All entries must be less than three minutes in length. Why? Partly due to our attention span, partly due to technical reasons.

First prize is a AUD$10,000 (that's Australian dollars) journey comprising one Round-The-World economy flight, an STA travel voucher and the choice of either:

• Hanging out in Melbourne, Australia with the folks from Lonely Planet Television (Lonely Planet's television production company) for a duration of up to four weeks. This includes accommodation, a daily allowance and some extra cash.
• The balance of the AUD$10,000 journey provided in cash and travel vouchers for the winner to take on their dream journey.

The choice is yours. If you want to learn more about producing travel video content, then a month with Lonely Planet Television is a pretty sweet deal. If some other part of the world is siren-calling, then take the money (and vouchers) and go your own way - we won't be offended.

Runner-up prizes include one Eurail pass for each region (Region 1: The Americas & Canada; Region 2: Asia/Pacific; Region 3: Europe, Middle East & Africa).

Thanks to our Travel Partners:

    

Five monthly winners will also bag a Lonely Planet prize pack comprising a Lonely Planet Shoestring guide of your choice, together with Series 1 DVDs of Lonely Planet Six Degrees.

For complete details and prize values checkout the Terms & Conditions.

Nope. This is up to you. Keep in mind that we're not necessarily looking for film students, great scriptwriters, or those who have travelled far and wide. Great moments in travel can happen in your back yard, could be shot on a mobile phone, and can include totally unscripted golden moments. Just think about your interpretation of a "great moment in travel". Planning, booking, on-the-road, returning, they all provide peaks.

OK, this is very important as there are a few legalities around this. You can't include any third party copyright material in your film without the written permission of the copyright owner. If you do, not only is it a copyright infringement, your film will be ineligible for our competition. Third party copyright material includes things like music, cinematographic film, television and artworks.

So if you were thinking of adding Madonna's "Holiday" as the backing track to your film, don't. Not only is it lame, it's illegal. Get out your Casio keyboard and go nuts instead. If however, you know the copyright holder of the song and they agree to you using it, then that's fine. In terms of music that's playing while you are filming, this is a little more complicated. If you are filming in a taxi and the radio is on, this is OK as it is incidental. But if you are filming a busker and they are performing "Holiday", again lame, you will need permission. Random banging that the busker is trying to pass off as music is OK.

Artworks can be outdoor stuff - think sculptures, murals, that sort of thing. You can't spend 10 minutes filming a piece of public sculpture and turn it into a film without getting the permission of the artist. However, if you're filming your mate doing stupid stuff in the town square and the sculpture is behind him but not the focus of the work, that's incidental to your film, so that's ok.

You also can't use footage of places where you know you're not supposed to film, like inside an art gallery or at a sporting event. If you shot some footage somewhere, even though you saw the big signs saying "no cameras", or your entry ticket said you can't take footage, you can't submit it and it's not eligible to win a prize.

You can't use footage of people who haven't given you permission to use their image. If you're interviewing someone, make sure you tell them what you're planning on using the footage for, and make sure they agree to that (in writing!). If your footage features a child, you'll need to get permission from the child's parent or legal guardian. Again, people who may appear incidentally in your film (such as in the background) are OK.

If we ask you to, you must provide documentation proving you have model releases and/or the permission of the copyright holder - so make sure you do the right thing, otherwise you won't be eligible to win any fabulous prizes!

A model release is a document outlining that the people who feature in your video are happy to be there and have given you approval to use their image. It's not necessarily required for people who incidentally appear in the video (ie walk past in the background). If your entry has other people in it you may be requested to provide one of these.

It could be that you need to download the Flash 9 plug-in. Or it could be your internet browser. We recommend that you view and complete the entry form using Internet Explorer, while we perfect it for use in other browsers. Alternatively you could send us your entry by post.

Your entry will only be accepted in the following formats: .Mov, .avi, .asf, .mpg, .mpeg, .mpe, .wmv and .flv. They must be less than 20mb.

If you wish to post your movies, we accept old school (ie: video cassette) or DVD/CD of the formats above.

Nope.

All videos placed on the site will be converted to Flash Video (.flv) and be resized to 320x240 pixels and a file size no larger than 8mb (at three minutes long). If you make your video to these dimensions and apply the compression yourself, you can be more certain of what the final product will look like.

There are plenty of programs out there that can convert files and most are pretty simple to use. Try ffmpegx (which is freeware/shareware and available for the Mac OS X) here: http://www.ffmpegx.com/.

If you're a PC user try Total Video Converter, available here: http://www.effectmatrix.com/total-video-converter/.

A quick search on the web also brings up several guides to video compression. Try these on for size: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_compression (Wikipedia's guide to video compression) or http://journalism.berkeley.edu/multimedia/tutorials (a Berkely College website with more great tips).

We will watch it, guaranteed. If we like it, we will add it to the site. All videos that go up on the site have to be converted and compressed. We can do that for you, but it's better if you do it yourself (that way you can be sure it all looks the way you made it, and we get more time to kick back and watch videos). If you're not quite sure what you're doing, check out our tips above.

Hmm, good question. We love getting content from travellers so we may feature it on the site after the competition. Of course, you'll still retain the rights to do with it as you want. Read the full Terms & Conditions to get the legal speak.

Winners will be judged by panel of three people including the head of Lonely Planet Television and an independent judge. They'll choose the video they like the best. Keep in mind it's not necessarily about your video-making skills. A great idea is a great idea and not everyone has access to fancy gear and a crack team of stuntmen. Entries close at 5.00pm AEST on 15 January 2007. Read the full Terms & Conditions more further details on the competition draw.

The only details that appear on the site will be your username and the description of the video (which we may choose to edit). If you are the winner, we will also post your name. You can check out Lonely Planet's full privacy details here.

Again, we're not looking for the next Tarantino: however, there are some basic tips and tricks that are well worth considering. We like these two sites: http://journalism.berkeley.edu/multimedia/tutorials (shooting tips from the folks at Berkley. Check out the rest of this site for other great hints on digital video making) and http://www.exposure.co.uk/eejit/tips/index.html (the complete eejit's guide to film making).

Alternatively, you could invest 10 minutes trawling the web - that's what we did to find these sites.

Yes. We need your username and password to enter. It only takes a few seconds to register and you can do it while submitting your entry. Once registered your username and password act as a kind of 'Access All Areas' pass - you can get hands-on in other areas of the site. If you've ever wanted to chat on the Thorn Thorn Tree forum, make a Bluelist, or post an Accommodation review, now's your chance.

Sure. Email lessthanthree@lonelyplanet.com.au and we'll get back to you. But please don't email your entry to this address.