Homemade Movie Contest Asks What You'd Do With an Extra Hour

Homemade Movie Contest Asks What You'd Do With an Extra Hour

Boston Market Contest Winner Receives All-Expense Paid Trip to Hollywood and Much More

DENVER, March 29 /PRNewswire/ -- Watching your kid's big game ... practicing the Brazilian martial art of Capoeira ... absolutely nothing! Is this the wish list of a "Lost" survivor? Or the ending of a "Late Show with David Letterman" Top 10 list? Or even the top three tasks on an "Amazing Race" episode? Possibly. Or more likely, this is a short list of the type of video submissions Boston Market expects to receive from Americans answering the question, "What would you do with an extra hour in your day?"

Boston Market is announcing its first-ever Internet video contest aimed at celebrating America's busy modern lifestyle and providing an outlet for the country's passion for viral entertainment, especially videos. The premise of the contest is easy: demonstrate, in 60 seconds or less, what you would do with an extra 60 minutes in a day. Entries are also required to include the Homemade Movie Contest cup, available at all 630 Boston Market locations nationwide or as downloadable artwork that can be affixed to a 20-oz. cup via http://www.myextrahour.com/ . Finalists will be eligible to win thousands of dollars worth of prizes, including an all-expense paid trip to Hollywood.

"We like to think we're giving our guests more free time when they choose Boston Market. So we've turned that premise into a contest and a call-to- action," said Trey Hall, chief brand officer, Boston Market Corporation. "We're helping all the busy moms, dads, and young professionals of the world, take a break, leave the cooking to us, and spend time doing the things they love."

A recent survey* shows that more than two-thirds of Americans need more than 24 hours in their day. What would people do with more time? Thirty percent would most likely spend their extra time with family and friends.

Boston Market wants to see what people would do with their extra time. The Web site http://www.myextrahour.com/ is an interactive site designed to invite visitors to view contest clips and even vote for their favorites. It houses all of the Boston Market Homemade Movie Contest official rules, prize information, and instructions on submitting and viewing videos. Additionally, the Web site will host two weeks of viewer's choice voting and provide free music downloads which may be used when filming the contest entries. The Homemade Movie contest begins today and submissions will be received until May 28, 2006.

Official rules are also available at your local Boston Market restaurant. No purchase is necessary to participate and the contest is void where prohibited. Participants must be of the age of majority in their state of residence.

From May 30 through June 5, all videos submitted during the 10-week promotion will be reviewed by a panel of experts, who will choose the 16 finalists. The judges include: Hall; Cameron Bridges, creative director CCT Advertising; Ian Coyle, creative director FL2; Kathleen Ciaramello, vice president Coca-Cola; and Chad Hunter, home movies expert.

Hunter spent seven years as a preservation officer at George Eastman House in Rochester, NY, where he supervised the archiving of more than 100 films, including the home movies of Martin Scorsese and Joan Crawford. As co-founder of The Center for Home Movies, a nonprofit organization dedicated to collecting, preserving, and encouraging home movies and amateur motion pictures, Hunter also co-founded Home Movie Day -- a worldwide celebration of amateur films and filmmaking held annually in August.

"The spirit of Boston Market's contest embodies what great homemade movies are, pun intended, made of," said Hunter, archivist to the stars. "In my experience, I've found that most people capture on video or film the moments they most love about life and want to remember. From vacations to time spent with your kids, we all want those special moments to last and linger."

Through his work, Hunter has seen an increase in Americans wanting to learn how to transfer home movies from film and video to digital formats, such as DVD. However, Hunter suggests that while transferring home movies to DVD is a good way to readily share them with friends or family, film can far outlast any video or digital technologies if stored correctly. Also, as technologies and formats change, movie-makers can always go back to the originals to re- transfer them. Regardless of type of format, Hunter suggests always making a back-up copy of your original footage and storing all movies in a cool, dry place.

There will be eight total winners at the end of the contest promotion with one grand-prize winner, one first-prize winner, one second-prize winner, and five runner-up prizes. The grand prize package is an all-expense paid trip for two to Hollywood including roundtrip airfare, three nights at The Beverly Hills Hotel, luxury car rental, $2,000 spending money, Universal Studios Tour, plus a Boston Market gift card for "Dinner for Four" once each week for one year. First, second, and runner-up prizes include Circuit City(R) and Boston Market "Dinner for Four" gift cards.

For more information about the Homemade Movie Contest, visit a Boston Market restaurant, http://www.bostonmarket.com/ , or http://www.myextrahour.com/ .

About Boston Market

Boston Market Corporation, based in Golden, Colo., is a leader in the fast-casual restaurant category. The company has translated its passion for fresh, great-tasting food into two distinctly different concepts. Boston Market restaurants -- 630 locations in 28 states -- are noted for their easy, convenient, home-style meals. The company also partners with leading supermarket chains to bring restaurant-quality, Boston Market-branded meals into the deli department so shoppers can enjoy the one-stop convenience of purchasing ready-to-eat and ready-to-heat meals at the same time they do their grocery shopping. Boston Market Corporation is a wholly owned subsidiary of McDonald's Corporation. For more information, visit the company's Web site at http://www.bostonmarket.com/ .

* Survey of 1,008 adults age 18 and older for Boston Market conducted by
Opinion Research Corp. from Jan. 27 to 29, 2006, with a margin of error
of +/- 3 percentage points.

Source: Boston Market

CONTACT: Jackie Leonard-Tackett for Boston Market, +1-314-982-0283,
leonardj@fleishman.com , or Kelly Heisler of Boston Market, +1-303-216-5203,
kheisler@bost.com

Web site: http://www.myextrahour.com/
http://www.bostonmarket.com/

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