Local & Independent Music Video Competitions
500indie is a way for people to see what local directors are doing, to help bands seek out a director for their own music videos that matches their needs and budgets, a forum for up-and-coming directors to show their work, and a fun annual competition where the audience sees all the videos and votes three winners that are immediately announced and prizes awarded.
2006
On April 30th at the Oriental Theater, the 2006 competition saw almost 200 people voting on 14 videos. Most of the directors were in attendance, as well as many of the bands.
The Winners | ||
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Vin Comparetto: |
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Ravi Zupa: |
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Josh Weinberg: |
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2007 will see the first competition outside Colorado
The rest of this year will see preparations for next year's Colorado Director's competition, and our first competition outside of Colorado.
About 500indie
500indie was created to give music video directors and filmmakers a way to get their work seen and help promote the local music and filmmaking scenes.
Why is there a need? The dramatic drop in cost of high quality video cameras, the increasing quality of consumer grade equipment, and the ease of desktop video editing is responsible for the huge number of people making videos these days. I can't think of how many people I know that consider themselves to be video production companies. This was unheard of even a decade ago.
Music Videos are one of the most creative outlets for indpendent filmmakers, and one of the most accessible, yet there is almost no venue for these videos to be seen by the public. Now you can show music videos you made, and view those that others have made at local competitions and view them at home on DVDs that will be available at the competitions and on this website.
At least $500 in cash and prizes are always awarded. The more money we take in at the door, the bigger the award money gets!
The Competition
Everyone that arrives at the competition before it begins will receive a ballot, and winners will be selected by audience ballot. A DVD with all submissions will be available for sale at the competition.
Submissions
We eagerly accept entries on DV, D8, 8mm, and Hi-8 tape, and mpeg or quicktime files.
We will begrudgingly accept video on DVDs, VHS tapes, and will work with you if you have some other format. You can even stop by with an external hard drive, or bring your computer by, and we'll pull the video right off your hard drive - as long as you have a firewire port!
The $20 entry gets you entered in the competition and gets one person in the door on the night of the competition. All submission fees and door are returned to the entrants and viewers as prizes and awards! Your original tapes will not be returned, but can be picked up at the competition. DVDs can be purchased at the competition and also on this website, starting after the competition.
email: for more information, interviews, or anything else we haven't thought of.
Read the press release.
Read the Westword's write-up of the 2005 Colorado 500indie Music Video Competition.
We are different from the Festival International des Arts du Clip, the Indie Music Video Festival, and any film festivals that accept music videos in a lot of ways. Our goal is to create a venue for up-and-coming directors to showcase their work, and lets the audience choose the winners. Winners were submitted to the CUFF Chicago Underground Film Festival.
