Rootclip

Our goal and purpose of the site

Rootclip.com was created to give filmmakers, writers, actors and anybody who just likes to watch movies the ability to collaborate on a video project. Our goal is to be the catalyst that gets people thinking and being creative with video in such a way that it infects the masses and brings a new life to the art of filmmaking. Get creative and show us what you've got!

How it works

We create a short video clip or "Rootclip" to start the story. You watch our video, then shoot your own rendition of what should happen next in less than 2 minutes. Once you've created your video, upload it to Rootclip.com during the submission period and compete for votes against the videos from other users. Gain the highest percentage of user and judge votes during the voting period and your video becomes the next chapter in the story.

How it all began

The idea of Rootclip began in a hospital room of all places. Kevin and Erik had been spending many nights in the hospital. In passing the long hours through conversation, Kevin and Erik both remembered how they enjoyed choose-your-own adventure books when they were kids. That turned into an "it would be cool if (insert anything here)...was a website" type of conversation, which led to the initial idea that is now Rootclip. Originally, the guys thought that their site was going to be like the TV show '24', but using minutes instead of hours and doing everything in real-time. They quickly decided that would take a LONG time to finish a story and there could be times (like 3:42am) that aren't going to be very interesting for the viewer. Then they thought to do a very localized storyline that would incorporate landmarks as central pieces of the story, but thought that would really limit them to the city they live in for an audience. So after some advising and revising, the idea is what you see today.

Who is Team Rootclip?

Kevin Antoine - Co-founder

Born in the wonderful state of Michigan, Kevin graced God's green earth in 1979. He stayed in Michigan until 2006, and ever since he left, the state of Michigan has gone into its worst recession in years. While in Michigan, he attended Oakland University and graduated with a Marketing degree. Kevin plays bass guitar, and was in a Detroit based punk rock band from 1998-2006 called Home Team. The band's MySpace page is still active, and the page is still awesome.

He makes his acting debut in Good Luck. He is very active behind the scenes at Rootclip, and an Inventory Analyst for the Scripps Newspapers online division. He likes turtles, too.

Erik Luchauer - Co-founder

Barely born in 1979, Erik also grew up in the the Great Lakes State. When he was little, he had an orange sled named Ziffy Whomper. Erik and his brother later formed a band of the same name and wrote songs about Mountain Dew and embarrassing bodily noises. Rare 8-track recordings can still be found under the passenger seat of Erik's mini van. Yes...he actually drives a mini van!

Erik currently lives in Knoxville, TN with his wife and best friend, Sonya. On any given day, you might find Erik hitting up the local skate parks with camera in hand. Doubtful he'll get up the nerve to mount his board in front of all the kids, but he is honing his skills and can now do a shove-it. Suck it, Trebek! You can find out more about Erik on his blog or by following @luchauer on Twitter.

Nick Hollensbe - Producer, Director, Editor, Video Guru

Nick's video career began at the age of 9 when he wrote and directed a short film entitled "The Time I Turned my Sister into a Bog." Other early accomplishments include a high school video package on teen pregnancy, which was featured nationwide on "Channel One" news in 1998. Later that year Nick graduated from Oak Park High School in Kansas City, and enrolled in computer science classes at the University of Kansas. While Nick was busy attempting to calculate the square root of 2 in his engineering classes, he managed to produce many award-winning commercials, and show opens for the local online newspaper and television station.

After receiving his computer science degree in 2003, Nick was hired by a media production group in New York where he produced many 3d animations and motion graphics as well as was responsible for video shoots across the country. Nick joined Scripps in 2005 as a Senior Video Producer for the Naples Daily News in Florida, where he garnered several awards for commercial and editorial video projects. Most recently, Nick has moved to Tennessee, to join the Scripps corporate group as the Manager of Online Video, where he gets to be a part of cool stuff like Rootclip.com.