Best Online Videos for 2008
We have posted some wonderful stuff this year, our annual best-of list gives us a chance to celebrate some of them. Dek has a great round up of his favorites. Also, our 2006, 2007 lists.
Shorts
Best Short: Glory at Sea - A 25 minute tour de force that uses a contemporary tragedy (Katrina disaster) to create a powerful myth that seems as old as the hills.
Special Mentions:
Best Stop Motion: Illuminant - To experience this on a big screen like I did at Carrboro Film Festival was incredible.
We posted quite a few innovative stop-motion video including Lucia & Adjustment
Best Short Doc: Bullet Proof Vest
Best Hidden Product Placement: The Ramp
Best Acting in Shorts: R.L. Jackson & Tori Lee in Remember When
Best Abstract film: Pencil Face
Also:
Special mentions for Animations:
Web
Best Web Video: Dr. Horrible - It is nice to see big name talent doing web content. It certainly lived up to the hype. Hopefully, this is a sign of good things to come.
Special mentions:
- The Guild
- Goodie Bag
- West Side (nothing since June)
- Rhett & Link
- Epic Fu
Music Video
Best Music video: Fleet Foxes: White Winter Hymnal - After a year full of shocking videos, especially in content, the one video that haunted me was Sean Pecknold’s animated classic. Simple in style, resonant story and a great fuckin’ song.
Sexiest Music Video of the year: Toe Jam
Special mentions Music videos:
- How much of a woman
- Damien Jurado - Caskets
- Bjork - Wanderlust
- MGMT - Time to Pretend
- The New Pornographers - Myriad Harbour
Commercials
Best Commercial: JC Penney: Aviator - Also the cutest video of the year. The direction is pitch perfect.
- Carrboro Film Festival (it is good to love one’s own work)
- Zürich Chamber Orchestra
Other awards
Best Interview of the Year: Katie Couric’s interview with Sarah Palin - Unintentionally hilarious that changed the course of the presidential elections.
Best Parody: SNL’s version of Katie Couric’s interview with Sarah Palin - Saturday Night Live came back with a bang. Even more wicked than the original.
Best Online Radio: This American Life: Super
Note: Some of these videos were not released in 2008, they are included here because this is when we discovered them.
Tobias Stretch - Transmutation
Dang, I don’t know how this got lost in my mailbox. Urrghh!
This is a rough sketch for a Aniboom Radiohead competition by Tobias Stretch whose earlier work is simply out of this world.
Tobias Stretch - Illuminant
One of the most visually striking films I have ever seen. Films are often described as dreamlike for a lack of words. Not the case with Illuminant which is certainly dreamlike. I don’t necessarily see my dreams in stop-motion but some of the imagery and feel of dreams would be impossible to recreate in another form.
Like dreams, some of the images from this film stick and others fade. Watching it again, I was once again surprised, reminded of why I loved it the first time. It begs to be seen over and over again. When the deer (?) drops the baby off, the camera movement following the deer and then back towards the wheelchair was beautiful. The snow, the face of the robot (?) and the glowing animal at the end are just tremendous. Everything screams originality here, the kind that comes from a deep creative force instead of a filmmaking sensibility.
