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May 10, 2011
PC

Celebrating the Winners of our MOFILM Video Contest



The following post has been written by Erika Takeuchi. Erika is on the Windows Advertising & Social Media team where she spends her time creating videos that help bring the Windows story to life.  She has been at Microsoft for 5 years and is happiest when running around on video shoots with her “career-changed” guide dog, Hoya. 

Recently I had a chance to participate in the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City, where I was able to congratulate the Grand Prize winner of our Windows/MOFILM video contest in person. If you haven’t seen the 5 winning videos yet, you can view them here. Be sure to check out “Detention,” which shows how a student turns an ordinary detention hall into a music studio with the help of Windows 7 and Windows Live.

Surrounded by a panoramic view of Times Square, I got to meet the team behind “Detention” – Josh Soskin, Director, Grace Jackson, Producer, and Bennett Barbakow, Composer/Producer for the first time at Renaissance’s R lounge. They had flown in from Los Angeles, California where Grace and Josh currently run a film production company called, Houseblend Media and Bennett runs a music company called, Huma-Huma. Josh, Grace and Bennett had a ton of fun and remarkable stories around the production of “Detention,” including racing around to multiple Best Buys to find the perfect “sports car” PC and continuously testing and evolving the original soundtrack they composed before filming the spot. These were too good to keep to ourselves and below is a video that they quickly put together to give us an inside peek into how “Detention” was made.

The MOFILM award ceremony and dinner took place at the Scandinavia House, an awesome cultural mega house, which seemed like the perfect fit for the talented and unique group of filmmakers it was hosting. Here, I had the honor of presenting Josh, Grace and Bennett with their award on stage after we screened their short film. And we had a fun surprise for them – a new Sony VAIO L Series desktop with Windows 7 – to thank them for all their hard work on a truly amazing video. The Sony VAIO L is a sleek, 24” HD PC and TV with a multi-touch screen. Josh, Grace and Bennett were thrilled and extremely thankful for this bonus prize and it got a bunch of “oohs” and “ahhs” from the crowd. Our second through fifth place winners also received a special gift from Sony, a new Sony VAIO S Series laptop.

Below are photos of all our winners with their new PCs – congratulations again to all of them for their fabulous work here!

Grand Prize: Josh Soskin, Grace Jackson and Bennett Barbakow on stage with me at the MOFILM Awards

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2nd Prize: Cyril Gfeller with his new PC in a scene that should look familiar.

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3rd Prize: Justin Thomas and Garrett Thomas in the house where it all took place.

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4th Place: Laco Gaal saying thanks in a very creative way.

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5th Place: Paul Sg Boyd taking in one of the 7 (still sticking with the theme from his video) Natural Wonders of the world, Niagra Falls, with his new laptop.

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Win a trip to Cannes Lions

Our second global contest with MOFILM is currently underway – if you would like a shot at the cash prizes and a trip to the Cannes Lions Festival in France, visit our Windows contest page here.