Engadget commercial contest winners!
By Ryan Block 
posted October 4th 2006 2:42PM
posted October 4th 2006 2:42PM
The winner!
Short version:
Full version:
The Long Arm of Steve Jobs, by:
Director: Brad Hodson
Producer: Bryant Hodson
Editor: James Spencer
Actors: Taylor Kesler, Zach McCue
Music: Anthony Spencer
Runners up (alphabetically)
Confused about technology? by Dan Sheppard
Music by Kevin Macleod
Engadget Animal Babies, by Dave Lovelace (possibly NSFW)
Engadget dating, by Ian MacFarlane
World of Engadget, by Jeremy Bowles
Engadget: porn for nerds, by Joe Russ
Screens in screens, by Juan Carlos Lopez
Yes, that was an MP3 player, by Renato Bordin
Your trip to the future starts here, by Victor DiGiovanni
Thanks again to everyone who entered, and be on the lookout for more Engadget commercials soon!
You guys rock. Best ads ever
Winner was pretty good.. but even the short version seemed too long.. could make the same point in half the time for stronger effect.
screens in screens and the other one just like it should have been second runners ups.. any more contents? I will enter the next one for sure.
Wow, all of the commercials were awesome. Good job, guys!
The winning one was good, but I have to nitpick: the screenshot of Engadget with the "Techie nearly escapes..." was good. However, you neglected to change the "category" of the story. It still reads cellphones...and unless the secret info that guy was stealing was about the "iPhone", I believe you didn't pay close enough attention.
But kudos for an awesome commercial, really.
After we had finished rendering that shot, we looked it over and saw that, even after we changed the category of the article, it wasn't changed. We had done something wrong, but it being the deadline night, we decided that the current Cellphone category worked fine, considering all the rumors about the iPhone anyway.
Glad you noticed though!
Great commercials! Loved all of them
Congratulations to Brad for his winning entry. Very well done and well-deserving of the win, as were all the finalists. I hesitate to call any one of them 'better' than the others, since they all came from such completely different directions and focused on different aspects of what makes Engadget such a great website.
I thank all of you that had such kind words for my video "Trip to the Future". The video you see here is slightly different than the one I originally entered. I was asked to change the music from the heavier sound to something softer or more electronic, which is what you hear when clicking on the video above. While I can live with the music I chose for this version, the video was actually edited to the original music, and the zooms from screen to screen lined up with elements of the music.
And for anyone that wonders, both Juan Carlos Lopez ("Screens within Screens") and I were equally astonished at how similar our entries were, and no, we don't know each other and neither of us saw the other's entry prior to submitting it for the contest. Just amazing coincidence.
Again, thank you, Engadget for the great contest and congrats to everyone that made the shortlist.
See you at the next contest...
I swear the winner's tape was recorded in a Microsoft parking garage. It looks exactly like where I used to park every day.
Funny you should say that...
LOL, very funny...
Very impressive commercials!
Lame, especially the "winner." It had horrible production value, terrible acting and basically didn't do what a commercial should, which is to make we want the product. The fact that there's a "long" version just confirms that the creator doesn't know what a commercial is actually for. The only decent ones in the bunch were the "World of Engadget" and the picture in picture ones, though even they were a bit of a turn off with too much dizzying effects.
I greatly agree with what fizban said.
Ouch. Sorry we couldn't make it a bit better for ya.
When we made it, the whole crew had in mind 'cinema' rather than actively thinking 'commercial advertising'. This resulted in longer-than-intended shots and the long version was the original version we turned in.
The short version was actually made in 1 hour the night before this post went up, as Ryan asked us just the night before to make a shorter version.
So of the 6 guys on the production team for the winner who gets to keep the laptop??? I better not hear that you guys are gonna sell it and split the cash!
I, too, cannot view these videos in Firefox on Linux. I think the Engadget video player looks nice, but could we get these uploaded to Youtube or something, so that everyone can watch them? I'm sure Linux/Mac OS are a decent chunk of Engadget traffic, and it's not cool to be kept in the dark with these videos.
I like the screens in screens
i guess it just requires flash 8 then, most things that do at least say so. it's a sad requirement though since ffmpeg has a tool to make flv video files that will play in Flash 7, and it's free.
wow the one from Juan Carlos Lopez really deserve to win!!! those screens are so cool!
Great Videos to watch but some are not that attractive!
great entries! They can go right to network TV ready for my TiVo to skip over! (just kidding!)
Yeah I can understand about the category thing - it actually does fit, but I was correct in assuming that it wasn't intentional. I think it works as a commercial pretty well. A lot of commercials recently have been of that sort - more of a very short story than "buy this now!". It gets you to pay attention and watch the "story", rather than turn away because it's just another ad trying to get you to buy something.
