Surfaced Studio has reached 100,000 subscribers on YouTube!!!

To celebrate reaching the first official YouTube milestone I am going to do give away a brand new Canon PowerShot G7X and 3 full licenses to HitFilm 3 Pro.

Check out my giveaway video or read below for your chance to win one of these epic prizes!

The Prizes – Canon PowerShot G7X + 3 Full HitFilm 3 Pro Licenses

The Canon PowerShot G7X is probably one of the best compact cameras that I have ever used! Not only does it take amazing high quality photos and videos, it comes with many of the advanced controls that I’ve gotten used to from my 5D MkIII. It’s small enough to fit into my pocket so it’s easy to have it with me almost all of the time. The Canon G7X currently costs $649 on Amazon.

If you want to find out more about why I love the Canon G7X, here is a detailed review I did of the camera:

The winner of my giveaway will receive both a brand new Canon G7X as well as a full license to HitFilm 3 Pro.

HitFilm 3 Pro is a great tool for aspiring film makers and VFX artists and it combines powerful editing and visual effects compositing capabilities in a single software package. It is a little bit like someone merged Adobe Premiere and Adobe After Effects and each license is worth $300 USD.

Both the 2nd and 3rd place for my contest will also receive a full license to HitFilm 3 Pro each.

The Contest

To avoid some of the issues I have had when running contests on YouTube before, the rules for this contest are going to be a little bit different.

I am going to ask you a question and the answer to that question is going to be a number. However, I do not want you to simply leave a comment with the answer – instead, I want you to go off and create a video that contains and uses that number in some form or fashion.

What I mean by that is:
Don’t just add some text overlay to your video with the number, try to integrate the number into your video and use it as part of the story you are telling or the visual effects you are creating. You could, for example:

• Have a character in your video read a book and on the front cover of the book you see the number
• Have someone get shot and the blood splats onto the wall in the shape of the number
• Create some spooky visual effect where the number is revealed on a steamed up mirror

*This is an example only, ’33’ is NOT the answer.

Try to come up with a really cool idea for how to integrate the number into your video. I will give extra credit for creativity!

I do not mind what the story is about, what visual effects it contains or what software or camera you use to create your entry. For those who don’t have any software, you can go and grab yourself a copy of HitFilm 3 Express, which is a totally awesome free version of HitFilm 3! With that software and a camera – which can even be your phone – you should have everything you need to create an entry for this giveaway.

How the Winner will be determined

The winner of the contest – and the Canon G7X and HitFilm 3 Pro – will be the person with the correct or at least the closest number in their video. If there is a tie, I will pick the better, the more creative video as the winner. So while it’s not required, I recommend putting some effort into your entry to create something really cool – just in case you’re tied with someone else.

The two runner ups will be the two entries with the next closest number.

The Official Rules

Before we get to the actual question that you need to answer, here are the rules you have to follow as part of this contest:

Rule 1 – Legal Age

You have to be 18 years or older to enter this contest. This is a rule enforced by YouTube and it exists to protect minors from online predators. No parent wants their kids receiving gifts from random men on the internet. I know this sucks as a fair amount of my audience is younger than 18 years of age, but it’s a rule I have to follow.

Rule 2 – Upload your Entry to YouTube

Once you have created your entry, simply upload the video onto your YouTube channel and somewhere in the title, put the text “Surfaced Studio 100K Giveaway”. It needs to be exactly this text as I will search for that phrase when I try to find the valid entries.

Rule 3 – Video Length and Conduct

Your video must be no longer than 1 minute in length. If your entry, once uploaded to YouTube, shows more than “1:00” as duration, it will not qualify for this contest.

Any entry you submit as part of this contest also has to adhere to the YouTube Community Guidelines and the YouTube Terms and Conditions. In essence these rules state: don’t upload inappropriate stuff and don’t be a jerk to others!

Rule 4 – One Answer Only

Please only include ONE number in your video and make sure the number is clearly visible. If I cannot easily determine which number is your actual answer to my question or there are multiple numbers in your video, I will not be able to accept your entry.

Rule 5 – Deadline

You have a full month, until the 30th of August 2015 to create and upload your entry to YouTube. On the 30th of August I will log on to YouTube and search for all the valid entries to determine the winner and the 2 runner ups.

Rule 6 – Winners have 1 Week to Respond

Once I have determined the winners for the Canon G7X and the 3 HitFilm 3 Pro licenses, I will contact them by sending them a message on YouTube. You then have 1 week to respond to my message to get in contact so we can arrange how you will receive your prize. If I don’t hear anything back in 1 week the prize will simply fall to the next one in line.

Since I have to physically ship the Canon G7X to you, you will need to be able to provide a valid address where I can send the camera to. If you cannot provide me with a valid address, you will not be able to receive the G7X.

The Question

And now, here is the question that you need to answer in your video entry for your chance to win a Canon G7X and one of 3 HitFilm 3 Pro licenses:

How many of the videos I have on my Surfaced Studio YouTube channel – as of right now – does WALTER appear in?

That includes any video that shows his face, be that in the intro, a cut scene, a transition, the outro or any sample footage I use. How many videos on my channel does Walter appear in?

Note: I will not count video annotations – those little popups that link to other videos on my channel. As Walter appears in the ‘other’ video I will not be counting those.

I know this question is giving an edge to people who have been following me for a long time, but that is actually quite deliberate. I really appreciate some of the long term support I have been getting over the years!

Thank You & Good Luck!

Thank you all so much for supporting Surfaced Studio!

If you do have any questions, please shoot me a message on YouTube, Twitter or on my Facebook Fan Page and I will answer them as soon as I can.

I wish you all good luck for the Contest and until next time – I will see you later!