube channel to set up jokes that’ll get a pay-off when you see the punch-line during the Big Game. I dig the idea, it could work, but as Chris Albrecht of NewTeeVee points out, by making people wait a week, “Those had better be pretty freaking hilarious punch-lines.” Here’s one set up. What do you think?

Tags: bud light, advertising, super bowl, youtube, video

Leave it up to our buddy Nalts to create one of the funniest ad parodies I’ve seen in a long while. Like many a Mac fanboy, I was glued to the live blogging from yesterday’s Steve Jobs speech at MacWorld. Then I went to the Apple site and watched all the videos they had, one of which is the new commercial for the MacBook Air, “The world’s thinnest notebook.” Here’s Nalts’ old, clunky laptop trying to get thin. So funny! (Oh, and that reminds me, don’t forget to head over and join our Slim-Fast assignment going on now!)

Tags: nalts, macbook air, commercial, advertising, funny, parody

We’re working hard at at signing up new clients to fire up assignments for our community members to flex their creative muscle! Some great (official) news is coming very soon! In the meantime, allow me to entertain you with these great oldies as a way of hinting around about who we just signed with for our next assignment!

[Thanks for sharing those videos, Brandy!]

Tags: creativity, phone, commercials, video, advertising, news, funny

Here’s an inspiring video that goes to show, you don’t need millions of dollars to recreate epic battle scenes. What could be more epic than landing on Normandy Beach during World War II? Not much, methinks. Check out what just three guys did with a little hard work and a heap of ingenuity.

[Thanks, Dave!]

Tags: video, creative, diy, inspiration, cool