Top 10 of our Favorite Things: Curated Online Video Portals
With a quarter of a million videos being uploaded each and every day to Youtube alone, the realm of online video has become a dense jungle of low-end strippers, drowsy kittens, and instructional videos on everything from kissing with passion (3.5 million views) to recreating the Mona Lisa in MS Paint (9 million views).
Thankfully, several carefully curated video portals are floating up from this bottomless sea of bilge, presenting the most inspiring, original and kitten-free web videos – and encouraging viewers to create their own. We in turn have sifted through this ever-increasing pool of portals to bring you 10 of the best:
1. SpecialTen.tv
Update: SpecialTen.tv isno more…
Close relative of the London-based über-edgy bi-monthly DVD magazine of the same name, SpecialTen.tv broadcasts a highly selective but still bountiful stream of music videos, short films and documentaries.
2. Vbs.tv
Like Vice magazine, VBS.tv (now Vice Video) is an acquired taste but much of the content is undeniably fascinating, not least because the guys creating it are fearless nutters who dare to go where few (camera) men have dared to go before – Bolivia’s “Road of Death” and North Korea to name but two.
3. Tank.tv
This goodlooking online gallery of almost painfully cutting edge film and video art, was founded by Tank magazine in 2003, as a source of all-round online inspiration and a platform for promoting emerging and established international artists in moving image.
4. Animate.tv
As we mentioned in an earlier post, Animate Projects commissions pieces that merge the boundaries of contemporary art and animation, and then does their best to distribute them online, in galleries, cinemas and anywhere else that will have them. A remarkable array of techniques, considering all the videos on this portal fall within the “Animation“ genre.
5. Fourdocs
As well as generating lots of their own content, Fourdocs hunt the farthest reaches of the World Wide Web in search of short documentaries that match their high criteria, the very best of which end up being broadcast on TV via the hallowed tubes of the UK´s Channel 4.
6. Portable Film Festival
A cross-genre curated selection of established and emerging short filmmakers, the Portable Film Festival is updated daily and provides instant inspiration on your screen, your phone and any other portable device you care to mention. Worth several re-visits.
7. Pitchfork.tv
So impressed were we with the launch of Pitchfork.tv that they made it onto our coveted Friends page. Whereas the formerly boundary-breaking MTV leaves us feeling mostly hollow these days, Pitchfork.tv is dedicated to documenting independent music from the frontline, with constantly updated exclusive footage, interviews and off-the-beaten-track live recordings.
8. Raindance.tv
The online extension of this well-known film festival for rejects, outsiders and independents, Raindance.tv is brimming with quality indie shorts and feature films from the fringes of every genre, and in keeping with tradition, presents the very antithesis of the Sundance channel.
9. The Smalls
Another portal that will appeal to the film director within, The Smalls tagline `Could Your Small Film Be Your Big Break`, sounds suspiciously like it might be filled with disastrous, sellotape-heavy attempts at professional filmmaking. Wrong! Again, across the board shorts of a surprisingly high standard plus related articles, interviews and competitions.
10. Submarine Channel
The proof is in the pudding.
