Brook Riddick won't be able to watch when a day in his life is broadcast live to the world next month.
But the 27-year-old computer programmer, who lost his sight as a teenager, will certainly be able to feel the US$50,000 check he'll be handed as the grand-prize winner in RealNetworks' "Real Life, Real Stories" video contest.
"I saw this contest as an opportunity to get the message out that your handicap is only what you let it be," Riddick said.
On 1 January 1999, Riddick will do plenty as he goes about an only slightly atypical day in his life, as a RealNetworks video crew tags along. The day's events will be broadcast live on RealNetworks' contest Web site via streamed video.
Riddick and the RealNetwork cameras will attend a meeting of his Renaissance re-enactment group, a society that recreates daily life in the 15th and 16th centuries. He'll take the crew on a tour of Las Vegas and his home. He'll give a performance of his stand-up comedy routine at a local nightclub. And the day will end -- typically for Riddick -- playing pool with friends at a local pub.
It's all about being normal, Riddick said.
"It's very ironic, actually," Riddick said. "If I were doing the video myself, trust me: There'd be a lot of shots of the floor and the lens cap."
Over the course of six weeks, several hundred contest entrants from 28 states submitted three-minute videos describing why their real-life story ought to be broadcast on the Internet.
The entries were posted on RealNetworks' Web site and judged by a panel of video professionals. Internet viewers also selected their favorites, and three people won People's Choice prizes.
RealNetworks created the contest to highlight the voyeuristic -- er, documentary -- potential of RealNetworks' streaming software. Intel, 800.com, and 3Com co-sponsored it. "You look at the phenomenal success of [the movie] The Truman Show and [Fox's] Cops and MTV's Real World, and you see that people are really interested in watching other people in real-life moments," said Jay Wampold, director of communications for RealNetworks.
"And then there's this phenomenon of the Internet as a mass medium.... We're seeing significant, broadcast-size audiences tuning into the Internet to get programming they can't get anywhere else."
The entrants are eager to feed that appetite. First-place winner Harrod Blank said in the introduction to his contest entry, "Most people want to be different; most people want to stand out and be an individual."
Blank stands out in his VW bug, which he has covered with art.
Blank shared first prize with 35-year-old animal activist Kathy Milani, the only prize winner who actually works in the field of video production. Milani, a Washington resident, directs video projects for The Humane Society of the United States.
Blank and Milani will join Riddick in having their lives documented for a day. The two first-prize winners will take home $10,000 in prize money.
While some folks might balk at having their private lives broadcast to a global audience, unedited and unscripted, Riddick is excited.
"I don't see a privacy issue, because in order to be a private person you have to be concerned about what people see about your life," said Riddick. "I am proud of my life. Whether people enjoy watching it or not, I'll still enjoy my life."
