Since people love my stories about mtv contest videos, I thought, why not take a look at this
one.In 1986 MTV would give two lucky contest winners the ability to direct the music video
for one of Madonna’s new singles off her third album. This one was really interesting because
it helped launch the career of one of the winner’s who had a pretty good career in
show business and would end working for geffen records and the likes of director ridley scott,.
In 1985 Madonna would marry actor Sean Penn and the following year she would put out her
third album True Blue, which was penned (no pun intended) as a tribute to her husband.
Even though the album was a more stylistic shift for the popstar, it was a massive success going 7
x platinum in america and producing five singles all of which went number one in america or the
uk including —"Live to Tell", "Papa Don't Preach", "True Blue", "Open Your Heart",. The album’s third
single the title track. would see the popstar team up with mtv for a contest called make my video.
Here’s the ad mtv ran. madonna's busy right now so she wants you to make the video for her new song
true blue. Go ahead. c'mon make my video.Madonna's make my video contest.
Anyone can enter. All you need is a camera and a vision. I'm thinking true blue, blue pacific
sailors. Yes beautiful and beautiful and cut. If you make the winning true blue video
madonna will personally hand you a director's fee of $25,000 cash and MTV will debut world
premiere your video from coast to coast. Plus check out these perks levis 501 blues wardrobe.
Casio musical equipment and enough twix candy bars to pay off the entire cast.
So grab any movie or video camera and go high budget, low budget or
no budget. Shoot your vision and sync it to madonna's true blue and sent it to Madonna's. For
everyone whose watched a video and said I can do better. I can do better. C'mon i dare you, c'mon.
Referred to as blue thursday, on Oct. 30, 1986,
the network spent the day running the top contest entries.
The winners would be two men Angel Garcia and Cliff Guest who admitted that they spent less
than $1,000 on their video. The video tells the story of teenagers in love.
Garcia was only 21 at the time of winning the contest and he would work alongside another
filmmaker named Cliff Guest. Who he met while working on a low budget horror film.
Residing in Miami Garcia and Guest were able to shoot their video with the help
of Coral Gables High which let them film on campus and offered up their drama department.
Even Garcia’s sister who attended the school appeared in the video along with some of her
friends. It would be close friends of the filmmakers who let them borrow equipment
and a friend who convinced his Dad to donate a 1957 thunderbird convertible to the shoot.
While Garcia was a massive mtv fan he was more into rock like Genesis
and Queen than artists like Madonna, but his filmmaking partner was a massive madonna fan.
Garcia would admit that he went to pretty far lengths to submit the video.
He would tell publication! “I sent it in, but the day before the deadline, the tape was returned to
me with no explanation,” he reveals. “So I threw a fit and asked my dad to please fly me to New
York overnight, so I could hand-deliver this thing.” After landing in New York at 6 in the
morning and looking up MTV’s Times Square address in the phone book (“There was no Internet then”),
“I walked downtown, freezing my ass throughout, drinking coffee, just to warm up and keep walking.
By the time I made it to MTV, I had an overdose of caffeine;
I was hyperventilating and sweating cold when I went up to the counter,”
“I go to the secretary and with far more broken English than I have now, I tell her,
‘I came all the way from Miami to deliver this video, because it was sent back to me with no
explanation. I worked very hard on this, so it has to be in the competition!’ I still remember
her horrified look. So she picks up the phone and calls somebody, and then two somebodys come
out looking scared. So she must have said, ‘This guy is just dying for you to grab this tape.’ So
I give them the same speech, and they said, ‘Sure, we’ll take a look at it.’ And they took the tape.”
Garcia would admit to yahoo that upon leaving the channel’s headquarters
he spotted a fedex truck that was full of rejected submission tapes.
He would learn that once the network received 3000 tapes they opted not to accept anymore
because it was too many tapes to watch.Here’s the clip of Madonna with the winners on mtv
Present them with their check. Hi, So I'm sitting here with Angel Garcia and Cliff Guest and they
are the winners of the true blue contest and as you know the winner receives $25,000 so here i
have $25,000, but there's two of you so should i rip it in half. You can try. Yeah. Well yeah Ican
do it later because i don't want to bum these guys out in front of everybody. S i just want to ask
you a question. How much did that video cost? Good question and a tough one. , that's a tough one.
Be for real. Be for real. Under a $1,000. Really Yeah. So do you think you can make my next video
for under a $1,000? We could try because if you can, we have somet things to talk about. Alright.
There are several contest entries that didn’t win i found on youtube.
Garcia would tell Yahoo he credited the video with helping him launch his film and television career.
So did Garcia ever meet Madonna again. Well he did he would tell Yahoo I did meet her coincidentally
at a party years later, admitting and i quote whenever Michael Moore was nominated for the
Oscars for Bowling for Columbine,” “She shows up and she’s with Guy Ritchie and I was like,
‘Oh, s—. I have to talk to her. I can’t just not say anything.’
So I just walked up to her and I go, ‘Hi, I’m the kid from that 1986 music video.
I just wanted to thank you, because you started my career.’ I remember
her shock — she was looking at me, rewinding her brain, just trying to remember the whole thing.
“She said, ‘Oh, great.’ We didn’t talk much. I’ve exchanged words with Madonna twice in my life, and
it’s always been a short sentence. I felt a bit stupid, like a fan trying to get a picture with
her. But I had to get that in there: ‘Somehow, let me thank you. I owe you my career in some way.’”
Garcia had so much success with the video that
he would end up getting a one year deal with Geffen Records
who were impressed with his work and offered to let him director a few of their lesser known acts
Garcia would go on to work with Sony BMG in Europe and do work for some huge brands includinge
Coca-Cola, Mercedes, Honda, Toyota, Ford, and he has worked with celebrities such as Shaquille
O’Neal as actors including Penélope Cruz, Val Kilmer, Terry Crews, Sofia Vergara to name a few.
For Madonna her marriage to penn would be short lived and only last four years.
The dissolution of her marriage resulted in her not playing the song in concert for
quite some tiem. She would look back at the song and what it meant to her in 1998
telling them it reminded her of and i quote“Romance.”