2nd Annual DVC/UWOL Charity Challenge

Lorinda Norton · January 18th, 2010, 01:36 PM

What an amazing round! Ten great films to judge, ranging from the serene to the surreal—with a dose of potty humor (and I mean POTTY humor) to keep us young. We’ve had a blast, thanks to the great filmmakers who submitted films and everyone who joined in the feedback. You are all winners. You are all GIFTS.

Special thanks to Chris Barcellos and “Marty Henderson” for the hilarious call out to filmmakers early on. It worked, and gave us a great laugh.

So who provides the house for this party? Many thanks to Chris Hurd for that! DV Info Net continues to be *THE* place for all things DV, and we appreciate all Chris does so that we can have a great place to hang out, learn, and share our work. Thanks, too, to Jeff Kramer for all the publicity on Facebook and Twitter! Loved it, Jeff!

More thanks to Dylan Couper of the DV Challenge and Meryem Ersoz of the UWOL Challenge for making the joint charity challenge a reality. Hope we can gather again next December for another one!

Then there’s a huge “Thank You!” to our sponsor, Guy Cochran of dvcreators.net for going all out on this bash with a truckload of prizes!

Take another look at what Guy offered:

To the winner!

RODE NTG-3 Shotgun Microphone!
RODE NTG-3 Shotgun Mic at DVcreators.net

AND

KATA MC61 Camcorder Bag!
KATA Camera Bag MC61 at DVcreators.net

And also to the winner if the entry was shot on a Canon 5DM2 or Canon 7D!

7" Marshall LCD Monitor, complete with monitor mount, cable, battery and charger!
Marshall Electronics 7″ LCD Monitor at DVcreators.net

PLUS the incredibly cool trophy pictured below!

New to the challenge, a prize to the winner of the Best Newcomer award!
A LitePanel Micro!
Litepanels Micro and MicroPro at DVcreators.net

Wow, Guy—much appreciation for all the great prizes!!!

Now let’s remember the big reason why we gather every December for the challenge. That’s right: CHARITY. Our donation total was down this time but it’s been that kind of year. Still, some great charity of the winner’s choosing will receive a donation of $296, and I’m sure it will be appreciated. “Thank you,” to all of you who were able to give.

Okay, enough ado; let’s get to the winners!

Lorinda Norton · January 18th, 2010, 01:43 PM

Here we go! As mentioned earlier, you are all “gifts” to the challenge and to this DVi member, and because you submitted a film you are all winners. But you and the donors voted for the top films so here they are:

Honorable Mention:

Bill Thesken “The Miracle”
Ben Robbins & Cole Seidl “Merry Christmas, Craig!”

2nd Runner up:

Andris Krastins “True Gifts”

1st Runner Up:

Dick Mays “The Red Side”

Congratulations, guys! Great work--great films!!

The WINNER of the 2nd Annual DVC/UWOL Charity Challenge:

Chris Barcellos “Aunt Matilda’s Present”

Congratulations, Chris!!! Your entertaining story and fine attention to detail earned you a much-deserved win! Please send the info for the charity you want to receive the donation to Dylan. We’ll get your email address to Guy so he can contact you about your prizes. You even take home the Marshall monitor!

Marty will be very pleased…

And finally, the Best Newcomer award goes to:

Ben Robbins and Cole Seidl!!

Way to go, guys! We look forward to seeing more from you. Guy will be contacting you soon.

Well, that’s it for now. Have a great year making films, everyone, and we’ll plan to see you right here next December!

Andris Krastins · January 18th, 2010, 01:48 PM

Awesome! :) Congrats to everyone! :)
And thanks to DVinfo staff for organizing this contest!

Graeme Hay · January 18th, 2010, 01:58 PM

Congratulations everyone for all the effort, and to the staff who made this all possible.

Also Congrats Chris, your short was well deserving of the win, the trophy, and the truck-load of prizes that went with it. And to Ben & Cole, wonderful first win, now that you have tasted glory get out there and shot some more, as we shiver with anticipation!

