A picture, we’ve been told, is worth a thousand words. Yet for the thousands entering Canon’s “Project Imagin8ion” contest, a good picture could be the beginning of a career in filmmaking. The camera-maker has set up a Project Imagin8ion channel on YouTube and two lucky (and talented) finalists could have their pictures play a major role in the production of an upcoming Ron Howard film production.
Today is the last day in a month-long submission process wherein photography star hopefuls submitted pictures on the channel which inspire 8 movie themes for the short film to be directed by Howard’s daughter, actress/director Bryce Dallas Howard. Photos of the themes — setting, relationship, goal, obstacle, time, character, mood and the unknown — will then be judged by YouTube members.
Ron Howard was intrigued by the contest’s imaginative implications.
“It struck me as a really creative exercise,” he said in an interview with CNN. “A couple of decades ago I began to use still photographs in thinking about scenes to try to prod my own imagination and push it towards a more visual approach to scenes and stories because having grown up as an actor, my instinct is to always think first of the performance.”
The 8 winners in each category will be flown to New York for the film’s premier and get a bunch of goodies from Canon. But the real winner here is Canon. By using digital branding, social media marketing and viral video, the company is encouraging budding photographers to get involved and take artistic risks while promoting their line of products. It is inspiring to see companies like Canon tap into the creativity that is happening everyday on the internet.
“I think people are discovering their creativity all of the time and the Internet has facilitated and accelerated that,” Howard says.
Amen to that, Opie, and we can’t wait to see where our imaginations continue to take us.
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