Ya’ll rock! (Picture: Broken down on the roadside, pre-Burning Man).
Without further ado, the results of the video trailer competition!
All entries were viewed by me and my esteemed panel of judges, elves, and magic robots. As explained in the original post, the winner provided the best combination of creativity, book explanation, and total view count.
The Winner
The winner of the $2,500 USD and 60-min call with me (should he choose) is Vince Wong. Congrats, Vince! Be on the look-out for an email from my team. Well done, sir.
Vince Wong:Â http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xb6Oq7vD-cw
CREDITS:
Directed / Produced by: Vince Wong
Script by: Vince Wong / Jared Croslow
Cast: Vince Wong / Bruna Silva
Camera Operations: Hall & Max
Camera Assistants: Mink / Ploy
Sound Design: Hall & Max / Audio Jungle
Editing / Special FX: Vince Wong / Jared Croslow
Location: Red Sky Bar, Centara Grand Hotel, Bangkok Thailand (Thank you for last minute official location approval, and for the complimentary cocktails!)
Vince’s blog: http://www.vincewong.com
Vince’s 4-Hour Workweek success story — 37+ countries in 2 years, $200,000+ earned in first 9 months.
Honorable Mentions
There were so many great videos, it was hard to keep count. The below is just a small sample. I once again concluded that — yes — I have the best readers out there. What a blast…
Contenga International:Â http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXzrD8mfMpo
The Draw Shop:Â http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqJwOtmAWKk
Brent Thacker:Â http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RiRccPXVlDk
Benedict Westenra:Â http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhipixFZDOc
Tri Mahon:Â http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uB92hYNuVTs
Thanks again, all!
###
Odds and Ends: Elsewhere on the Internet
If you missed it, here are two videos from my appearance on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. He’s a super chill dude and a legitimate fan of the books. It was a wonderful experience.
The Tim Ferriss Show is one of the most popular podcasts in the world with more than one billion downloads. It has been selected for "Best of Apple Podcasts" three times, it is often the #1 interview podcast across all of Apple Podcasts, and it's been ranked #1 out of 400,000+ podcasts on many occasions. To listen to any of the past episodes for free, check out this page.
Comment Rules: Remember what Fonzie was like? Cool. That’s how we’re gonna be — cool. Critical is fine, but if you’re rude, we’ll delete your stuff. Please do not put your URL in the comment text and please use your PERSONAL name or initials and not your business name, as the latter comes off like spam. Have fun and thanks for adding to the conversation! (Thanks to Brian Oberkirch for the inspiration.)
Wow, I really liked the winner trailer, he totally captured the whole idea of the book in a few minutes.
Congrats!
Thank you very much David! I want to share a few quick thoughts in addition to what Tim already wrote above:
(a) I want to thank my production team/cast (Bruna, Max, Hall, Ploy, and Mink), my designer Julian, and my good friend Jared, for the many late nights helping to make this happen. Got a few funny blooper moments in the making of- and will be sharing a ‘behind scenes’ video soon.
(b) Thank you Tim, and congrats with the incredible success with the new bestseller! We had a blast doing this, and glad to be able to help ‘give back’ in some way. I learned so many insightful lessons from your experimentations over the past few years, that certainly allowed me to living my current lifestyle and help others do the same. What you wrote in my copy of The 4HWW still serves a great reminder every year (esp on my Birthday):
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10100440583579381
(c) A few people who watched my other travel video Tim posted above have emailed to ask “what are your muses? how do you do it?” While I’m not too great at responding to emails, I plan to soon share a couple of ‘behind the scenes’ live case studies on how to build, automate and sell profitable muses while traveling and living in amazing countries.
Feel free to subscribe to my private updates via the videos Tim posted above (the sign up link in our YouTube video description), and I will update everyone once it’s ready (including the bloopers / making of video to our trailer).
Thank you again, and congrats to everyone else. There really were some awesome video submissions!
Vince won HANDS DOWN! Well done, a truly amazing video. Not sure how it took Tim and his team 2 1/2 months to work that out…
A few things I learned from entering the competition:
– How to use Final Cut Pro
– How not to light photographs
– Making music fit a timer that’s clicking once a second is a cool idea, but it does make it sound sluggish
– Don’t try to do everything yourself
– Money helps
I’ve got my hands on some better equipment and have read Bryan Peterson’s “Understanding Exposure”, so should be able to produce better results next time.
Congrats again to Vince!
B
Thank you Benedict for the kind words. Congrats to you and the other contestants too. I’m glad Tim included honorable mentions in this post because it’s obvious how much work everyone put into this. I thoroughly enjoyed watching them!
A few thoughts on the money issue:
1. I agree money helps, but I think those who want to make video on budget (or do anything for that matter- dreamline a muse, learn a new skill, go travel the world, whatever) should not let money constrain them.
Just get started, improvise, and think outside the box. Slicker work can be done with a bigger budget, but sometimes you learn more working with a smaller one.