Hopefully 2010 will be full of fun & exciting DV and UWOL challenges for us to hone our skills for next year's charity challenge. I know I'll be there and I expect some good competition as we all continue to improve our skills.

Ben Robbins · January 18th, 2010, 01:59 PM

Wonderful job everyone! Congratulations Chris, I really enjoyed your short! And congratulations to everyone else for submitting!

We really appreciate what you folks here at the DVinfo community do, and we thank you for recognizing our work. This is a really helpful, mature community that I hope to be involved with for quite some time. Thanks again everyone, and congratulations!

Dick Mays · January 18th, 2010, 02:04 PM

Congratulations to Chris and his beautiful grandchildren for a well deserved victory. I'd vote that bugeyed dog as best actor and give Chris the sweep if we had that category. Looking forward to a rematch next year, as this was my best finish ever in a challenge.

I don't want to start the trash talking for next year, but anyone notice how the narrative films cleaned the house???? I was surprised as I thought there were some really beautiful nature film. Next year I will have a talking rock...

Chris Barcellos · January 18th, 2010, 02:43 PM

WOW.... is all I can say. I really want to thank EVERYONE for support on this film- your votes are greatly appreciated. All of the films were great in this competition, and I am honored. My grandkids also rescued me for this competition, and I had a lot of fun making this project with them, and I thank them too.

I talked about it with them, and we think in light of the ongoing problems there, it is appropriate that the donation go to a relief program for the Haitian earthquake victims. I will locate the appropriate Red Cross fund and forward that information to Dylan, as indicated by Lorinda.

I have been involved with these challenges now for several years, and have always enjoyed making films for them, both on the UWOL and the DVC side. Last year I played with the idea of concentrating on other projects, like local film festivals, and in fact started out to do so. But a new camera, and some other things kept me going in both venues, and I am glad I did. There is nothing better to help improve your production values than doing these things on a regular basis.

By the way, during the contest period, Kassie, the oldest of the four grand children, went to a spur of the moment audition of a local musical theatre group, and got selected to play and sing the lead part of Belle in their spring production of "Beauty and the Beast." She has been active in her high school drama department playing key parts in plays both her freshman and sophomore year. I think the years of working on this kind of thing with each other gave her the confidence to go out and do these things.

Again, thank you all for your kind words and support ! And thank you Guy for the prize donations that give us the extra incentive to participate ! And finally, thank you to Lorinda, Dylan, Meryem, Chris Hurd, and all the other behind the scenes people, as well as all the competitors that make these competitions interesting for all of us. Lets keep making films !

Ken Diewert · January 18th, 2010, 03:39 PM

Congratulations Chris! and to all the others. That is a great story about Kassie as well, I'm so glad to hear it.

Trond Saetre · January 18th, 2010, 04:15 PM

Congratulations to the winners.
And congrats to everyone who submitted a film. Many great entries this round.

I'm already looking forward to next time. :)

Chris Swanberg · January 18th, 2010, 04:37 PM

Congratulations Chris. A well deserved win. A fun film carried off very well technically.

Lorinda Norton · January 18th, 2010, 05:59 PM

We wouldn't want to forget about the unofficial sub-challenge, would we? Here's my vote. ;)

videos :: forDickMays.flv video by ljeanne - Photobucket

Hope you don't mind that I lifted one of your photos for this, Dick. About the colored rocks, I planned to incorporate them into my plan B film as an homage to the story you told us in one of your posts, but when that plan didn't work out...

Dick Mays · January 18th, 2010, 06:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lorinda Norton

We wouldn't want to forget about the unofficial sub-challenge, would we? Here's my vote. ;)

videos :: forDickMays.flv video by ljeanne - Photobucket

Hope you don't mind that I lifted one of your photos for this, Dick. About the colored rocks, I planned to incorporate them into my plan B film as an homage to the story you told us in one of your posts, but when that plan didn't work out....

