Requirements for Every Submitted Video

Important Note: This information is summarized; for the full terms, please see the Official Rules for Reel Insights Video Contests.

To be eligible for consideration, the video must:

• Must use real people, not actors, doing real things and speaking unscripted.
• Must not contain music for which rights have not been obtained. This type of work does not need music to be effective. If music is used, do not use any sort of popular music, or even production music for which you have not paid or do not have rights to). One can obtain music rights to “production-grade music” from various websites, but music is not needed!
• Must have acceptable audio and video quality, meaning that the sound is easy to hear and the images are clear and in focus.
• Must be in English, or subtitled into English.
• Must be “public.” You’ll need to set the video on YouTube (or whatever video hosting service you are using) as public, not private. Understand that we’ll post entries on our website and our YouTube channel, and may make your entry public in other ways. That should be acceptable not only with you but with anyone (or owners of any private property) appearing in the video.
• Must be submitted before our deadline for submissions ends.
• Must have a runtime (length) within the guidelines for that contest. Note: Runtimes do NOT include the title screens at the end; we allow up to 15 seconds extra for those.
• Must be an original work made by you for this contest.
• Must include these title screens:
  • At the beginning of the film, give your video a creative (and memorable) title and put that on a Title Screen. This title should be exactly the same title as one you give it on your video sharing website.
  • At the end of the film, please include these title screens:
    • Credits. Include the “public” names of all people who worked on the film (these are usually the real names of the people, but aliases may be used if desired). If there’s more than one person, please include a credit for “Produced by” with the name of the person submitting the video to Reel Insights and is our contact.
    • Contest Slate. End the film with the words “Submitted for Consideration to Reel Insights” on screen for at least 3 seconds. (See note about runtime, above.)
• Must not include the last names of the individuals appearing in your video, so as to respect the privacy of those individuals. If someone says on tape “My name is Mary Smith”, then cut out the word Smith, or remove that audio.  And please do not include the last name in any title cards. Your own last name, or those of anyone involved in the production of the video, is fine.

The video may:

• You may choose to use title cards at select points in video to provide explanation or transition, though this not either encouraged or discouraged.
• You may choose to use narration, though keep it personal (“This is my Mom and here’s where we live” rather than “Lilly is a 38 year old mother of two living in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.”) Be sure to keep narration minimal and focused on the Mom – this is a story about her, not the narrator (unless the video maker and narrator is the Mom).

Reel Insights reserves the right to waive some of these requirements in what it determines to be special circumstances.