so early today I got an email from an acquaintance regarding a contest that a large HUGE mega corp is holding.

here’s the message:

Subject: Microsoft 7 Shorts Contest for $$$

My friend, [NAME REMOVED] told me about this contest. He works for [NAME REMOVED] and they are recruiting videographers to create extremely short (7 second!) videos about Microsoft Windows 7.

Here’s the deal:

They’re sending videographers a free copy of Windows 7. You then need to make up to seven different 7 second videos about one of the new W7 features. Each clip that gets accepted will earn $50 (so, if you submit a string of 7 short videos that are decent quality, you’d get $350 upfront). In addition, the 10 best videos they receive will each earn an additional $700 bonus (good odds, because they don’t expect that many entries), and ALL of the videos will have a chance of appearing in a national MSFT Windows 7 campaign.

Would you be interested? Anyone who wants more info should email [NAME REMOVED]

Good luck!

Seriously? $50???

Doritos…yes the snack maker DORITOS is giving away 5 MILLION DOLLARS. Check out this article in USA Today.

Wait, what am I saying, this is actually a GREAT opportunity for a director with real vision to show off unlimited creative potential and the awesomeness of Windows 7 AND make some serious loot in the process.

Now where did I leave my VHS-C camera?

-Luke

So a while back I got an email from an account executive at dbdchile.com. Someone at their Japanese office had sent them the street mag that my Real Luke pics were in (check them out here). They wanted to chat with me about making a vintage inspired Coke ad. I was into the idea, and even better the job was going to shoot in Winter… i.e. July.

A chance to escape the SoCal heat, go snowboarding, and film a Real Luke ad in July??? Yes please!!!

On the flight to Santiago I ended up sitting next to a wild haired, tattooed German guy. His name was Wilhelm Von Schmakënbrau. We talked a lot about art, music, and incidentally snowboarding. Wilhelm is quite the artist. He has exhibited or performed all over the world, from Berlin to Johannesburg, from Mumbai to Tokyo. It’s hard to classify his work, the best I can come up with is Metal Infused Post Deconstructionist Performance Art. But it’s not to hard to describe it, basically he “blows shit up with sound.” It’s pretty badass. He’s pretty vigilant about keeping it strictly PERFORMANCE based and spends hours everyday searching youtube to eliminate any clips of his work that may have popped up. If you could say anything about the Germans, it’s that they are thorough.

After 14 hours in the air and 3 hours going through customs, we’d become pretty good friends. I needed a camera person, so I asked if he’d like to help me with the production. He was a little resistant, it being “commercial” and all, but when I explained the character of The Real Luke – a Post Industrialist Waldenian on a Vision Quest – and that we would be shooting on Super 8, he was hooked.

The shoot went smoothly, and the client notes were surprisingly simple. The only problem was getting a dang copy of the piece. My best guess is that Alessandro, my account rep, left the agency. He’d been mumbling something about a kayak trip in Patagonia. I’ve been scouring the web looking for the video and it finally popped up online. Some dude (well, it’s the internet, so who really knows) posted a bunch of weird beverage ads from South America… and mine is in the mix!

Hopefully I’ll have a pretty quicktime online soon, but until then – click here for the youtube video or watch below!