LOL. My Dad would love those painted rocks!!! But I don't know, I like Trond's rock, as much as I tried to disqualify him for it being part of a mountain!

Lorinda Norton · January 18th, 2010, 07:00 PM

Yes, that was a huuuuuge rock. :)

On another note, I just edited the first post in this thread to include a shout out to the DV Info "behind-the-curtain" guru, Jeff Kramer. He gave us lots of publicity on Facebook and Twitter. Much appreciated, Jeff!

Meryem Ersoz · January 18th, 2010, 08:29 PM

congratulations, Chris, great work...and I'm glad to hear that you're looking into donating your winnings for Haiti relief...

very nice job, everybody!

And the BIGGEST THANKS of all to Lorinda - who kept this Charity Challenge alive and really deserves all of the credit for pulling it together for everybody.

Bill Thesken · January 18th, 2010, 09:49 PM

Congratulations Chris, I had a feeling you would win. A great and funny story well told, with amazing actresses, (and bugeye). It kind of opened my eyes to what is possible, and what needs to be done to make an impact that lasts beyond the first watching of a flick.
Plus my kids liked it.
Now you'll have to push it up a notch to better this fine effort, and we all really need to crank up the creativity to match you. Hope to see you in the next challenge!

I'd also like to thank everyone involved that made donations to the charity pool, the prizes, and the film makers, I watched each one at least a couple of times.

January 18th, 2010, 01:36 PM	#1
Lorinda Norton Wrangler Join Date: Nov 2001 Location: Southwest Idaho, USA Posts: 3,066	2nd Annual DVC/UWOL Charity Challenge - The Winner! What an amazing round! Ten great films to judge, ranging from the serene to the surreal—with a dose of potty humor (and I mean POTTY humor) to keep us young. We’ve had a blast, thanks to the great filmmakers who submitted films and everyone who joined in the feedback. You are all winners. You are all GIFTS. Special thanks to Chris Barcellos and “Marty Henderson” for the hilarious call out to filmmakers early on. It worked, and gave us a great laugh. So who provides the house for this party? Many thanks to Chris Hurd for that! DV Info Net continues to be THE place for all things DV, and we appreciate all Chris does so that we can have a great place to hang out, learn, and share our work. Thanks, too, to Jeff Kramer for all the publicity on Facebook and Twitter! Loved it, Jeff! More thanks to Dylan Couper of the DV Challenge and Meryem Ersoz of the UWOL Challenge for making the joint charity challenge a reality. Hope we can gather again next December for another one! Then there’s a huge “Thank You!” to our sponsor, Guy Cochran of dvcreators.net for going all out on this bash with a truckload of prizes! Take another look at what Guy offered: To the winner! RODE NTG-3 Shotgun Microphone! RODE NTG-3 Shotgun Mic at DVcreators.net AND KATA MC61 Camcorder Bag! KATA Camera Bag MC61 at DVcreators.net And also to the winner if the entry was shot on a Canon 5DM2 or Canon 7D! 7" Marshall LCD Monitor, complete with monitor mount, cable, battery and charger! Marshall Electronics 7″ LCD Monitor at DVcreators.net PLUS the incredibly cool trophy pictured below! New to the challenge, a prize to the winner of the Best Newcomer award! A LitePanel Micro! Litepanels Micro and MicroPro at DVcreators.net Wow, Guy—much appreciation for all the great prizes!!! Now let’s remember the big reason why we gather every December for the challenge. That’s right: CHARITY. Our donation total was down this time but it’s been that kind of year. Still, some great charity of the winner’s choosing will receive a donation of $296, and I’m sure it will be appreciated. “Thank you,” to all of you who were able to give. Okay, enough ado; let’s get to the winners! Attached Images __________________ Lorinda Last edited by Lorinda Norton; January 18th, 2010 at 07:00 PM.

