End-of-Year Video Competition

For our Christmas Competition, 2013, we are reverting back to an experiment we tried some time back.

It will be a Video Competition.

Here are some of the guidelines we had last time:

(Actually, there aren’t that many differences from a ‘normal’ Photo Competition).


This competition is kindly being sponsored by

Artane Aquatics, Dublin

and for this round it has been decided that Gavin and team from there will adjudicate all the entries. This may change in subsequent rounds (should this be any sort of success) but it is felt that as the sponsor will be donating the Prize it's only fair that they get an input into the competition rather than merely handing out the prize.


Here is a brief rundown of the Rules (such as they are) - we'll run this until the end of the Year and see whether it has been any sort of success...or a dismal failure (again).

Please restrict the video length to a minute, or shorter.
The stipulation is that it has not been shown on this - or any other Forum or website (so must be an entirely new clip, although the subject matter can have appeared previously - just not the competition entry video clip).

The subject matter must be Fish, or Fish-related, but does not have to have been taken of your tank, in your home – for example, you could bring your camera/phone to your LFS and – after asking permission – take your videos there, or even at one of the Country’s Public Aquarium sites.
As to musical accompaniment - that's really up to the person submitting the video - but be aware that if you use copyrighted music the whole thing is very likely to be removed by youtube, or whoever.

Posting directly onto the Forum will not be possible as this thread will be locked to avoid any confusion in this respect but any further queries can be sent by PM to me and then I will add them to this thread - along with the appropriate answer. However, this will not be Locked until the Competition is formally started on December 1, so if you do have any queries before then please post away here.

One entry per Forum member.

No 'pro' software effect to be used – by this we actually mean no software enhancement should be made use of to improve your chance of winning.
Entries should be sent to

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

in the form of a url link to the Hosting site of your choice (Youtube, photobucket etc).

Please remember to include your Forum username – this really will help.

Competitors will need to cut their video to one minute and may want to include more than one clip within the one minute etc.

Here are Daragh Owens’ words of advice about uploading to Youtube:

"...As to how to upload the video clip, I don't use Photobucket so I can't comment on them, but for YouTube it is quite simple:

Set up an account it you don't have one - it's free.

Remember your username and password!

Select "upload" button and point to your video file and leave it to upload.
When it is uploaded if you play it back the address of that video will appear on your web browser
Select it and paste into an email which you can send to
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Please mark your entry Video Competition and include your Forum user-name."

Any questions?

Again - many thanks to Gavin and team at Artane Aquatics for their support in this venture.

John
ps Furnished tank Competition has now been rescheduled for the New Year - but get planning for that too...

Sorry if the notification was a bit confusing, yes - anything Fish or Fish-related.

John

No entries yet (a sneaky way of getting the Competition Notification post back into prominence on the first page without using the word 'bump' - which we all know is 'verboten').

John

Sorry, it appears photobucket videos do not have a 'preview' but if you click on the link below you'll get entry #1

s1213.photobucket.com/user/jasonb13/medi...zpsca2bf73f.mp4.html

John

This is great, another entry:

#2:

Although we do have one more video entry pending (which sadly was too long and which will be shortened by the contestant) we are now approaching the half-way stage for this video round with only two entries. Please let's make this some sort of success, it doesn't seem fair that Gavin and the lads at Artane - having been generous enough to donate the prize voucher - will only have two entries to choose from.

More entries requested, please.

John

Hooray - another entry:

Entry #3:



Would dearly like to see more coming in (please).

John

#4:

Entry #5:

We're gradually gathering some momentum, here's entry #6:

Entry #7:

In the light of the 'not huge' amount of entries - the theory being that perhaps it was a mistake to hold a more complex competition encompassing the Christmas/Holiday period - and the fact that we're actually awaiting the two entries we had to return (which need reducing to one minute in length) we have concluded that it will be only fair on those who have had better things to be doing by extending the deadline by a further couple of weeks(ish).
The competition deadline will now therefore be January 18 (Saturday midnight).
I'm sorry and apologise to the members who have actually made their entries already but I hope you'll be able to bear with us until the 18th.

Happy New Year to both our regular members and to our small army of non-joined-up readers. May 2014 be a peaceful and prosperous one for each and every one of you(us).

John

Entry #8:



Because the Forum has been 'up and down' so much (with Upgrade) it is felt that it would only be fair, not only to the members but also to the sponsor supporting this round (Artane Aquatics) that, although the entries deadline was posted as midnight tonight, we are going to (again) extend the end date.

This will be posted once the upgrade process is complete and we're back on 'even keel'.

I hope everyone is OK with this.

Sorry to those who have already sent in their video entries, but many thanks for having done so.

John

OK Folks,
Thanks to the kind efforts of Darragh the Forum seems now to be back on top form so it's time to re-open this Competition.

As it's now the 20th of January we'll let it continue until January 31 so please dust off your video cameras/phones and get an entry in before then.

John

Entry #9:

In view of the fact that the unfortunate outages are continuing - added to the realisation that we have had such a poor response to this video round it has been decided that we will not prolong the agony any further (beyond the month's end) and so the revised deadline will not be extended any further and midnight Jan 31 will be the definite cut-off point now.
So, just in case anyone still intends to submit a video, you have until then to do so.

John

Hooray - another entry:
#10

One more day to go,
Entry #11

Entry # 12:

OK that's it for the video round. The thread has now been unlocked for comments and for Gavin and team at Artane Aquatics to post their decision.

Thanks to the people who troubled to enter and especially to Artane Aquatics for sponsoring it.

John

Entry #8 was submitted by Nerius - many congratulations both to him and to the other entrants

Once again - thanks to Gavin and his men at Artane, both for the prize but also for judging this round.

John