I Need Your Vote For The Gizmo Tree

The Semi-Finals for the Yobi.tv Film Contest have begun, and in order to win I need your vote for my short film, The Gizmo Tree. To skip ahead and cast your vote on the site, click here.

WEEK ONE: Voting Begins (April 13-19)

In December 2008 I was voted into the semi-finals for week 17 of the 30 week Yobi.tv Filmmaking Contest. I'm now one of 30 independent filmmakers in competition for over $10,000 for 1st place, and it's been a long road to get here.

The way the contest works, is that each week (Monday-Sunday) you are allowed to cast ONE vote for a single semi-finalist's entry (thumbs up or thumbs down). That means if you choose to help me out, you only have to place a single vote for the entire week. Each following week, the 5 films with the lowest number of votes are eliminated from the contest and the cycle repeats. You'll be able to place another single vote each week until there are 5 remaining films - the Finalists. Also important to note, is that the votes never reset throughout the competition, so having as many votes as possible each week is key because they add up.

To cast a vote for the Gizmo Tree is easy and fast.

1. Visit Yobi.tv and use your email address to join the site.
2. Once logged in, simply visit my Gizmo Tree semi-finalist page.
3. Click the THUMBS UP under my movie. You've just voted for the week.

I can't express enough, how with each film contest or competition that I take part in, I'm always humbled by the support many of you show me. Because I'm working as hard as I can to get the word out about my short and campaign for votes, I want you to know that I wouldn't be able to have these positive experiences were it not for you taking the time to help me out.

I want to make this as easy for you to do as possible, so if there is anything I can do, or anyone else you can think of who might be willing to vote - don't hesitate to get in touch with me personally and I'll spread the word. My email is fandrix@hotmail.com

OR, if you'd like to forward my message to help me campaign and reach the YobiFILM finals, I've tried to make that easier too. I've created a promo clip and posted it on YouTube to introduce myself, showcase my short, and explain the contest. Spreading the word is as easy as forwarding the promo clip to your family and friends. Here it is below:



Again, I want to say thank you for your help. If I make it through a few rounds, this is going to be a long contest as the weeks roll on. However, because each person can only cast a vote a week for my short, the challenge really becomes reaching as many people as possible. If you've got a few minutes, please check it out - Vote for the Gizmo Tree.

Thanks for your time folks!

-Luke Fandrich

Blog Traffic Sites I Use

Generally speaking, I'm not really the kind of guy who goes around touting web tools or resources, but seeing as my blog is as much about promotion as it is my work I thought it might be nice to share the handful of sites that I use to help get a bit more attention.

BlogExplosion - A site I've used for nearly 2 years now, it's been a great way of meeting and interacting with a variety of bloggers from around the world. It works on a 2:1 credit ratio, for every 2 sites you visit you earn 1 credit. You can use your credits in exchange for visits to your blog, for blog battles/competitions, or on the blog rocket. To say the least, it's the blogging site I've benefited most from since starting Editing Luke.

EasyHits4U - A site I'm fairly new to, but one that I saw immediate results from. Like BlogExplosion, EasyHits4U works on a credit system. The ratio is 1:1, for every blog you visit you earn a credit which means you can acquire more traffic faster than on BE. The big difference is that EasyHits4U isn't limited to blogs, so there's actually a lot of variety . . . but also a lot of ad sites. The real upside is that you can use this resource to promote multiple sites - your blog, a YouTube page, a flickr photo page, etc. all through the same account using the same credits. So in that respect, you can focus your traffic more directly by selecting a specific page on your blog or any of your other sites that you'd like people to visit - and more unique hits are more potential readers/viewers, right?

Entrecard - Since Christmas I've used this resource, based on 'dropping' your card on other blogs to earn credits to buy ads or services. With the new market on Entrecard you can now use your credits to purchase blog reviews, comments, etc. on top of buying ads on other blogs. It's been an effective way to get feedback on certain things when it's not happening as often as you'd like. While the dropping is time consuming, the Entrecard market has made this site relevant to me again.

So those are my big three. The goal has always been to spend more time on my own site than any of these other ones, but at the same time, a little effort on different traffic-based sites has allowed me to see steady growth in viewership and interest. It's not a perfect system, but there have been a lot of noticeable results. Happy blogging!

The Geology Student (2006)

Of the long list of film school projects that I stockpiled over my 6 year stay in university, there's only a handful that I haven't revised in the editing suite. Sometimes there are small technical aspects that need fixing, sometimes my view of the concept has changed, and sometimes it's just a matter of making the project seem relevant. I suppose The Geology Student was never altered after all this time, because it's actually the kind of short I still want to make more of.

In late 2006 I was in Film 400, where our class was assigned a project to each make character study shorts. I had done this years earlier in Film 200 where I created, Mean Mr. Mustard is Homeless. I wanted to take an entirely different approach this time, specifically because I felt I had enough 'serious' projects under my belt, and my portfolio was lacking comedies - it was also the reason that through Film 400-401 I was busy making Elliot.

Probably because I always poked fun at my friend Jeanette for being a geology student and studying 'rocks, rocks, rocks', I guess I landed on the idea of shadowing her and ran with it. Jeanette was a good sport, and we agreed on a time that she could give me a tour of the geology department. The department, coincidentally, was just below the College West Residence where both Jeanette and I had lived throughout our time in uni.

My plan was to be as casual and campy as possible. I asked as many loaded questions as I could think of, and instructed Jeanette to give me as many details as she could in her answers. There was no script or outline, which was the point, as I had every intention of constructing the video in the edit suite - allowing me to put things out of context, in whatever order, and have her answering pointless things.

It was always the idea to shoot the assignment like a mini-mockumentary. Like I said, I was also working on Elliot at the time and was keen on keeping my focus on things that I felt would help that project. The natural dialogue, spontaneous shooting, and unseen locations (for me anyway) all proved beneficial in keeping the short relaxed and funny. As expected, the editing was a joy because of all the options the banter provided.

When the project was completed in November 2006, this blog didn't exist and I hadn't uploaded anything to YouTube yet. It's why this simple short seems more significant to me - it was already an ideal YouTube short, already the kind of quirky flick that was straightforward enough to appeal to most people, and at last, it was a comedy!

The Buick to the Future Series, The Gizmo Tree, Siblings and Space Drama, to name a few of my shorts, all followed in the Geology Student's footsteps. And while my shift to focus on creating more shorts has remained, I think I've worked out a nice balance of experimenting, creating art and creating entertainment.

Obviously my telling is always going to be more subjective than I might think it is, although with a short like The Geology Student, there's not really much more to it than what you're seeing on the surface. The point in me promoting all my old projects, however, isn't about me saying how great they are - it's about developing a larger story, and explaining where the pieces in my film making puzzle fit. It's nice to have some lighter anecdotes to include for once, and finally get to the bottom of which rocks are naturally shaped like tigers . . .

*UPDATE 2010*

In June 2009 I submitted The Geology Student to the Yobi.tv Film Competition and was voted in as a weekly winner for week 3. Starting in late March 2010 voting for the semi-finals began with 40 filmmakers - the Top 40. Eliminations occured on a weekly basis moving from 40 to 32 to 24 to 16 and then the Top 8. This marked the beginning of the finals, in which I was one of the 8 remaining filmmakers.

From here only a single filmmaker was eliminated each week, but after 2 months I found myself in the final round of the entire film contest as one of the Top 2. In the end I finished in 2nd place as the runner-up for filmmaker of the year with the Geology Student gaining over 170,000 views during the contest.

*Original Film School Version

*2010 Yobi.tv Finalist Version