Crowd source advertising........

Chris Johnston

Chris Johnston

Veteran
Has anyone ever used (or attempted to use) these type sites?
Are there any other sites like this besides poptent.net?
Anyone ever get any videos selected? (shot with a dslr....)
 
I signed up for poptent and gave up on it real quick. The idea of going through all the steps, creating a completed project and then sending it out "on the come" seemed like a huge waste of time and money to me. If someone needs the practice so they can polish their work in order to crack into the biz, then maybe. That's not my goal so I quit looking at it.
 
There are a bunch of them, Mofilm, Tongal, Poptent, Zoopa. They all operate pretty much the same. You give up all rights to what you create for zero compensation unless you win. If you want to create a commercial reel, its not bad motivation as they provide graphics and sometimes music cues, but you can't put the stuff up on your own site which makes the act of building a reel kind of pointless.

The competition is fierce, but so is the industry. If you are looking to be discovered as a commercial director and can put forward your best effort, Mofilm seems to be the best bet as their top prizes include trips to big festivals, industry events, to screen your spot and meet people. Take the time to troll the sites and look at spots that have won competitions. The productions are top notch, almost too good relative to the compensation, but if you want to be a commercial director, I don't think it is any worse than doing the work completely on spec and sending out screener dvd's.
 
Thanks guys. I did sign up for poptent and submitted 1 commercial. (just trying to pick up a few bucks between jobs)
It was one of the 6 staff favs and 3rd most liked so I thought I might have a chance but, the client hasn't picked the 2 winners yet.
been 2+ months so I think they might not have seen anything they liked and just backed out cold.
So much for that "2 Guaranteed purchaces" BS.
 
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Yeah I don't know about that, They seem a bit slow about announcing actual buys and payouts. Some of the other ones have very clear schedules and secondary prizes, whether or not the sponsor is happy with the result, Haven't actually won any myself so can't speak to it.
 
I've won a few of these things. I also don't give a toss and use whatever I want on my reel. Who is really checking?
 
It's just a matter of reading the fine print and then deciding if it's worth the effort and if the process will be rewarding... I don't think anyone should spend money on it, just some time. You never know unless you try.. They are quite limiting though for doing stuff with the content, but no more so than the Amazon script development deal. That's the worst... they take your script for 18 months and you can't do bubkiss with it.. What an absolute rip of that one is...
 
I know a few of these ad agency people use the ideas you submit then hire a crew to reshoot it and use it as their own...
 
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