THIS CONTEST ENDED ON 8/1/10

Back in 2004 after Ronnie Romero of WakeboardNebraska won Wakeboarding Mag's Amateur Film Contest, he had absolutely no idea what to do when it came time to produce his first film. Luckily, he had a good number of friends in the industry that helped him through the process and he found success with releases like SNAFU, Updog and Global Warning. Now Ronnie has teamed up with WakeWorld to put together his own amateur film contest!

The industry needs more producers that are looking to release full-length films. Web videos are great, but it's still tough to beat a 45-minute DVD that gets you really pumped to go out and ride. From what we've seen on the Internet, there are a number of great budding producers out there and we wanted to find the next great one. It was a chance for ams to showcase their production skills in the New Producer Video Contest brought to you by WakeWorld and WakeboardNebraska.

In order to make sure we found the best up-and-coming video prodigy to produce a wakeboarding video to blow the minds of the wake world, we came up with a prize pack like no other. The grand prize winner won a trip to Orlando, Florida and an opportunity to film Scott Byerly along with other top pros alongside Ronnie Romero. At the end of the shoot, the winner will compile the footage and put together a short feature for all to enjoy on the interweb!

Not only that, but Byerly Boards stepped up to setup the grand prize winner with a Byerly board and binding package and a meet and greet with Scott Byerly himself after shooting him behind the boat!!

The man that will receive the grand prize package is Ryan Taylor!

But wait, there's more! We had five runners up that also submitted some videos that were not too shabby. They were also taken care of by Byerly Boards with the following prizes...

• 1^st Runner Up - Tuti: Byerly wakeboard
• 2^nd Runner Up - Chris Bradley: Byerly bindings
• 3^rd Runner Up - Nick Schrein: Byerly wakeskate
• 4^th Runner Up - Merrett Fay: Byerly rope/handle
• 5^th Runner Up - David Krzenski: Byerly backpack

All that just for making an amateur wakeboarding video that impressed our esteemed panel of judges!!

Below are some rough notes from the judges on each of the winning entries to give you an idea of how they placed where they did. To watch any of the videos, just click on the name of each winner below. To join the discussion, check out the WakeWorld Forum thread.

• Ryan Taylor (Grand Prize) - Overall best cinematography. Every shot was planned out and different. Great variety of creative shots; dolly, housing, cable, locked down. Cable cam was EXCELLENT! Dirty lens in a few shots. Shot selection was questionable on a few shots. Edit matched music selection very well. Very captivating and interesting. Can't wait to see what he can do with a group of professional riders.
• Tuti (1^st Runner Up) - Some shots out of focus. Very good intro, but it didn’t go anywhere after that. Terrific fast-paced edit. Repetitive shots - would have liked to see some different looks. Music selection was GREAT and matched the edit! Great use of Byerly branding! I know it wasn’t about riding at all, but the riding was SICK! Very entertaining. I wanna see more Tuti Films!
• Chris Bradley (2^nd Runner Up) - Solid chase shots. Most steady camera work. Decent edit.
• Nick Schrein (3^rd Runner Up) - Weird color correction; colors way too over-saturated. Edit was just a bit off with timing. BEST use of WakeboardNebraska! FOGGY water housing in almost all housing shots.
• Merrett Fey (4^th Runner Up) - Heli shots - GOOD. Shot selection could be better. Tube, chase - SHAKEY footy. Deinterlace please.
• David Krzenski (5^th Runner Up) - Long intro. Decent overall watch.

Thanks to everybody that submitted a video. Very special thanks go out to Scott Byerly and Byerly Boards for coming up with a prize package that is pretty much priceless. And, of course, thanks to Ronnie Romero and WakeboardNebraska for putting it all together. Don't forget to pick up Ronnie's latest film, Global Warning, on DVD or Bluray, today!