2. Top cinematic movie trailer houses working with big studios have rate cards of $30,000-$100,000+ PER minute – certainly not the kind of budget that most individuals can afford…. but that doesn’t mean you can’t produce similar work for less.
Academy Award Best Director Mr. Steven Spielberg puts it best:
“Why pay a dollar for a bookmark? Why not use the dollar for a bookmark?”
Tim, for example, paid just ~$12k for the incredible 4 Hour Body Trailer collaborating with Adam Patch. He saved a ton of money by thinking outside the box, leveraging his resources and cross promos for Adam. Considering that it helped take 4HB from near #150 to #30 where it then climbed to #1 on the charts, I say it was an incredible success for a fraction of the usual costs (Tim: do I have the numbers right? Please correct me if I’m wrong!)
3. For The 4 Hour Chef, our goal was to produce a cinematic trailer for less than 25% of that. And guess what? We managed to pull it off (for less than 20%!).
As promised, here’s a link to our Behind Scenes Part 1 showing how I ‘hacked’ a few of the smaller costs in the Making Of The 4-Hour Chef Trailer:
http://youtu.be/aH4wiRLDm_U
And in the next week or two, if time allows, I will write up and share a more comprehensive write up with resources, tools, templates, etc. showing how we produced our trailer for under $2,000 in 1 week….
I hope this motivates and inspires a few people to take action!!
Ok…Vince Wong, blah blah blah…WHO”S THE GIRL?!
Vince is a student of mine… glad you got the win my man! You earned this brotha.
Thanks Lewis, I’ve heard great things about you from one of our private mastermind groups, but a little confused because I’m not a student of yours… however, do drop me a line if you want to collaborate together in the future 🙂
Ah ha! There is a story here and I want to hear it.
Oops, must be a different Vince Wong. But hey Vince, congratulations. I also would like to raise a toast to the judges and Tim himself for choosing rightly. Vince’s work indeed is the creme of the crop and I’ll choose his work as the hands down winner. 🙂
You’re the man. Good job on Fallon’s show! I agree with the winning video, good choice.
Super glad that Vince won! Met him a couple of times in business conferences and he’s a really cool guy.
The others have really good trailers too. 🙂
Desmond
Thanks Desmond! Agreed, there were definitely some good entries!
Tim, you’re such a great inspiration. It’s great to see the level of joy that you’ve helped bring to others. The quality of these videos were really good, as well.
On a note that is somewhat related to learning new things, one of my monthly goals/skills to learn and develop is to direct, shoot and produce a music video for the acoustic version of my band’s hit song “To Write Love On Her Arms”. It is a very intimidating project, but thanks in part to your material (and more so thanks to the approach of your material), I am excited to take on such ambitious tasks.
Thanks Tim, this is a great teaser!
This has nothing to do with the current post, but I thought you might want to know that if I try to click on the blog tab for the fourhourworkweek.com google chrome is flagging the page as having malware.
LIkewise. The attacked url shows http://www.4hourworkweek.com instead of http://www.fourhorworkweek.com/blog.
Hey Tim! Love the trailer. Looks great.
I am also especially keen on your writings about entrepreneurship… I serve as Senior Vice President of the Entrepreneurship Club at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas. Would you be interested in coming and speaking?
These videos are amazing! And I like the trend to getting readers and fans involved with the sales process itself – it becomes teaching/learning/fun for everyone who partakes. Like what Guy Kawasaki was teaching us at T&C about putting his manuscript out there to people before it was even done to get feedback. Everything becomes greater when we work as a community – it’s so powerful to have the vision to see that and tap into it. Thanks for being a leader TF!
Awesome Vince – You deserve it, Epic Vid man!
Great appearance on Late Night! Jimmy really seemed into it. Like he was gushing a bit.
Awesome work guys … Enjoyed watching the clips!
Hot girl + firearms + Muay Thai FTW!!!
Tim,
Thank you for the CreativeLIVE Course. Very nice…
Great job with the trailer! Video production is a skill I’ve been dying to learn for the past 3 years – really need to take the leap
Congrats Vince. Lots of work obviously went into that.
Tim, great idea auctioning off the video slot. It’s really a win win.
I liked them all- and could have voted for any of them! But next time….. a little bluegrass music for the soundtracks? Stretch the expectations! (Plus, I like to plug bluegrass…..)
Great job Vince!
When I saw this video a few months back I had a feeling you were gonna win!
Awesome bro!
Victor
Nice man congrats the video looks awesome. Also checked out your youtube 4HWW Success story — good stuff dude! Very inspiring.
Agreed, awesome story and video… bring on some of your behind the scenes info/ ideas/ case studies.
Desperation leads to Inspiration… shame so many people don’t get quite desperate enough to change their lives!
The Jimmy Fallon videos are only available to US residents/territories? What’s that all about?
Vince Wong’s submission really is head and shoulders the best one! If I were writing a book, making a commercial, doing anything that required a trailer such as this. I would hire him!
