On Wednesday ReadyMade got to spend a lot of time with our good friends at Etsy. Our on-line editor, Katherine Sharpe, got to host Etsy's Halloween spook-tacular "Shop LIve" event in the afternoon and that evening I got pay my first visit to Etsy's great new digs in Brooklyn (Dumbo to be exact) to participate on the judges panel for their "HandMade Moment" contest. (Below, Casey Safron, founder of NYC’s animation festival Animation Block Party makes his point.)

 

 

For a little background, the following was Etsy's call to action released on June 1st:

 

"Be Creative. Promote Etsy. Win Money. Attention all artists, videographers, film students, DIY addicts, advertising students, home video makers, professionals, camera nerds and other creative members of the Etsy community: here's your chance to show the world how creative you are and help us spread the Etsy gospel while you are at it!

 

Etsy wants promotional videos, and since our community is creative, artistic and unique, we're turning to you.  For the next few months we will be accepting submissions for :15 and :30 (second) videos promoting Etsy and the handmade movement. This is your opportunity to express your passion (or is it an obsession?) for Etsy.  

 

The guidelines are simple: your ad's theme must be "A Handmade Moment" and must legibly display the text "Etsy.com".

 

We will select 10 finalists from those submissions which surpass a minimum score based on a variety of criteria, and then invite the community to vote on a winner. The winning submissions will receive a total of $10,000 (and we'll use the video, too)!

 

And if that's not enticing enough, we are also giving away pantloads of cash.

 

First Prize

 

Three Runners Up

 

Six Finalists

 

$3,250

 

$1,250

 

$500

 

A pretty sweet deal if I do say so myself and the promise of cold hard cash always seems to bring out the best. Etsy invited myself and five others to serve as the judges for the final 10 entries which had been whittled down by the Etsy community from nearly 200. Just getting to hang-out with my fellow judges—Brett Anderson from The Donnas, Corinne Leigh from Threadbanger, Mark Elijah Rosenberg from Rooftop Films, Casey Safron, filmmaker Brett Simon, and actress Olivia Wilde—would have been cool enough for me to count the evening a success but the films themselves made the night really special. While I can't reveal the winner (and don't actually know the winner anyway since I wasn't peaking at my fellow judges scores—at least not all of them!) I can tell you it's well worth checking out all the submissions, particularly the top ten. You can see them all here and be sure to tune in to Etsy next Wednesday, October 14th at 3:30 p.m. ET in the Virtual Labs. The winner and runners-up will be revealed live in an Oscar-style event. I can't wait. (Below, Etsyian Jesse Hertzberg cues of the films for screening.)