A Lookback Into HITStory: The HITS Music Video Contest 2008

Hidden In The Sand has been serving the Tally Hall fan community since 2006! (We’re probably older than some of the fans reading this!!) And in our 18 year servitude, we’ve had a long and colourful history. So for this post I’d like to look back, and shed some light on a sweet moment in our ongoing journey: The HITS Music Video Contest 2008.

Since our founder Coz Baldwin’s passing in 2022, I’ve been doing my best to chronicle and archive his achievements with Hidden In The Sand, and in doing so, I found a piece of lost history. A video of Coz announcing a Music Video contest for Hidden In The Sand, on September 1st, 2008:

This piqued my interest, so I went on a deep dive to research the history of the contest. Who entered? Who won? Where are the winnings now? What happened next?!

Well, after the contest was announced at the beginning of September, entries were slow to come in. On September 20th Coz mentioned that he had only received 2 entries:

On October 1st a pleading Tally Hall fan wrote to Coz asking him to “PLEASE extend the deadline” and so it was that the deadline was extended to October 10th.
The final number of entries amounted to 4. One entry was by “BiggestTallyHallFan”, but the video has since been lost to time, unfortunately. But the others remain!

To start us off, we have “gogotrapmap” with their music video for Spring & A Storm:

I find this entry wonderfully charming! I’m not sure if either of these guys are playing the right notes at any point during the video but care and attention has been made to instrumentation, and it’s very clear that these guys are just having fun!! It’s dripping in the 00’s era aesthetic of YouTube, where if you have a camera, a will to create, and an internet connection then by gosh lets do it! In all it’s 4:3 glory, I think these guys capture the fun filled essence, humour, and creativity of Marvin’s-era Tally Hall. Bravo, lads, bravo.

Next up is Natty Snaps / “Number3Pencils” with their music video for ‘Banana Man’:

A fantastically creative approach, snapping their fingers along to the beats, lyrics, whatever sounds are happening. It’s impressive! I’m a good-to-decent finger-snapper, but Natty here is on another level. This rendition is actually reworked from January earlier that year, but this version is an improvement. It’s the hand flourishes are what do it for me. Amazing work; real fun.

And finally, Skye / “HomeStarRunnerTron” with their music video for their cover of ‘Hidden In The Sand’:

If you’re in the Tally Hall fandom and don’t know Skye, then I envy the glorious position you’re in, dear reader. Because Skye is so prolific within the fandom, and their content is an absolute treasure trove that is so fun and charming to consume. Starting with the above, this cover pays such care and attention to the emotive imagery conveyed by the original: imitating the analogue distortion of the audio, as well as imitating retro videos by utilising sepia tones, not to mention the seamless transition to colour partway through. Even going so far as recreating Zubin’s walk during the funeral scene in Good Day at the very end. The contest only needed to be a video incorporating Tally Hall’s music, but Skye put in the extra effort and made their own rendition.

Skye also made a what-might-as-well-be-official music video for “&”, as well as an absolutely transcendent rendition and music video for “Taken For A Ride”.

But back to the story of the 2008 contest: with the 4 videos entered, voting began on October 14th; Held on the HITS forums, the stakes were high:

And to heighten the drama, there was a case of voter fraud!!

Voting ended the night of the October 25th, and with 52% of the votes, Skye was announced the winner!

Coz sent Skye the prizes, and as Skye does, he made a video about receiving their winnings:

I contacted Skye about their entry, and we chatted about the history of the contest.
A lot of the history surrounding the contest can be viewed on the Hidden In The Sand forums. But Skye shared some fun facts from their side of it. The first being that Coz contacted Skye to ask them to enter, and that he still had the original email congratulating him for winning!

He also shared a little bit of behind the scenes content to show how the multi layer effect of having 5 of him in the video was done:

As mentioned in the email above, Skye was working on a lip-syncing video of ‘Ruler of Everything’ at the time, but unfortunately their hard drive crashed before they were able to finish it, so their ‘Hidden In The Sand’ cover video had to make-do.
He still has the broken hard drive in the hopes of eventual recovery, but alas, no luck yet

However, in sharing his ideas, he does have snippets of the lost ROE video, but not enough for a video of the full song. That project unfortunately remains lost to time…

But what is the fate of the winnings? Well, Skye mentioned that they never found a good place for any of his Tally Hall stuff, so most all of it was sent to Zoë / PlayfulPunch, who, alongside Skye, contributed to the We Think We’re Playing In A Band fan album.

And it is with great joy that I reveal that the Comedians of Comedy T shirt is still in Skye’s posession!!

Congratulations, Skye You earned it!

Thus concludes the tale of the Hidden In The Sand 2008 Music Video Contest. A wonderful slice of history that showcases the creativity and inginuity of the fans, as well as the care and generosity of Coz. The Tally Hall fan community still continues to come together to create impressive art pieces, and I am so glad to be here to not only see it, but showcase it.

Thanks to Skye, Coz, Natty Snapps, and gogotrapmap

If you are ‘BiggestTallyHallFan’, or know them / have a copy of the original video submitted for this contest.
Please email me at: webmaster@hiddeninthesand.com