Can the 4-hour chef help you conquer any college course faster and better?
great job and well done everyone, congrats on Vince. Really loved the Trailors. Cheers
As a Brit I always maintain astiff upper lip and comment in a reserved manner-THAT WAS F…ING AMAZING!!!!!! Or Awsome as you colonials like to say-top drawer!
Would love to see all the entries, Tim any chance of uploading to a dedicated YouTube channel?
Congrats, Vince! Inspired by your work Tim, I’ve set a plan to work four hours per day vs. a eight hour work day. By working smart and not hard, I am looking forward to accomplishing more at work. Thanks for sharing your valuable insights. Loved the trailer of the winner.
Do you know when the four hour chef will be available in Dutch? thx
Very nice and creative submissions. I enjoyed watching each of them. Congrats to Vince for his artistic realization and winning the competition!
For Vince…….
When I go look at your blog, I see a landing page to sign up for newsletters- and I can’t read any past posts, or newsletters, or anything else. Am I missing something? Under revision? Using Chrome if that makes a difference. All I can do is go to the facebook page. Curious, because I had it bookmarked some years ago and remember you had more stuff there, I thought. Thanks!
Hey Roger!
Yep, we had a database crash when Tim made the announcement (wasn’t expecting it at all). The traffic from this blog nearly crippled our server (guess 1M+ viewers a month will do that!), and our Facebook page was a good temporary solution.
I will update everyone who signed up to Project 1% via email once we relaunch the blog (also in the middle of a redesign) and good to go! I appreciate everyone’s patience and apologies for any inconvenience caused.
In the mean time, as promised, here’s Part 1 of our Behind The Scenes Video:
“Making Of” The 4-Hour Chef Winning Trailer (Behind The Scenes)
(Forgive me for the swearing mom LOL)
Also, is anyone is interested in a more comprehensive step by step guide on how YOU can create a winning cinematic trailer like this on a budget? I’m thinking to do a full write-up of our 4 Hour Chef trailer covering step by step resources, tools, templates, lessons, takeaways, contacts etc. Leave a comment and let me know.
BTW if you’re not interested in joining Project 1% but still want access to our public updates- you can also just follow/subscribe to our Facebook page (link is on my blog Tim posted above) or via my Twitter (@drvincewong).
Thank you again everyone for the patience and support!
Congrats! Vince, I thought your trailer will be winner when I saw on Facebook. And, your earlier video submission 37+ countries saw a year back is awesome.
Video’s are always very good at conveying a message, anyhow I have added a video to my google analytics consutling fiverr gig which increased my sales by 25% this month.
FHWW Jay ho!
Regards,
Sudheer
you guys might like this
Congratulations Vince! Thats amazing! 🙂
Kudos, Vince, for the sleek design!
It’s great pleasure to see our video (Contenga International) right after your grand winner – considering that we had neither the time nor the budget you must have spent…Awesome job, though!
Our own behind-the-scenes story can be put into one sentence:
A flash of insight, 5 days of mad scooter rides around Bali to chase after a decent media production company and tons of fun!
But that’s what we do every day as a gang of passionate entrepreneurs in Bali. If you find yourself wishing to give us a high five – erh, wi-fi (?) – and get a taste of the good life, welcome here:
This is how we live The 4-hour Workweek, The 4-hour Body and now The 4-hour Chef!
Yo! Super fun competition. I’ve found a home at the Powerhouse in Bali too. Getting our 4-hour Workweek on! Crossfit today, overlooking a beautiful rice field from a 2nd level terrace, making some magical stuff happen with our many different projects/startups, helping the world one brilliant idea at a time, and doing it with the most kick ass people ever. We are living life the way it should be. I tried cow brain the other week….whaaat? 😉
@Tim Ferriss and @Contenga Interntional, thanks for making dreams come true <3
Just so impressed with the high quality of videos. All of them. Wonder what it costs to do some of this?
I like the winner’s (Vince) video as well. Mainly because it has real people in it.
Tim – Love the pre-burning man picture as well. very cool.
“Burning man” is on my list.
Fun. I was sold.
The winner’s video was absolutely amazing!
Anyone else out there think of Tim when that 5 hour energy commercial plays? haaa
Very slick Vince, it’s inspired me to upgrade from iMovie…
Tim, I could not concentrate on this blog entry due to the hair. Have you hacked male pattern baldness? When was the photo taken (broken down before Burning Man)
Congrats to the winners!
I find it so hilarious that Jimmy Fallon and yourself are wearing goggles. Are you guys really cooking something that could explode?
What a great book and video. Tim I know this might be a off topic comment, but what is the brand and style of that jacket you were wearing during the golf scene of your four-hour chef trailer. It looks great! I’ve been following you for a few years now, and I got to say your fashion sense definitely improved over the years so kudos on that! Thanks Tim!
Congrats Vince,
You know what I say? One of the Side Effects of Passion and Hardwork is Success 🙂
Keep it up!
Tim,
You’re truly an inspiration. I liked your work
You are always up to something different. Really appreciate your work (y).
Congratulations!
Dawood