[Film Making] Firefox Flicks call for submissions

[asadotzler]

Firefox Flicks

Do you dream in scenes and setups?
Write dialogue on the subway?
See an ad on TV, and think, "It'd be so much better if they'd..."?
Here's your chance to show what you can do.
Make an ad for Firefox. Enter it in the Firefox Flicks Ad Contest. Get your work judged by a panel of accomplished film, TV, and advertising pros.
Great prizes, and the chance to be featured in the worldwide marketing campaign for Firefox, await you.
We can't wait to see how you bring Firefox to life.

We're looking for creative types who can produce a 30 second Firefox commercial and we'll be putting these commercials up in front of a panel of expert judges from advertising, Hollywood, and television (including Scott Goodson - Founder and Chief Creative Officer, StrawberryFrog advertising agency, Warren Zide - Producer of the American Pie trilogy, McG - Producer of the O.C., and Supernatural, Jim Denault, Cinematographer Maria Full of Grace, Boys Don't Cry, Carnivale, and Six Feet Under, and several other great judges, too.)

In addition to getting in front of these awesome judges, we'll be offering some great prizes too, including a $5,000 gift certificate to B&H Photo where you can purchase that next piece of hardware you've had your eye on, an awesome multi-LCD display from 9X Media that'll give you a 45 inch wide screen an awesome resolution of 3840x1024, and a slick Alienware media center PC.
Project Description

Create a 30-second ad, in any style (live action or animated,) that brings Firefox to life for the millions of Web users who have yet to discover Firefox and the better Web experience it delivers.
Project Summary

Mozilla seeks to expand awareness of Firefox among a broader audience for Web browsers: mainstream consumers who may have little knowledge of the value proposition for Firefox. To help increase awareness of Firefox among this target audience, Mozilla would like to produce a high-quality, innovative 30-second ad that introduces Firefox to mainstream Web users.

In line with its history and orientation, Mozilla is opening up the creation of its initial advertising creative to film/TV/advertising/multimedia professionals, students and aspiring pros as part of the Firefox Flicks Ad Contest.
Target Audience

The primary target audience for the Firefox advertising campaign are moderately experienced Web users, who are comfortable with using the Web but are not necessarily power users. These users understand how to download and install software, and use the Web for basic activities: reading news, web-based email, limited online shopping and banking. They may rely as much on the physical Yellow Pages as they do Yahoo! or Google. They may also have had negative experiences with the Web as a result of spyware, viruses and other Web nuisances. Yet they see the value in the Web, and so return. But they likely do not clearly understand how a Web browser can improve their Web experience.
Objective

After watching the ad, the audience should be intrigued enough by Firefox to visit getfirefox.com to learn more.
Ad Perception/Tone/Guidelines

1. Exciting, easy, simple, fun, modern, smart, cool, adventurous, young, empowering, helpful. We're sure there are other angles you can think of.
2. Ad should function more at brand level than at product features/benefits level.
3. Ad can be in any style: live action, animated, etc.
4. Don't overhype. If you have to, err on the side of subtlety, and let the audience connect the dots to get the message.
5. Take risks. The brand is new. The product is one-year old. Be fresh.
6. Use these guidelines as very broad suggestions. We are most interested in seeing how creative you can be in expressing the core premise of Firefox: making the Web experience better for everyone, and getting that message out to mainstream Web users.
7. Entries must be submitted no later than midnight, March 31, 2006.

Key Messages

You don't have to incorporate all of these messages or ideas. These are here to show you what we're interested in getting across. Pick and choose.

1. Firefox offers a better way to experience the Web. It's secure, easy to use, and customizable.
2. Having a choice in Web browsers matters.
3. The Web is too important to too many people to let a single company decide how we all get there.
4. The Web browser has a dramatic impact on the user's experience of the web.

More Information
Contest overview:
http://www.firefoxflicks.com/

Contest blog:
http://www.firefoxflicks.com/backstage/

Official Rules:
http://www.firefoxflicks.com/adcontest/rules.html

FAQ:
http://www.firefoxflicks.com/adcontest/faq.html

Technical details for submissions:
http://www.firefoxflicks.com/adcontest/submit.php

Judges:
http://www.firefoxflicks.com/adcontest/judges.html

Prizes:
http://www.firefoxflicks.com/adconte...-sponsors.html

Firefox backgrounder:
http://www.firefoxflicks.com/adcontest/background.html

[Zero]

Humm. I wouldn't have figured the people behind Firefox as being hit'n'run spammers...

[asadotzler]

Originally Posted by ZeroSignal

Humm. I wouldn't have figured the people behind Firefox as being hit'n'run spammers...

What makes you think I'm a hit and run spammer? Was it inappropriate for me to try to reach film makers from this forum?

- A

[PapaZeb]

Not exactly innapropriate, but you must admit that quite a few open forums on the internet do attract their fair share of new 'users' whose sole posts are aimed at advertising this and that.

[Rev Scapegoat]

Yeah, would it not have been a bit more appropriate to contact the board's owner/admin before posting?

[asadotzler]

Originally Posted by Rev Scapegoat

Yeah, would it not have been a bit more appropriate to contact the board's owner/admin before posting?

I didn't see anything in the FAQ or sticky posts saying that was necessary. Sorry.

- A

[PapaZeb]

Got anything else on the program other than the copy and pasted stuff above? Like what your involvement with the program is, how you're enjoying working with Mozilla and that sort of thing - I'm kinda curious on that aspect as a geek.