And was that really a Microsoft garage? Are you trying to imply that microsoft is trying to buy apple secrets?
Yeah, you were definitely correct in assuming it was a mistake. And we also did certainly pursue the style that some commercials are taking these days with being a short story. I also felt that it requires a bit more out of the viewer, rather than having the average commercial break seem to be a mundane waste between your programs.
And yes (I hope we don't get incrimenated or something) that was a Microsoft parking garage. I'm very glad that many of you actually read the article we wrote in the video!
i thought world of engadget was the best. it explained what engadget was like a commercial should
Commercials should explain what the client does? In this case I must disagree. You see, these ads are meant to be posted here on the engadget website...it is fine but not necessary t oexplain what engadget is seeing as how anyone seeing them is already here :)
In that case, Dan, surely you wouldn't need an advert/commercial if the audience is already here? Kinda defeats the point, does it not?
Anyway, I preferred the world of engadget one - a lot of time and effort went into it.. certainly a little more than pouring Milk over an old Casio PDA *yawns*
So if you guys are really going to start picking the video apart, you might also notice that engadgets logo gained a few bars in the process of revamping the website... this was AFTER we submitted our video where the bars extend very similarly to the way engadgets logo now appears... lol quite a coincidence! We still love you engadget!
Mine would've been funnier, I just didn't have the resources. I had a vision of "Engadget Man" that was too hilarious...
Its more for just plain cinematic effect, but if you take it from his perspective, the papers don't matter when you're dead. You had might as well die running as fast as you could have.
Haha, I don't know. It looked good to us!
Animal Babies FTW!
Wow, all those videos were awesome! I smell future careers in commercial-making.
Ian, is that you in your video? that guy is killing me!!
I hate to be a sore looser , and like any artist I appreciate the time spent on those as well as the good photography in the winner case -- BUT what about creativity & originality ?
Those were my entries "The Engadget Caveman" :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91ymXjLbuXk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJNOMzgLjug
Congrats to the winners , if any it should be the Dating guy for the humor .
Wow, I really liked those two... very original and humorous. And thank you for your vote of confidence in my vid. :-)
Ugh, I hate the engadget animals one... My least favorite by a mile.
"In that case, Dan, surely you wouldn't need an advert/commercial if the audience is already here? Kinda defeats the point, does it not?
Anyway, I preferred the world of engadget one - a lot of time and effort went into it.. certainly a little more than pouring Milk over an old Casio PDA *yawns*"
Not everyone has to like it...there's always critics man. Not everyone can be polite about it either.
About the audience thing...I didn't come up with this competition, but the original idea is to have them posted on this website. The idea of them being a commercial was to give people a direction to head instead of saying 'make a funny video' yunno? Most people who are here know what engadget is. I understand the purpose of advertisments but I think these are just more of a promotional tool or activity to get people involved in engadget.
I do agree that the winner spent much more time making theirs and it definitely shows...from the time I found out about the competition to "print" I had 6 hours... I wanted to enter something... so I did. Happy enough with the results. I'm not saying it wouldve been much better having had more time to produce and yes it shows that I did it in a short amount of time but you use what you are dealt yunno?
Where is your video Nick? I'm sure it must've been very good to be so critical of ours though. I'd love to see it. ;)
I don't want to start a "posting war" or whatever it's called so let's just agree to disagree on this one.
that dating video is HILARIOUS!! I can see why the winner won but the world of engadget was my personal favorite.
These are great!!! Big fat kudos to all of the entrants, this was a lot of fun to watch.
I think you Engadget cats hit a fantastic nerve by employing the talents of your viewers; I'd bet a large portion of the regulars are some brand of creative professionals, and I'd think it'd be cool to run more of these sort of contests, it's really quite engaging.
If only one indefinite screens motif had been submitted maybe it would have won, but I actually thought the same guy might have done both. Oh well I like the winner's a lot too.
The guy from the first commercial could have clicked on the hamster and saved a suitcase full of cash.
GTG, my macbooks 'buttery' is about to die. (seriously, lol)
amazing! Wow the standards were way hi. Relaly looking forward to seeing the rest !
They're all great....loved the dating one...very funny :-)
drinking game ha.... good stuff
lucky! congratulations!
'confused about technology' is very good, i saw it without sound and the message was very clear. if you want more people hitting you site. then you should apeal to the a more none technical audience.
Dating one was hilarious, great fun to watch, but I can very easily see why the winner was picked; far and away the best in terms of production quality imho. I also think the 'short story' approach worked very well.