Become An ATS Video Pro: The ATS Video Contest

Now that everyone has had a chance to get used to, and start using our new media portal, it's time to kick thins into higher-gear with our first member video contest!

We're looking for incredible amateur videographers from the ranks of ATS members, as I'm sure we have several. All you need to do is create that amazing video entry, upload it to our media portal, then create a new thread (and embed your video) in our ATS Video Forum before June 30, 2009.

Look, it's easy, this took me just 45 minutes to toss-together (and it looks that way too... I'm sure many of our members will do much better.)

Media @ AboveTopSecret.com Home Page Pro Videos  |  Top-Rated Videos  |  Most-Watched Videos

Our members will vote on your video using the thread-flagging system, and on July 15th, 2009, the top-five most-flagged videos will be presented to a special panel of our moderators for final review and judging. The winner will be announced on July 17th, 2009.


GRAND PRIZE

The winner will received a check for $250.00 and a special dedicated channel as a Video Pro on our Media.AboveTopSecret.com Media Portal, a dedicated URL to promote your videos (we assume you'll have lots of great videos within you if you win this contest).

But most importantly, your video channel will have full revenue-sharing status on our portal, and you'll receive 50% of the advertising revenue generated by your videos.


GENERAL RULES

The subject matter of your video must be connected to the topics discussed on AboveTopSecret.com.

Videos can be any format: interviews, opinion pieces, expose, animations, humor, satire, or any other style as long as it fits within the Terms & Conditions of ATS.

The contest is open only to original videos created by those who are members of AboveTopSecret.com at the time of submission.

One video entry per person, entrants may not modify or update any video that has been entered into the contest.

Minimum length is two minutes with a maximum length of 20 minutes.

Members must be 18 years old or older at the time of submitting their video.

You must have permission to use any third-party video or audio clips that appear in your video, or have the good-faith belief that your use of the clips is within that of "fair use" for the purpose of journalistic or educational video productions.

So exciting! I'm not going to enter, myself, but I can't wait to see what some of my fellow ATS Media chicks and dudes come up with!

Edit- yeah, I really can't... it would take too much time before graduation. But maybe this summer I'll make an awesome interview anyway just for kicks. Good luck everyone!

[edit on 5/18/2009 by ravenshadow13]

I dont have a video Camera :-( Doubt my Blackberry Pearl will cut it.

This sounds interesting to me
Let's see if I can devote some time to this

that $250.00, is that USD?
And is this to u.s. residents only?

reply to post by ModernAcademia

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Good question, I would assume its USD.

Very cool, although I am not "video savvy" so I won't be entering, although the 250$ sounds cool.

The prize money is in U.S. Dollars, anyone anywhere (aliens included) who is a member of ATS can join and win subject to the terms listed in the OP...

Springer...

OMG... need money.. need a camera..

quick..somebody give me some money


I so want to have a go at this..

Way to go ATS.. !!!!

reply to post by Extralien

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You might be able to borrow a camera from your local library, or a friend.

So if I've got a fictional narrative short film about time travel e.t.c. it's cool to enter that? If so I'll have to see about what format you guys can upload in.

[edit on 18-5-2009 by John Nada]

ZOMG!!!

Did everybody see what I saw?

I swear his eyes shape shifted back to reptilian for a few frames in that video!!!


.

reply to post by SkepticOverlord

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lol, I thought the fight video was the one you made.

I'm like, that looks pretty good, I ain't got the skillz for that!

Then I saw the actual video ... so maybe I'll put something together.

Very cool idea SO.

Sounds rather interesting, I may indeed enter.

meuhahahahhaha

I'm firing up the old video editing programs and sharpening my talons.

I'm looking forward to this, great idea guys.

I posted something a few weeks back about giving some sort of ATS points for the videos we have already posted and then the post was taken down and passed around the mods squad with no reply just a U2U saying that they are discussing it.

Actually a couple of follow up questions. As well as a short I have that's a fictional narrative about time travel being viable for this competition(?), is it a problem that there's some colourful language in it?

Also, I just noticed that your max upload size is 50meg, I shot on HD, with it being 17 mins long, and when I export it as a hdv720p mov it's going over 2gig so I doubt it's ever going to be of a suitable quality in the media portle.

Sorry for the multiple questons.

[edit on 18-5-2009 by John Nada]

$250.00?

Hmmm..

Can I get an advance to buy a camera?

No?

Well I'll see what I can come up with...

I just bought a camcorder haha.

Not sure if I will enter thou. Need an idea...hmm

Yeah that might be a problem, your gonna probably have to reduce the quality.

Vimeo.com is a great site to share hd video by the way. But I think this contest is only for ATS media portal, right?

Fiction on "ATS related" subjects is no problem. However, for the purposes of the contest, we'd prefer the "colorful" comments be bleeped out. If you win, we can discuss how colorful you can get within your own video channel.



If you export (from your video editing software) as a 400x300 QuickTime at 15fps, that should end up with a file-size sufficient for uploading.

Even better, if you can export directly to FLV format, you then have total control over the quality and frame-rate, and can usually pack a great deal of excellent looking video into 20 minutes for an FLV video under 50meg in file size.

Ha ok I'll get looking for some bleep sound effects.

It's natural aspect ratio is 16:9, if I change the ratio so that in theory it'll put black bars top and bottom when uploaded does the ats media upload recognise to do this? (I'm thinking of the old days of youtube before they went widescreen).

I'm using FCP, under the assumption you also use this do you think it's better to export using the divx codec or the flv (again I'm assuming an flv export is an automatic option, I'm used to dealing with mov's or divx)? I'll have a look a bit later.

Cheers.