Just days to go before it’s time to upload. Are you ready?

Here’s a brief final checklist before lift-off:

SECTION DESCRIPTION: You’re going to need a very short description of you section. Very. Short. Try to say something interesting. Expose a secret. Confess a crime. Commit a crime. Just don’t be boring.

COVER ART: If this were a DVD on the shelf of your local surf shop, what would it look like? Design your cover art jpg like that. Include the surfer’s name. Some cool art. Use this to enhance your theme and make your section more memorable. Need some last second artistic ideas? Check out this site. Endless interesting shit. Just don’t wander off the deep end.

NO RULES BROKEN: You didn’t tow, did you? Cause if you did, we’ll know. Seriously, even at Jaws, that shit doesn’t fly on Innersection. What else? No footage that’s been seen elsewhere. Nothing offensive — you know, for kids. Ummm, yeah, I think that’s it. I’ve never been good at ‘membering no rules so good myself no-how.

NO WEAK LINKS: You’re only as good as your worst wave. Ha ha, no that’s not really true. It’s just a bad intro to suggesting you go back through each and every clip one last time and ask yourself if it’s clip making your section stronger or weaker. You don’t need to fill the whole three minutes. You doneed to impress people.

PROMO PLAN: You need to let people know about your section. This isn’t a popularity contest, but at the same time, if people who like and support your surfing/filmmaking don’t know anything about the contest, they won’t be able to vote for you. So send out an email to your entire address book, use your sponsor’s resources, hit up your “popular” friends’ Facebooks accounts, twitter, skywrite, buy AM radio ads, even the power of positive thinking could help (but not much). Whatever it takes to get the word out, do it.

But hold on a second: don’t jump the gun here. Next week you’ll be uploading your section, but theactual voting begins on March 7. If you send people too early, you might lose their interest. So jot down some notes about how you’re going to promote your section…but don’t pull the trigger until just the right moment.

Statergy, baby. Get some. —NM