A call to cameras
Have you had it with Cesar Millan? The month of May seemed like nonstop Cesar. First there was a profile in the New York Times Sunday Magazine. Then there was a fawning article in the New Yorker, followed by another appearance on Oprah. It's like the Millan tsunami. It's time we made our own wave. Together we can do it. Get your video cameras charged and loaded.
The power of positive pictures
If a picture is worth 1,000 words, we figure a moving picture is worth a million. So we've created the Canis Film Festival as a showcase for all the incredible training and teaching that's done out there day in and day out. Done right, the Canis Film Festival will create a tsunami all its own.
A new chapter in a new era of communication
The power of internet discussion groups has helped create a community of people committed to learning force-free training principles. The power of broadband video over the Internet is going to help more people than ever see these same principles in action. But we have to create a large-scale presence. All videos on the Canis Film Festival site will be FREE for the public to view.
The 150 submission challenge
Here's a challenge for the positive trainers and clicker trainers around the world. Let's showboat! Let's get 150 submissions entered by November 1, 2006 and online for the world to see. We can generate gobs of media attention for trainers if we generate boatloads of submissions.
Fish shtick and more
The Canis Film Festival will showcase the power of training based on operant conditioning science. All animals, all species, and all situations are welcome. As trainers and professionals and enthusiasts working with animals in class, competition, at home, and in private consultations, zoos, and oceanariums, you are a global community like no other. More access, more activity, and more passion than any single entity. We want to show the diversity of animals you work with, and the cool and helpful things you train. So show us your old dog learning new tricks. Show us how you shaped that sea lion, how the rat learned to jump over the cat, and how the pot-bellied pig learned to run an agility course. Show us how you trained that horse to guide its owner across the street, how easily a seven-year-old can housetrain a roomful of puppies, or how you taught the rat to sniff for mines, the working dog to find people caught in rubble, the leopard its recall on cue, or the goldfish to do its fish shtick. Send it in. We'll show it to the world.
This summer, make a public statement about the power of the kind of training you do.
Cash prizes, fame, and fortune await you
Winning any part of the Canis Film Festival earns you cash prizes up to $500 and a potential video contract. All video entries will be viewable by millions of people all around the world on the Canis Film Festival website and we'll be reaching animal enthusiasts everywhere. See list of prizes.
Submissions are FREE, for the first 150!
It doesn't cost a dime to submit your video online to the Canis Film Festival, if you submit early. Originally, we were going to try and cover our advertising costs for the Canis Film Festival though a nominal submission charge. We've decided to waive that charge in the belief that creating a showcase for clicker trainers and all-positive trainers is worth thousands of dollars of investment. We want you to be as enthusiastic as we are.
As long as you submit online, and are one of the first 150 submissions, entry is free. If you send in your entry via snail mail, we have to do a lot of extra work to digitize and/or convert your film, so we ask you to help defer those costs with a $35 entry fee. After 150 online entries, our bandwidth costs may skyrocket, so we can only guarantee the first 150 entries as freebies; the online submission fee after that point is $25. Go to the upload site for details.
Engage the world, change the world
This summer, make a public statement about the power of the kind of training you do. Show the world the potential of your training technology by creating a video and submitting it to the Canis Film Festival.
Rules and details available at www.canisfilmfestival.com.
Need help or inspiration? See our Tips for Creating a Winning Video!
Aaron Clayton is President of Karen Pryor Clicker Training and TAGteach International, and a member of the ClickerExpo Faculty.
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