We'd like to thank everyone who participated in this contest, - we were overwhelmed with excellent submissions from throughout the world that made the judging very difficult. I'd also like to thank our sponsors and judges who put in a lot of time and support for this project. Bruce Gee of GeeThree, Gard Cookson of Bella Keyboards USA and Internet Video Magazine contributor Kevin Hicks.

Our iMovie contest was open to aspiring videographers, or people that just wanted to have fun creating their own "home movies". We were looking for a short video (3 minutes max) that demonstrated creative use of effects, transitions and titles. And it had to have some kind of plot ... and we had to enjoy watching it. Tough criteria but we have lots of finalists. From professionals to amateurs to kids making their first iMovie.

Here are our top three winners - 

Number One and the winner of the iPod from Gee Three - Nathan Burton's "Your Mac Life on the Move", cute, funny and very well made. Coming in a close second, Jamie Strutton's "Sunday Moring" - action packed and fun. Jamie takes home the full set of Gee Three Plug-Ins for iMovie. Number three, Richard El Sheikh's "SeaWorld Water Games". An extremely well edited and creative story of a trip to San Diego's Sea World, Richard gets a special Bella USA video editing keyboard.

Also selected in the top five and deserving of special mention is Sean Tracy's strange but very artistic "Toilet Propaganda" and Gerd Freyler's "Eclipse" music video. 

Here are the winning and finalist videos, with links and a little description of each.

FIRST PLACE -  Nathan Burton, United Kingdom "Your Mac Life on the Move"

What is your video about: It's a story about why I need an iPod to listen to my favorite Internet show when I am out and about in The New Forest.

How did you make your video: I have a rev1 blue iBook that was my main machine until I bought a 12" G4 Powerbook. It's amazing how long you can get Macs to last. I work with a local Apple retailer and they had a blue iBook brought in to assess for a 'new for old' insurance replacement.

I rescued it from the scrap heap and stripped out all of the internal components. The surround of the screen was wrecked where I think the previous owner had stamped on it. I reconstructed it with Super-glue and masking tape, painted the back of the plastic with Tipex to get it closer to the previous color. I then taped in a scrap piece of brown paper to resemble the screen. I knew it would only be seen from a distance on the video. It is testament to Apple that I could clip the thing back together after such harsh treatment and it would still look real.

We then took the 2 iBooks, Sony PC100 DV Camera and the dog for a walk. We were out filming for about 3 hours and shot about 15 minutes of video in total. We had to get a shot of the real iBook working so decided to show the Apple iTunes display. The stunt iBook was used when I jumped the log, walked through the stream and for the bridge shots.

SECOND PLACE:  Jamie Strutton, Vero Beach, FL "Sunday Morning"

Who helped make this video: My buddy Fabio shot a little footage and created the music. I shot most of the footage and did all the editing.
What is your video about: Having fun on the river with a video camera, a boat and wakeboard. Throw in a couple funny friends and it's all good

THIRD PLACE: Richard El Sheikh, La Mesa, CA "SeaWorld Water Games"

What is your video about: A day at Sea World in San Diego

How did you make your video: Shot it with a Sony trv520 one chip camera then edited it on IMovie. Used GeeThree transitions and titles.

HONORABLE MENTIONS - These are great!!

Gerd Freyler, Germany  "Eclipse"

How did you make this movie: I used a Panasonic camera, Apple Macintosh G4 and iMovie

David Courage,  Brooklyn, NY "No Sleep Till Brooklyn Party"  (click on video link)
3 min

What is video about: invitation to a party, invitation floats from sky, each character reads it, throws it on
How did you make movie: Sony DCR-PC9, iMovie, Photoshop

Rod Kent,  Huntington Beach CA " Tube Wars"
What is your video about: Lego stop frame animation - Star Wars parody
How did you make your video: The hard way... Wife and family went to visit mother for a week and I had to much time on my hands...
1) Turn camcorder on for a couple of seconds, film static shoot.
2) move Lego pieces
3) Repeated #1 a lot.
4) Imported a sequence into iMovie from my Camcorder.
5) Edited each clips down to one frame.
6) Exported sequence as DV clip and imported sequence back in to iMovie (dropping the sequence in the movie folder).
7) Special effects scenes where exported to photoshop on frame at a time, light saber where drawn, and the frame was imported back to iMovie.
8) The flying sequences where done in real time, they where move slowly and speed up in iMovie.

p.s. See the longer version with more special effects

Gary B. Garman, Baton Rouge, LA "Experimental"
How did you make your video: I shot some random footage from a band performing in Florida about a year ago. I also shot a hallway at the condo I was staying at in the very early morning. I found a really cool royalty free loop and decided to integrate it all together in a 30 second movie. I edited the entire project using iMovie 2. I used the following effects - xray, sepia, nsquare, and lots of my favorite - GeeThree diffusion. My goal was to match the performance to the audio loop in an abstract way. 

Sean Tracy, Maspeth, NY  - "Toilet Propaganda"

Who helped make this video: Nellu Mazillu - Actor; Lauren Rybacki - V.O.; Joe Mapplebeck - Score

What is your video about: A schizophrenic man encounters voices in his head on a daily basis. But where are the voices coming from this morning?

Warning - Includes adult language and concepts....

How did you make your video:
I shot it with a Canon XL-1 on a Saturday morning. Edited it with iMovie and added a soundtrack that my friend Joe scored for me.

MORE FINALISTS