Duane Hicks
After first reporting last week that local student Adam Armit had entered a video in the Doritos “Viralocity” contest, the Times has learned four other local students also have entered—and would love to see the community rally behind them, as well.
Just this week, Jerome Tuesday, Jenna Nowak, Cody Carmody, and Mary Fitzgerald posted their video, “Doritos Intervention,” to the Doritos’ website, which can be viewed at www.doritosviralocity.ca/Gallery/VideoDetails.aspx?v=340034
The video currently is ranked 279th out of more than 700 entries.
Pitching the flavour name, “Firey Temptations,” the humourous video shows Tuesday as a man with a serious Doritos addiction and his friends intervene—with little success.
Nowak, who is attending University of Ottawa with Carmody and Fitzgerald, said Tuesday, who goes to Fanshawe College, was visiting them during reading week and had the urge to do some sort of video project while in Ottawa.
They decided to take a shot at making a video for the Doritos contest.
“We did it on Saturday and posted it Monday, so it’s pretty recent,” Nowak noted.
“But we’ve already climbed from 600 to 300 on the ratings, so we’re getting up there fast,” she added.
She said once people check the video out, they’re encouraged to tell everyone they know about it through Facebook, Twitter, Digg, blogs, message boards, and any other means.
Nowak said she, Tuesday, Carmody, and Fitzgerald are no strangers to acting and creative projects. For example, all four have worked on projects in the past with local filmmaker Andrew George.
“We were sitting around thinking, talking about Adam Armit’s video, and then we were like, ‘Hey, why don’t we just make one?’” said Nowak.
“And for a couple days, we threw around ideas and then decided on this one,” she recalled, stressing they aren’t trying to outdo Armit, just pose some “friendly competition.”
“It was Saturday night, the night before [Tuesday] left, that we did it. We were up until 6 a.m. because we did it the last possible second we could,” she admitted.
“But we just sort of threw it together . . . it was so much fun, it was a good night.”
Nowak, Carmody, and Tuesday can be seen in the video, along with some other friends who are Ottawa U. students, while Fitzgerald was operating the camera.
Nowak added Tuesday had to edit the video down to a running time of one minute, but he eventually he will release a “blooper reel,” as well as an extended video, for everyone to see.
When asked for comment, George said the “Doritos Intervention” video is “genius.”
“Not only was it hilarious, I thought they did a good job selling the chip,” he remarked.
“These people are talented, I always have them around on my local projects,” George added. “They have a great sense of humour and they’re easy and fun to work with.
“I can’t wait until summer. I’ve been talking with Jerome quite a bit lately, and we’re hoping to collaborate on a few projects.
“It’s nice to see Fort Frances represented in this contest,” George continued. “Adam’s video has done tremendously well also.
“It’ll be nice to see both videos finish on the top page of the contest.”
Meanwhile, Fanshawe College marketing students Armit and Joel Popoff are staying near the top of the rankings with their video, “Provocative Pepper,” which was ranked fifth as of this morning.
It can be viewed at their website http://prestigeenterprises.ca as well the Doritos’ one.
As previously reported, the Doritos “Viralocity” contest asks people to come up with a name for the new Doritos “Unidentified Flavour II” tortilla chips, make a video about it, and then have it go “viral” by spreading news about the video across the Internet and directing people back to the DoritosViralocity.ca page to watch it.
Points are awarded for how much it is viewed, how much it is shared, the level of positive feedback, and a few other categories.
The contest began Feb. 14, and videos can be submitted until March 21.
The final Doritos Viralocity score will be calculated one minute before midnight on March 31.
The video with the highest scores will be eligible for prizes, with the grand prize being $250,000.
Prizes also are available to be won for second to 344th place.
