Hey everyone,

 I need some feedback and ideas. I've been approached by the big distributor of Stikfas in the US. If you don't know what they are, they are plastic kits you put together. Sometimes they are pre-assembled, but either way you can pose and animate them. Here's a picture of one of the latest types:

Now the question I have is - if you were to collaborate with a big company what would you do? One idea we had was to have contests, and offer some prizes.

What do you think? Are you into the Stikfas figures? Would you like to get some Stikfas as a prize for a contest? Or can you think of something besides a contest we could do? Were open to all ideas at this point. My thinking is - the bigger the better!

Hey there Marc,

Stickfas are a good product, No question, and it's pretty cool that they approached you... but for what? Maybe I missed it in your post but what do they want? To have you hold a contest on AC or even SMMN?

Stickfas is a "BIG" company, Worldwide now I believe. to get to that level they have $$money$$. So if they want to offer their product which is pretty in-expensive to begin with as a prize is kinda lame to be honest. A contest is a great idea and an animated 30 commercial done in Stop-Motion to advertise Stickfas and their products would be totally awesome. Much like companies are doing on You-Tube now (http://www.youtube.com/contests_main). A prize for such a contest needs to be CASH, even if it's a measly $100.00 it's at least something.

I am very much into the Stickfas figures. I wish they were around when I first got into clay and stop-motion. No, I would not like Stickfas for a prize for any kind of contest, Maybe as a prize in my morning cereal! but not for any actual labor. Gotta spend some money to make some money. A contest I'm thinking would be ideal. Especially for SSMN or even AC to get more out there. Especially if they are coming to you. That means you offer something that they think can help make them more money and sales for cheap to free. I'm not trying to be negative at all here. Although as I re-read what I have written above it my seem like I am. I'm just thinking a-loud is all. Thanks Marc - Mike

I'm agreeing with Mike. I think recieving a stickfas figure for a competition prize, would be a small reward when you could easily buy one yourself for half the money you would put into making the film. I like the idea of advertising them in the film and having cash prizes from the Stickfas distributors themselves. That would give the product even more light and stick to the whole idea of a 'Stickfas contest'. The winning film could be posted around AC and SMMN, ( maybe even YouTube) to therefore advertise their product. I'm sure the corporation would agree.

Ya, I kind of agree with Mike as well. Like Mike said, it's been a fad or something of these large companies to make commericals for them for a large cash prize(usually in the thousands of dollars, but these companies are multimillion dollar to begin with). It would be cool if Stikfa could do the same thing, but instead of giving a stikfa as a prize (you already need one in order to animate and promote it), you supply yourself with your own stikfa and you get a cash prize. All is not lost for the company because those participating will probably have to purchase a stickfa and as a bonus, there will be a ton of exposure for the company with lots of commericals. If they wanted to make the prize more interesting and enticing, they could throw in a couple of stickfas as well.

When you do animation contests, it takes tons more time than a sculpture contest since you have to animate(of course) as well as come up with a story, possible props and a set. A lot more work is needed to do it so something more enticing will be needed to get people to do it and generally the better the prize, the more people that will enter. Some people may even get into animation and buy a couple of stikfas to have a go at the prize if it is large enough. There is generally more than a first prize too, so there would be a greater likely hood of wining something. If Stikfa was even generous enough, they could not mention it while advertising the contest, but give a stikfa to everyone participating depending on the numbers that do join.

I can't really think of anything else besides contests that would get a lot of people involoved and also advertise for the company. Contests besides stop-motion animation could include any type of film(cg, stop motion, cartoony, live action), make an ad(just a plain old image) for them, make a scene and put some words on it to describe why stikfas are good or something, and there are probably a lot more, but those are some ideas off the top of my head.

Hey guys, I appreciate the honesty. Your right about Stikfas being a cheap prize when you balance out how much work you have to do to make a film. It makes sense.

They sell extra big Stikfas, I think they are 14" inches tall and are the most expensive ones. Here's a picture of one:

What about that and 100 dollars for the prize? To me, the bronze Stikfas is almost like an Oscar award for stop motion. It's not your usual Stikfas that you see every day - and you can animate it. At least if your going to get one as part of the prize it should be big.

Once Martin from the Stikfas company writes to me I'll ask him what he thinks about it.

The next question is - what's the rule for making a film? Stikfas are good for stop mo, so what about short films showing why they are good to animate? Yes it would require having a Stikfas, or maybe if it's live action you could explain why you would want one to animate if you don't already. What do you guys think?

Really I think Marc is right a 14" inch tall gold painted Stikfas would be a awesome thing to have siting on your desk! and you could probably sell it on ebay to some crazed collector for at the least $100. but still the 14" inch tall Stikfa would be cheap for them to make. mabe they could add a cash prize with it.

Hey Amber, yeah what I mean is to have a 14 inch Stikfas AND $100.00 with it for the prize.

For film/advertising ideas, I would say the film would be animated, the animation itself advertising the Stikfas or including it in the film. For example ( hey, I'm no good at examples so bear with me...)

You could have normal armatures or even full puppets being animated( keep falling over, or the arms/legs snap), then Stickfas comes along and is animated with no problems showing how easy it is to get started.

But, I'm just think out loud here, but I think it would be nice for the film to be animation rather than live action. ( Live action/stopmotion would be great!)

Ya, that's a good price. Those bronze stikfas seem like oscars or something to me too. I might need to get myself some of these if I want to participate.

As for rules, I'd probably give a lot of creative freedom. Just say why you like stikfas, how they can be used, and why you should get one. The rest would pretty much be up to the person to come up with.

Ya, Noftby, I was thinking around the same realms with you in live-action (I think). If somebody wanted to, like if they didnt think they were good enough at animation, they could build themself a huge stikfa suit or something and advertise using that if they wanted to. I wouldn't think it would matter much about medium as long as it displays the stikfa figure in a recognizable manner. That would kind of defeat the purpose of buying a stikfa, though, so maybe you could do that, but only if you also displayed the real stikfa figure somehow.

       It would still be nice to know why they approached you. They must want something?!?! If they want to have the contest exclusively through SMMN or AC then $100.00 and the big stickfas would be all right. But if they want it to be through you-tube or some other on-line community they will need to up the ante.

 

     As for a rules, how about at least 10 seconds of stickfas product placement and animation is the main criteria. What makes these guy's so cool is that the have a full range of motion and that makes them animate-able.


    Maybe they could have SSMN or AC as a sponsor and then host the thing on youtube with a larger prize of say $2,000.00 - $10,000.00 and make one of the criteria they must have at least 2 Stickfas and 10 seconds of product placement. Instantly you have opened the door to over a million people who must now buy Stickfas to even participate. Kramer just said he would have to buy some to participate so he's #1. They can make their prize money back in a heartbeat and promote their product to millions more and at the end of the day they are siting pretty shinny. These are just thoughts though. Let us know what Martian says, Thanks Marc!