Loathe as I am to admit it, I'm spending a lot more of my time on Youtube these days. There are several channels and creators who are reliably producing good work, and I wanted to share a couple of my favorites today. These are specifically channels geared toward media fans, and I've purposefully left out reviewers and essayists in favor of information and interview-based programming. Find my picks unranked below.
Charts With Dan - I love a good box office analysis show, and since my last podcast alternative went kaput, I've started checking in with Dan Murrell whenever he pops up on my feed. Monday mornings have always meant checking on box office numbers since I was a kid, and it's nice to have someone who just focuses on the numbers and the stats without too many digressions. Murrell does his homework, offering historical comparison, overseas numbers, projections, and more. He also does the typical review and ranking videos, but is good about keeping those separate, and not crossing the streams.
Criterion Collection Closet Picks and Konbini Video Club - I love listening to people who make movies talk about other people's movies. And the most reliable way to do that is to put them in front of a lot of DVDs and Blu-Rays that they can browse through. The Criterion folks put some of our most beloved filmmakers in a closet with all the Criterions, and film them making picks to be shared with the rest of the world. I've also recently stumbled upon the Konbini channel, which has a "Video Club" series showing filmmakers visiting JM Video, one of the last video stories operating in Paris. It's a French channel, but many of the visitors like David Cronenberg and Christopher Nolan are English speakers.
Corridor Crew - Corridor Digital is a VFX company that started out posting tutorials, breakdown, and "making of" videos of their projects. And then around four years ago, they put out a reaction video to the original "Sonic the Hedgehog" movie trailer, and their popularity exploded. What sets "Corridor Crew" apart from most reaction shows is that the three hosts are VFX professionals who break down and discuss the technology and techniques being used, helping to shine a light on the vast amount of work it took to achieve some of the end results. It's fun to watch them talk through and figure out how certain effects were achieved, and lately they've been bringing on some pretty big name effects folks to show off their work. I especially enjoy whenever they look at older movies and practical effects.
Tested - Adam Savage is still going strong post-"Mythbusters." His channel features a lot of maker and hobbyist content, but it's always had a strong pop culture component. Over the last year he's visited a bunch of famous effects houses, tracked down old props and costumes from popular movies, and reacted to a bunch of new products and technologies. I've never been one for collectibles, but it's still fun to watch him goggle over the latest superhero figurines and prop replicas. And then there was the video where he showed what had become of Tik-Tok from "Return to Oz," which gave me a nostalgia rush like nothing else in ages.
Gold Derby - Finally, there are so many interviews out there that nobody seems to be aware exist, especially for below the line creative folks. The Gold Derby channel is a goldmine for these, talking to writers, cinematographers, costumers, sound editors, composers, production designers, hair and makeup, and more. Usually these are part of FYC campaigns, so the interviews are specifically about one project. If you really want to deep dive on the production of a particular series or film, however, this is the perfect place to start. The interviews themselves aren't very polished, and most of the recently posted ones were over Zoom, but everyone is clearly happy to be there.
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