Students showed off their creative video skills in the Great Ideas Video Competition. Judges featured singer David Archuleta, filmmaker Devin Graham, YouTube sensations Tiffany Alvord and Stuart Edge, and Spencer Taggart of LDS Business College as guest judges. The conference, hosted by the BYUH Entrepreneurship program, was held on Thursday, Nov. 20 in the PCC’s Imax Theater.Participants submitted videos of their great ideas into four different categories: non-student, product, service and social. First place winners of their category won $3,000 and will have their videos featured on one of the judge’s social media pages.James Astle, a senior studying graphic design from Los Angeles, and Austin Meldrum, a senior studying communications from Colo., won the service category with their video “Box Marketing.” Astle said, “The conference was like a film festival culmination of really awesome videos from students from all around campus. It was a great way to see the talents of all the people at BYUH and what they have in mind to try to make the world better.”Megan Smee, a recent graduate of BYUH and employee of University Communications, won the non-student category with her video titled “Ms. Tree Pants,” which promotes her product of the same title. Jeff Collins and Leonid Hatch’s video “Guitar Drum” won first place in the product category for their attachable guitar drum. Taylor Steele’s video “Keep Our Bees” called attention to dwindling honey bee numbers and won first place in the social category.Spencer Taggart, director of marketing and social media at LDSBC, said, “The students crushed it. I laughed and cried. They touched some heartstrings with their videos and that’s what social media is all about: building relationships. The fact they were able to tell a story with their product, service or cause and let us know why they’re passionate about this makes a difference. It’s something online consumers want to share.”Paul Wilson, a teacher of digital entrepreneurship, discussed the idea of having Mormon Internet celebrities judging the conference with Devin Graham back in March. Wilson said, “It never was our intention to make a statement to the community or world with this competition. Instead, we invited these particularly judges because they understood the power of social media and film. We particularly selected judges who did not fit the ‘typical’ business mold. We had two musicians, a comedian and a videographer. We wanted our students to know that it is possible to pursue a dream and find success in it.”Judge Stuart Edge said, “As a filmmaker, I’m always exposed to so many types of film and a lot of times it’s super high end quality. What impressed me was seeing so many different styles and realizing the people that made these are all here; it made it more personal.”Jason Earl, academic director of the Willes Center, said bringing the guest judges here was a miracle. “When we first put the proposal together in July for the new social media format of the Great Ideas Conference, it was taken all the way to the Church Board of Education. Each speaker was reviewed by the board members, including their biography and work (i.e., videos, songs, social media presence). The real miracle here is that you need a team to pull something like this together and everyone focused on providing the best experience possible for our students. The icing on the cake was having David Archuleta here to meet the students.”Wilson said, “Seeing the quality of short business films the students created was the most powerful experience from the competition. It amazed me just how far many of them went to create the story they wanted the audience to see.”According to Wilson, the entrepreneurship program is already preparing for the next competition. “We have already had a debriefing on how we can make next year’s video competition better,” said Wilson. “However, the competition is just a leader into next semester’s Empower Your Dreams competition, which will be around crowd funding (Kickstarter, IndieGoGo, and the likes). Short business films will be at the heart of what we will be doing, so I am excited to see what these students can bring.”
Writer: Joshua Mason ~ Multimedia Journalist
