How good is your video art – really? Good enough to stand alongside the likes of Warhol, van Gogh and Picasso? Here’s your chance to find out.

Ignored for years by art curators and critics,  still photo shooters and video creators alike are finally getting the recognition they deserve. Now that digital imaging has become so ubiquitous, the art world has finally accepted that what we do IS art – well, what some of us do – As we video “artists” know, many people just pick a camera off the rack, hit the red record button and flay the camera around and think THAT is capturing video, which it is, but we true artists know the difference, and now the art experts want us to prove it to them.

YouTube users have the chance to have their work featured among the art masters of the world at one of the world’s most renowned art establishments, the Guggenheim Museum.

Usually the curatorial process can take years to result in Guggenheim exposure, but winners of YouTube Play’s contest will be displayed at the Guggenheim in October this year.

Guggenheim and YouTube Play’s partnership was developed to uncover the “most creative video content in the world.” The Guggenheim will select a shortlist of submissions to be evaluated by an international jury of experts and celebrities from the worlds of art, design, film and video, with the final 20 videos on display at the Museum.

So do you think you’ve got what it takes – really? By being a Videomaker reader you KNOW video production, so you’ve already been cut from the pack and have your place amongst the elite - here’ s your chance to prove you’ve got the chops to create true video art, and get the recognition you deserve by one of the most prestigious art galleries in the world.

But don’t sit around contemplating this too long, the entry deadline is at the end of July.  Find out more at http://www.youtube.com/user/playbiennial for submission details.

If you could capture a single day of your life, would you? If you could capture a single day in the lives of people all around the world, could you? Producer Ridley Scott (Blade Runner, Alien) and Director Kevin Macdonald (Touching the Void) will soon find out. Their newest project, Life In A Day, attempts to capture a single day on earth. What makes this project unique is they want you to shoot it.

The goal of the project is to get people to submit raw footage of the things that make up their day. From the average ho-hum events to the wild and unusual; they want it all. The catch? Whatever you decide to shoot, it has to be shot on one day, specifically July 24 (between 12:01AM and 11:59PM in your local time zone), then uploaded to the Life In A Day channel on YouTube for it to be considered for the documentary. The “most compelling and distinctive footage” will be used in the final documentary, and the producer of the submitted footage will receive a co-director credit.

“It is gonna be something unusual and it is gonna be something which has, I think, a kind of social value to it. It’s a unique kind of documentary,” says Macdonald. “It’ll be kind of like a time capsule, which people in the future, maybe in twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, a hundred, two hundred years could look at that and say, ‘oh my God, that’s what it was like.’ A portrait of the world in a day.”

If you’re thinking about submitting a video, it is stressed that you capture quality audio and follow the YouTube community guidelines. Not to mention, there are a couple of questions they’d like you to answer in your video. Be sure to check out the Life In A Day channel on YouTube for details. As for content, Ridley Scott suggests “It should be personal. It must be personal. That’s what we’re looking for. The key of course is what appeals to you, as the author.”

The film will premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2011.

Have you ever had a unique idea and thought to yourself, “I want to make that into a movie!” But then real life kicks in and you begin to think, “Yeah, I would never get the budget for that.” However, as long as the concept is there producing something bigger than what is originally thought to be possible can still happen.

All it takes is a little creativity which is why I thought we could create a forum for those ideas. Which in the end, could possibly lead to some more ideas and networking for those of you out there who are looking to start something with a little bit more uhmf behind it.

So tell us, what are your concepts? What are you ideas? What have you always thought would be cool to shoot?

Do you have what it takes?

CBS is airing the 52nd Grammy awards show and has a contest going on that can put the winner’s video right into the Grammy program. We told you about the  amazing one-take one-camera viral video lip-dub by University Montreal Quebec film students.

The video was so well received that the group, “The Black Eyed Peas”  who made the song allowed the Canadian students to keep the video on YouTube, and following that success, they are teaming up with CBS to allow anyone who thinks they have the guts, to upload their own lip-dub version to CBS’s site for a vote. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYmSlwJ2myQ

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Grab your camcorders and mics, (and maybe some zombie make-up!), and get ready to video-tape the first of what promises to be an annual event: the world’s largest “Thriller” dance!

In tribute to Michael Jackson, and because it’s good clean fun, someone started up the international Thriller dance-a-thon that is supposed to go on all over the world – at the same time.

A website, Thrill the World, was created just to organize this event, and you can find out there where the Thriller dance is going on in your neighborhood, or try to get one started… but hurry, the dance is happening this coming Saturday.
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We often get interesting material and recently I came across a music video contest that I think everyone should take their chances with. MTV & Pepsi are teaming up  with Rock Band for a music video contest. The official rules are located here and it definitely looks like a fun contest to enter. Go here for more information. If you think you have what it takes, give this one a shot for sure!