City, The Chainlink, Bicycle Film Festival team up with Goose Island to present video contest

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Flyer for the Bike Chicago PSA Video Contest. 

Do you remember Terry Bloom? Of course you do. He’s the producer of the Bicycle Film Festival in Chicago and I interviewed him last November. He and I met up Sunday night to share with each other our submissions for the 2012 edition of Bicycle Film Festival (the deadline has passed). Terry recently returned after several months in India, where millions of people ride bikes every day. He told me about a contest he’s helping out with alongside Goose Island, The Chainlink, and the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events’s (DCASE) Bike Chicago summer events program. It’s the Bike Chicago PSA Video Contest.

The contest is centered around Bike To Work Week, June 11 through June 15,  but you don’t have a lot of time: submissions need to be uploaded in two weeks, by Sunday, May 20. All the rules are here (including 30-90 seconds, must follow road rules, and reflect the “Bike it Everywhere, Chicago!” theme).

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Goose Island made an announcement video for the Bike Video PSA Contest. 

Need an idea or a partner? Leave a comment below or on The Chainlink’s discussion board. Terry and I will be happy to help you, via email, develop concepts or deal with technical issues. Check our video archives for other short videos to get some ideas on what you could create.

Grid Chicago contributor Calvin Brown shared his idea, which he admits may be very derivative:

I think a fantastical ride to work would be awesome. Your alarm goes off. You run, brush your teeth and get dressed for work really fast. All is normal but then things get more exciting as you go along. By the end of your bike ride to work there are hordes of people cheering you to the finish, and you are a celebrity! That’s how I feel riding to work sometimes: it starts out normal. Fun, but normal. Then your elderly neighbor is waving and screaming hello and she starts running along behind you. Everyone that sees you either gets on a bike or runs behind you. A mass forms, and eventually there are hundreds of people running and riding behind you. You get to work and people are cheering. Then everyone catches up and they are carrying you around above them like crowd surfing. People come running out of their yards with bikes to join along; kids, elders, families, and dogs.

Make it happen and hundreds of people could be watching your film in Millennium Park on Tuesday, June 12, 2012, and you could be biking away from there with a new Trek Earl bike.