In search of indie talent, Madison Avenue partnered with Tinseltown and held a competition for aspiring commercial directors.

The Sam Adams "Brew-It-Yourself TV Commercial Contest" was created in the same spirit as Project Greenlight, a joint venture between LivePlanet, Miramax, HBO and Sam Adams. Founded by actors Ben Affleck and Matt Damon in December 2000, Project Greenlight held an online screenwriting competition and launched the career of Pete Jones, who won $1 million from Miramax to produce his film Stolen Summer.

Sam Adams and Project Greenlight offered wannabe directors the opportunity to shoot their own concepts with a professional crew and a budget of $100,000. More than 7,000 people from Greenlight's Web community responded by posting their concepts on the site and 25 semi-finalists submitted videotapes and storyboards. Judges from Sam Adams and Project Greenlight selected three finalists: Michael Benetis, directing team Santiago Tapia/Amy Kroeplin and Arizona native Marco Guerrero. Each was given four days to find a camera, round up their friends and shoot.

Guerrero won with "Guys Night Out," pocketing $5,000 to direct the commercial and a year's supply of Sam Adams. The spot follows a group of guys into a strip club and makes light of the fact that it's the bartender -- not the stripper -- that commands their undivided attention as he pours the Sam Adams.

"Guys Night Out" will be co-produced by LivePlanet CEO Chris Moore and Big Chair Productions, Sam Adams' agency in New York. Once completed, it is slated to run on late-night television.

"The line between working professionals and talented amateurs is fairly contrived and artificial," stated Jim Koch, founder/brewer of The Boston Beer Company. "For years we did the same thing with home brew. We used to get 3,000 home brews from all over the world, pick the best three and brew them commercially as long shots and they were great."

Given the constraints under which the finalists shot their spots, Koch says he couldn't have received better results from any agency. "I would very much like to do it again but we haven't finalized the details."

Webfiles:
Sam Adams> http://www.samadams.com
Project Greenlight> http://www.projectgreenlight.com
Deutsch> http://www.deutschinc.com