The Simpsons Launches a "Treehouse of Horror" Create-Your-Own Promo Contest

FOX has just announced a brand new promotion entitled the “Treehouse of Horror XVII:  Slice-Dice-and-Win” contest. As many people are undoubtedly aware, “Treehouse of Horror” refers to The Simpsons' annual Halloween episode. For the past sixteen years (this year will be number seventeen), The Simpsons have aired a Halloween episode made up of three short stories. It was originally entitled “Treehouse of Horror” because the stories were told by the characters while in Bart’s treehouse.   

This year, FOX has set up a website where they will allow people to use simplified editing tools in order to let fans create their own promo for the episode. The website will be up and running from October 16 through November 5. Despite the end date for the website, the main portion of the contest itself is finished at 11:59 PM on October 30. After that point, a panel of judges will take a look at the submitted promos and one person will win a trip for two to The Simpsons’ 400th episode party in Los Angeles in May 2007. 

Entries submitted after October 30 at 11:59 PM will be allowed to participate in a secondary contest in which one winner will receive a “Treehouse of Horror XVII” giclee print signed by The Simpsons' creator and executive producer, Matt Groening. Twenty additional contestants will win a “Treehouse of Horror XVII” poster and another 100 will receive a Simpsons' mini-poster.

After spending some time on their site, I can tell you they have made it very easy to use the tools and very easy to create a bad promo. It is, however, incredibly difficult to create a good one. There are numerous clips to choose from, and those clips can be trimmed so the user can select only a portion of the clip. However, the trimming tool is quite simplistic and if the trim is not satisfactory to the user, the entire clip needs to be deleted, reinserted as a whole into the timeline, and then re-trimmed.  I highly recommend using a stopwatch in order to determine the correct ins and outs of the clips one wishes to trim.  Music, sound effects, transitions, and titles can all be added to the promo as well in order to give it a more polished look.

Article Author: Josh Lasser

Josh Lasser, formerly known as "TV and Film Guy," and complete with a Masters Degree in Critical Studies in said areas, gives his opinions on TV, Film, and Entertainment in general. All of which he does in a shameless attempt to try to get paid to do the exact same thing. …

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