January 18th, 2010, 01:43 PM	#2
Lorinda Norton Wrangler Join Date: Nov 2001 Location: Southwest Idaho, USA Posts: 3,066	Here we go! As mentioned earlier, you are all “gifts” to the challenge and to this DVi member, and because you submitted a film you are all winners. But you and the donors voted for the top films so here they are: Honorable Mention: Bill Thesken “The Miracle” Ben Robbins & Cole Seidl “Merry Christmas, Craig!” 2nd Runner up: Andris Krastins “True Gifts” 1st Runner Up: Dick Mays “The Red Side” Congratulations, guys! Great work--great films!! The WINNER of the 2nd Annual DVC/UWOL Charity Challenge: Chris Barcellos “Aunt Matilda’s Present” Congratulations, Chris!!! Your entertaining story and fine attention to detail earned you a much-deserved win! Please send the info for the charity you want to receive the donation to Dylan. We’ll get your email address to Guy so he can contact you about your prizes. You even take home the Marshall monitor! Marty will be very pleased… And finally, the Best Newcomer award goes to: Ben Robbins and Cole Seidl!! Way to go, guys! We look forward to seeing more from you. Guy will be contacting you soon. Well, that’s it for now. Have a great year making films, everyone, and we’ll plan to see you right here next December! __________________ Lorinda

January 18th, 2010, 01:48 PM	#3
Andris Krastins Major Player Join Date: May 2007 Location: Lielvārde, Latvia Posts: 326	Awesome! :) Congrats to everyone! :) And thanks to DVinfo staff for organizing this contest! __________________ Our Fire Films - a free film project.

January 18th, 2010, 01:58 PM	#4
Graeme Hay Major Player Join Date: Dec 2009 Location: Ottawa, Ontario, Canada Posts: 202	Woot! Congrats to all. Congratulations everyone for all the effort, and to the staff who made this all possible. Also Congrats Chris, your short was well deserving of the win, the trophy, and the truck-load of prizes that went with it. And to Ben & Cole, wonderful first win, now that you have tasted glory get out there and shot some more, as we shiver with anticipation! Hopefully 2010 will be full of fun & exciting DV and UWOL challenges for us to hone our skills for next year's charity challenge. I know I'll be there and I expect some good competition as we all continue to improve our skills. __________________ Independent Filmmaker in Canada's Capital

January 18th, 2010, 01:59 PM	#5
Ben Robbins Regular Crew Join Date: Sep 2009 Location: White Bear Lake, MN Posts: 39	Wonderful job everyone! Congratulations Chris, I really enjoyed your short! And congratulations to everyone else for submitting! We really appreciate what you folks here at the DVinfo community do, and we thank you for recognizing our work. This is a really helpful, mature community that I hope to be involved with for quite some time. Thanks again everyone, and congratulations! __________________ Old school Xl-1, Redrock micro, vintage 55mm 1.4 nikkor, Final cut pro, bits and pieces around the house.

January 18th, 2010, 02:04 PM	#6
Dick Mays Major Player Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: Atlanta, GA Posts: 690	Congratulations to Chris and his beautiful grandchildren for a well deserved victory. I'd vote that bugeyed dog as best actor and give Chris the sweep if we had that category. Looking forward to a rematch next year, as this was my best finish ever in a challenge. I don't want to start the trash talking for next year, but anyone notice how the narrative films cleaned the house???? I was surprised as I thought there were some really beautiful nature film. Next year I will have a talking rock...

