You can win $2,500!

Are you a film student? Or an aspiring moviemaker? Or just a creative amateur?

 

NCA is giving video buffs an opportunity to showcase their talent in our first-ever Dry Cleaning Dramas Video Contest. The contest gives “wanna-be film makers” a chance to let their creative talents soar by showcasing (comically, seriously, satirically) a dry cleaning “story” in a 30 – 120 second video.

The goal of our contest is to have the entrants portray a dry cleaning drama. Some examples include: demonstrate the value of professional cleaning; explain the gender pricing question; showcase good environmental practices and/or reveal just how much time and skill goes into stain removal, cleaning and finishing. Here are examples of some thought provoking situations:

·         How does the ‘drama’ play out when a drycleaner is asked to pay a customer for a lost or damaged item that obviously isn’t a truthful claim?

-          A homeless man finds a dry cleaning ‘ticket’ in the trash and makes a claim for reimbursement for his ‘lost’ Armani suit

-          A businesswoman (obviously a size 12) is claiming the cleaner shrunk her size 6 skirt

 ·         How does a drycleaner get a stain out?

-          Someone has a Sex in the City moment as a passing bus splashes them with a puddle. What’s the story on the person and the stain when it gets to the drycleaner?

 ·         Capture the ‘drama behind pricing’ … Why do drycleaners have different prices for different items? Is it gender pricing?

-          Show a man wearing a woman’s size 6 and a woman wearing his 17/34 shirt, going through the anatomical differences between them and how they translate into processing differences.

-          What’s the value of dry cleaning? Showcase how a suit that’s worn 10 times without being cleaned looks compared to how a suit looks that’s been worn 10 times but has been cleaned after each wearing

 ·         Home dry cleaning kits

-          Lipstick on his collar… Show how it got there and have the husband go to the drycleaner to get it out one time and use a home dry cleaning kit the second time and the consequences when it doesn’t come out (be sure to showcase the difference from the professional dry cleaning process).

Tip: Contestants can team up with a dry cleaner, get their take on things and utilize their facility for filming!

If you’re wondering exactly how many ‘hits’ a video like this might generate on YOUtube, NCA suggests you go to www.YouTube.com and enter “Does it Blend? Golf Balls.” You’ll see that several of these Blendtec video clips generated more than three million hits!   

NCA will be accepting entries from March 28^th through July 31^st. Entrants can submit one video per week between these dates. All video entries must be set up as a 30-120-second segment and meet file size requirements. Files must be less than 40mb in size and must be submitted in one of the following file formats: Microsoft, AVI or QuickTime.

All video entries will be reviewed by a Committee before August 4, 2008. The top 25 videos that best represent the judges’ criteria for file size, segment time, theme, message and creativity will be entered as contest finalists and uploaded on www.YouTube.com on August 4, 2008. The video that receives the most “views” on the YouTube web site between noon on August 4, 2008 and 10 a.m. on September 2, 2008, will be declared the winner. One grand prizewinner will be announced on September 5, 2008 and presented with a check in the amount of $2,500!  All submitted videos will be the property of NCA.  We will make them available to members for viewing in their call offices or on their websites.