As Lending Club seals the deal on $10.6 million in venture capital, the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based startup will be awarding $8,000 in prize money in its Facebook application video contest. Soliciting entrants through Facebook and YouTube, the Lending Club was looking for video ads for its Facebook application. The contest garnered eighteen contestants and four winners.

Using contests to solicit user-generated advertising is a popular but far from perfect model for companies to promote their products, engage users, and collect free advertising. Who is it that is entering these competitions? What follows is an examination of the entrants in Lending Club’s contest, and the results are not what you’d expect. There’s a Vixen bassist, Battle at Kruger copyright, and Pedro. And you thought a story about personal finance would be boring.

At the conclusion of the contest Lending Company conferred with the top entrants and agreed that instead of one $5,000 grand prize that the top four winners would split a larger sum. The break down is as follows:

$3,000 Best Video Award - Chris Barrett $3,000 YouTube Viewers Award - Steve Dinelli $1,500 Storyboard Award - Jonthan Reed $500 Jury Prize - Share Ross

The contest hit an early snag when two of the top entries were pulled from YouTube. A Battle at Kruger remake was pulled with copyright claim by photographer Negative Space Buzz and a Pink Floyd-tuned skateboarding video was pulled with copyright claim by Homegrown Skateboards. Still live is a contest entry that borrows the soundtrack from Randi Zuckerberg’s iPhone homage, including Revision3’s David Pragger rapping.

The contest’s top winner, Chris Barrett, a documentary filmmaker who got his start as a “spokesguy” by way of being a credit-company sponsored college student. Having been an interview subject in the films The Corporation and Maxed Out, Barrett decided filmmkaing was his calling and, teaming up with Efren “Pedro” Ramirez, formed “Powerhouse Pictures Entertainment.” This isn’t the first time Efren Ramirez has been involved in strange YouTube video contest shenanigans. Back in June Ramirez was supposedly a celebrity guest judge in Malibu Rum’s much-botched banana rum video contest.

Moving down the contest ladder there is runner-up Share Ross, “former bassist for the platinum-selling EMI recording artists Vixen and guitarist and singer for Bubble.” You might remember “the female Bon Jovi’s” hit “Edge of a Broken Heart.” Then again, you might not. Continuing down we find an odd old couple who used Lending Club to finance a vacation to Kiev, Ukraine. Chronicling their trip on YouTube, they videoed many brides and some sweet break dancing.

My personal favorite is the video exploration of Lending Club through the social network of Facebook (embedded above). Borrowing and lending money online seems so much easier when you can see your debtors favorite movies, which is convenient if you repossess his DVDs.