January 18th, 2010, 02:43 PM	#7
Chris Barcellos Inner Circle Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Elk Grove CA Posts: 6,838	WOW.... is all I can say. I really want to thank EVERYONE for support on this film- your votes are greatly appreciated. All of the films were great in this competition, and I am honored. My grandkids also rescued me for this competition, and I had a lot of fun making this project with them, and I thank them too. I talked about it with them, and we think in light of the ongoing problems there, it is appropriate that the donation go to a relief program for the Haitian earthquake victims. I will locate the appropriate Red Cross fund and forward that information to Dylan, as indicated by Lorinda. I have been involved with these challenges now for several years, and have always enjoyed making films for them, both on the UWOL and the DVC side. Last year I played with the idea of concentrating on other projects, like local film festivals, and in fact started out to do so. But a new camera, and some other things kept me going in both venues, and I am glad I did. There is nothing better to help improve your production values than doing these things on a regular basis. By the way, during the contest period, Kassie, the oldest of the four grand children, went to a spur of the moment audition of a local musical theatre group, and got selected to play and sing the lead part of Belle in their spring production of "Beauty and the Beast." She has been active in her high school drama department playing key parts in plays both her freshman and sophomore year. I think the years of working on this kind of thing with each other gave her the confidence to go out and do these things. Again, thank you all for your kind words and support ! And thank you Guy for the prize donations that give us the extra incentive to participate ! And finally, thank you to Lorinda, Dylan, Meryem, Chris Hurd, and all the other behind the scenes people, as well as all the competitors that make these competitions interesting for all of us. Lets keep making films ! __________________ Chris J. Barcellos

January 18th, 2010, 03:39 PM	#8
Ken Diewert Trustee Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Vancouver Island, Canada Posts: 1,200	Congratulations Chris! and to all the others. That is a great story about Kassie as well, I'm so glad to hear it. __________________ C100, 5DMk2, FCPX

January 18th, 2010, 04:15 PM	#9
Trond Saetre Inner Circle Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: Bergen, Norway Posts: 3,375	Congratulations to the winners. And congrats to everyone who submitted a film. Many great entries this round. I'm already looking forward to next time. :)

January 18th, 2010, 04:37 PM	#10
Chris Swanberg Major Player Join Date: Dec 2007 Location: Sacramento, CA Posts: 904	Congratulations Chris. A well deserved win. A fun film carried off very well technically.

January 18th, 2010, 05:59 PM	#11
Lorinda Norton Wrangler Join Date: Nov 2001 Location: Southwest Idaho, USA Posts: 3,066	We wouldn't want to forget about the unofficial sub-challenge, would we? Here's my vote. ;) videos :: forDickMays.flv video by ljeanne - Photobucket Hope you don't mind that I lifted one of your photos for this, Dick. About the colored rocks, I planned to incorporate them into my plan B film as an homage to the story you told us in one of your posts, but when that plan didn't work out... __________________ Lorinda

January 18th, 2010, 07:00 PM	#13
Lorinda Norton Wrangler Join Date: Nov 2001 Location: Southwest Idaho, USA Posts: 3,066	Yes, that was a huuuuuge rock. :) On another note, I just edited the first post in this thread to include a shout out to the DV Info "behind-the-curtain" guru, Jeff Kramer. He gave us lots of publicity on Facebook and Twitter. Much appreciated, Jeff! __________________ Lorinda

January 18th, 2010, 08:29 PM	#14
Meryem Ersoz Wrangler Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Boulder, CO Posts: 3,015	congratulations, Chris, great work...and I'm glad to hear that you're looking into donating your winnings for Haiti relief... very nice job, everybody! And the BIGGEST THANKS of all to Lorinda - who kept this Charity Challenge alive and really deserves all of the credit for pulling it together for everybody.

January 18th, 2010, 09:49 PM	#15
Bill Thesken Major Player Join Date: May 2008 Location: HI, USA Posts: 622	Congratulations Chris, I had a feeling you would win. A great and funny story well told, with amazing actresses, (and bugeye). It kind of opened my eyes to what is possible, and what needs to be done to make an impact that lasts beyond the first watching of a flick. Plus my kids liked it. Now you'll have to push it up a notch to better this fine effort, and we all really need to crank up the creativity to match you. Hope to see you in the next challenge! I'd also like to thank everyone involved that made donations to the charity pool, the prizes, and the film makers, I watched each one at least a couple of times. Last edited by Bill Thesken; January 19th, 2010 at 01:42 PM.