Audio4fun.com “Speak like a President” video contest has gone through a dramatic voting stage with many interesting twists and turns. The two winners have been announced; however, it was the close race during the final voting stage that made the contest thrilling, not to mention the excellent videos created by all of the contestants. The finalist video clips are still available for watching at http://www.facebook.com/audio4fun.community

“Speak like a President” is a video contest to celebrate the US’s Independence Day sponsored by Audio4fun.com. From the very beginning, the event has received a lot of interest from people around the world. 30 videos were submitted; to ensure the quality of the event, eleven finalists were chosen by Audio4fun’s staff to go into the voting stage.

For this first contest, “Speak like a President”, Audio4fun decided to have two top prizes awarded. One was set to be selected by the viewers, just like a presidential election in real life. This ‘election’ was done through the 6-day-long voting stage, based on the number of votes for each finalist video. This prize was called the “Most Favorite President”. The other winner was selected by Audio4fun’s judges, based on certain criteria regarding the acting skills; the sequence of the video’s script and the speech made by the contestants, and was named the “President Twin Choice” prize.

For the first couple of days of the voting phase, one of the finalist videos kept the leading position most of the time – it was the video made by M. Hickey. But as the final days of the voting phase arrived, a race among three finalist videos occurred: the video by M. Hickey, the video by J. Reedy, and the video by A. Koss. The voting numbers of these three videos were not only much higher than the votes for the other clips, but they also competed with one another.

“There were times when we had just hit the Share button on our Facebook wall to update the top 3 video votes, the number changed, so did the order of the videos in the vote list,” said Tracy Nguyen, Brand Manager for Audio4fun.com. During the last hours of the voting time, it came down to a close race between M. Hickey and J. Reedy; of course neither wanted to lose the race, and it was down to the last minute before we could assure who had won the prize.” J. Reedy was the winner of the “Most Favorite President” with 275 votes for his video, 9 votes surpassing the vote for M. Hickey’s video.

“The race was exciting. We checked the vote number each five minutes; we couldn’t take our minds off of the contest neither at night nor on weekends. There was always someone who was assigned to follow the contest in real time,” Ms. Nguyen continued commenting on the actual progress of the contest, “We were fluttering when the leader changed as if we were the contestants ourselves.”

As for the other prize in the contest, the “President Twin Choice” prize, Audio4fun’s judges had a difficult time choosing among the four candidate videos. “The videos were so amazing that we couldn’t decide which one was better. Some had a very well connected script, some had very excellent acting and costume, and some blew us away with exotically funny speeches. We had to make a list of criteria, examine each video base on it, and then make a strict evaluation for each video. It was a very hard decision for us,” said Ms. Nguyen. The final winner of the ‘President Twin Choice” prize was B. Jones-Cooper, who was the only female finalist. She created a striking resemblance to the First Lady Michelle Obama in her video and made a very hilarious speech as well. The prize was announced two days later than the other one.

“This is the first video contest we’ve ever held. We are extremely happy with the results. We are looking forward to holding more events like this to keep a creative space for our fans in which they can have fun and enjoy exciting moments,” said Ms. Nguyen.

Besides the iPad 2 and a VIP card for each winner, Audio4fun also gave away their voice master tool, AV Voice Changer Software, to 50 lucky fans who had cast a vote. The updates related to the contest, as well as all the finalist videos, are available for viewing on Audio4fun’s Facebook page. And to find out if Audio4fun is holding any special event in the future, follow their Facebook page at www.facebook.com/audio4fun.community

By Clark Miller

The submitting phase of the video clips for “Speak Like a President” video contest on Facebook, sponsored by Audio4fun.com in order to celebrate the Fourth of July, has just been ended, now it’s time for the voting. The videos are available for viewing and voting at www.audio4fun.com/contest2011.php.

Audio4fun.com would like to thank all of the contestants for the time and effort they spent on their submissions. Many of the videos are incredibly hilarious and creative, even far beyond the contest holders’ expectations. Some videos focus on making the speech fun; some demonstrate the ability of the contestant in imitating the president’s appearance, and speaking style. In some clips, viewers may also easily get the idea of which president is being mimicked. Video editing skills, patriotic music, acting skills and voice parodying are all employed to create impressive effects. Everything is done in a very entertaining manner and the contestants have shown an amazing talent for acting.

The finalist videos are now available in the contest’s page on Facebook, and are open for voting to all Facebook fans. These videos are selected from several submitted videos for their remarkable effects either in the acting skills or the speech content itself. The other videos that missed making the finals were mostly due to some inappropriate content or not meeting the video technical requirements.

“We’re extremely pleased that the submission stage of the contest went so smoothly. Since this is the first time we’ve held a contest on Facebook, we were concerned there might be mistakes here and there, but thankfully, the submissions were just great,” said Tracy Nguyen, Audio4fun.com’s Brand Manager, “The videos reflect the American spirit: humorous, optimistic, happy-go-lucky, and of course, patriotic!”

The “Speak Like a President” video contest will have two main prizes: one for the best video as voted by Facebook users and one for the best video as voted by Audio4fun.com’s judges. Each of these winners will receive $US 500 or an iPad 2, plus a VIP Card at Audio4fun.com (which is worth $200). There are also several minor prizes for contestants and audio4fun.com’s Facebook fans.

To see how funny the videos are and use your votes to decide which contestant should be the winner, please go to www.audio4fun.com/contest2011.php.

By Lawrence Tran

As the celebration of Independence Day is drawing close, Audio4fun.com’s Facebook video contest “Speak like a President” has received more and more submissions. To their staff’s amazement, the first batch of submitted videos has proven that contestants’ creativity is unlimited. The contest is open for submission until the end of July 10, 2011. To get more information about the contest, please visit www.audio4fun.com/contest2011.php.

“It’s impressive,” said Tracy Nguyen, Brand Manager of Audio4fun.com and in charge of the contest, “the videos are beyond our imagination. They are so creative and hilarious, ranging from turning a formal announcement into a humorous talk, to imitating very formal statements, and even election acceptance speeches. It’s very hard to say which ones will be in the top favorite list up to now.”

The contestants have showed their admirable effort in roleplaying the presidents. As for Jim from Japan, who chooses to mimic President Abraham Lincoln by giving his famous, short speech – the Gettysburg Address – has creatively made himself a “false beard” by using a black handkerchief. He even changed the background in the video into a 19^th century room. These additions combined with his eloquent speech make this video surprisingly convincing.

Another video that was also highly “hearted” by the Audio4fun’s staff is Paul from USA. Contrary to Jim, Paul has chosen to parody a recent president – Bill Clinton – in a funny way. Using an interview clip of the ex-president on his scandal with Monica Lewinsky, Paul has made Audio4fun’s staff burst out laughing with the intentional mistakes during his speech and newly-added details to the original video clip.

“We do not restrict contestants in any president or style of speech,” said Tracy, “and we wish to see as much fun and creativity as possible. The submission due date is coming near, so for those Facebook users who wish to join in should start making their video now to submit it on time. We allow multiple submissions from one contestant, so feel free to express your talent.”

These videos and other good ones are going to be posted on Audio4fun.com’s Facebook Page to honor the authors. Audio4fun.com has also sent gifts to some early participants, including full copies of AV Voice Changer Software Diamond and AV Video Morpher. The contestants can use the Audio4fun’s most famous tools to optimize their voice and video then resubmit it at anytime before the submission due date.

After the submission stage, there will be another 6 days for voting. The prize for the winner will be an iPad 2 and a VIP Card at Audio4fun.com of a value of $200. Join in the contest by visiting www.audio4fun.com/contest2011.php

By Clark Miller