[Rev Scapegoat]

Originally Posted by asadotzler

I didn't see anything in the FAQ or sticky posts saying that was necessary. Sorry.

- A

It's not in the FAQ, I don't think ( Not yet, anyway... Thanks for pointing out the gap ) but it seems common sense / common courtesy to me that if a company is going to approach what are technically customers of another company for whatever reason, for a representative of the first company to check that it's OK first with the owners of the second.

[asadotzler]

PapaZeb, yeah. I've been with Mozilla for about 7 years, the first year and a half as an open source volunteer, and the last 5 and a half as a fulltime staff member of the non-profit Mozilla Foundation and the Mozilla Corporation.
I work primarily in outreach through our community marketing efforts at Spread Firefox http://spreadfirefox.com.
It's a dream job (getting paid to do something I was already doing for free as a hobby!)
I'm the community coordinator and the co-creator of Firefox's open source marketing program at Spread Firefox.

Rev Scapegoat, I don't quite see it the way you do. My common sense was that I was a guy involved in launching a very cool community project that crosses communties from Firefox users and developers to film/video/tv production people. It seemed perfectly common sense to me that Firefox should welcome film/video/tv community folks into our forum to talk about the project and that other communities would welcome Firefox folks into their forums to talk about the project.

I'm sorry that I didn't realize I was dealing with "customers" of another company. I mistook this for a community of media creatives. I'll happily go elsewhere if this forum requires official corporate communications in order to accept ideas from other communities.

- A

[PapaZeb]

I always seem to be *friends of* people who've done some good for the OSS community (somehow wound up roommates with a guy who wrote a good portion of the BeOS network code)

We get a lot of spammers and advertisers hit us up, especially around and just after the Christmas season so it can occasionally get pretty hostile - you've been more than gracious with answering questions and putting forth some information here and I'd like to thank you for that.

Our filmmaking community isn't as deeply linked with our high-end geek community so I'm not sure how much feedback you might get in that respect, but these crazy kids have surprised me before

[Rev Scapegoat]

Nah, you misunderstood me slightly...

From my P.O.V., your initial post - Had it not been followed up by your subsequent responses - is no different from the other spam posts we get here every day... Someone coming to Alternativenation, msking one or two posts to pimp their wares, then leaving - Never to return and happy that they got free advertising.
The fact that you work for a company, as opposed to being a private individual - serves to compound this.

The standard message that we send to suspected spammers reads as follows:

Hi there, and welcome to Alternativenation.

We've noticed that your first - and so far only - post on Alternativenation was an advertisement for INSERT SUBJECT HERE. Please note that we have a strict no spam policy on these forums. As such, this post has been moved to our "Deleted Archive".
Should you continue to post nothing but advertisements, we will delete all such posts and may go so far as to ban your account(s).

If you were unaware of this and continue to use the board as a user then you are most welcome to do so ( Bearing in mind that we only allow an overall maximum of two posts on the same subject, and that those must be in the relevant sections of the forum.) If this does turn out to be the case, then we will happily reinstate your initial post.

You may feel free to promote yourself in your signature file, so long as it is within our size limits and does not contain a telephone number.

Alternatively, you can purchase banner ad space very cheaply here without needing to be a regular user of the site.

Thank you.

Alt Nation Mod Team

Since you do seem to be staying around and using the forum ( Albeit only in your own thread so far ), I think you're safe from banning or thread deletions



Or it could just be that Firefox don't wanna pay an ad agency for their next campaign and would like some free material, a la Limp Bizkit

[Charlicat]

My idea is Rev Scapegoat making an arse out himself, again, with a fox saying "s'cool, he don't work for us".

I bet any other forum where this was posted people responded really enthusiastically, but Skateboard just had to come in with his "YOUV not Broken A RULe THATs NOT yet WRITTen IN AltNet BUT mite BE 1 Day!!"

[Rev Scapegoat]

Y'know, I really thought you'd fucked off.
Damn.

My point being that if some company or another wants to ask Altnation members for submissions, then it would be a good idea to talk to Forbes - For reasons of politeness, if nothing else - but that if Forbes likes the idea that they're pimping, he might well make a bigger thing of it on the forum than a single post that's lost in the "Film Making" forum - Not the most widely-trodden area of Alternativenation by a long shot.


It does sound like a good idea, but the method of advertising it on here semeed a touch off to me.
You might also note that it was another user, not myself, that first called this post as probable spam... Something we're now satisfied it's not.
Hence it's still being here.

[Zero]

The problem occurs when people try to push their message, rather than waiting for people who are interested in the message to find it. At the worst end of the spectrum this means spam. But with things like press releases, charity appeals and requests for donated work (like in this case), eventually the useful content on a site begins to get lost in the noise.

Look at Usenet - what was once a popular, useful discussion system has been completely destroyed by spam and mass cross-posting.

Same goes for any forum you don't need to register for, such as the numerous wwwboard sites like this:
http://advancedmicrobeam.com/wwwboard/index.htm

Web forums that require registration have been immune to this so far, but this is changing, meaning sites are having to use Captcha tests to keep out automated posting.

An isolated case like this is not a big deal, especially since it's non-commercial. But it's a sign that we should perhaps be tightning up the rules and guidelines to make it clear that this is a site for people to interact with each other, and not just a place for a third party to come along and make announcements.

[asadotzler]

Rev, we're actually spending more to make this contest happen than we would have spent to produce an ad. The goal is not just to get an add out of it but to grow our community, to have some fun, and to reward people who spend time doing something interesting for Firefox.

- A