Online Film and Television

The Society for Cinema and Media Studies has provided a list of pointers for finding and making clips to embed and have your students annotate in your online and blended courses.

Here are a few sites where you can get clips for your courses:

Critical Commons has tons of clips on all sorts of topics.

Kinolab is an interesting platform to help with clip analysis

Lumière is the Berkeley Language Center’s online library of film clips to use in language instruction

Here are a few places where you or your students can annotate clips

Virtual Cinematography another platform for clip annotation and analysis

ClipNotes Stephen Mamber’s app for arranging and storing clips and notes.

**It is always better to download clips and videos if you can, as powerpoint and zoom sometimes do unexpected things with online embedded clips. When in doubt, test it!

How to download from Youtube:

  • Copy a stable youtube link (or from most anywhere else)
    It should look something like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGh64E_XiVM
  • Go to https://y2mate.guru/ (it is quite spammy so don’t press anything!)
  • Paste in your link where it says and press start
  • Wait a few seconds for the screen to change. If the clip is longer, this may take a bit longer.
  • Click download next to whatever the largest .mp4 file is (will probably be 480.mp4 or 1080.mp4 It will begin downloading. Depending on the file size, this may take a few minutes
  • It should now be ready to embed into a powerpoint or screen via quicktime or VLC and should be viewable via Zoom, Meet, etc.

To assist faculty and instructors designing courses and to support students doing research and writing on film and television, we have compiled the following resources with pathways to film and television content online. When planning courses, be aware that the online landscape is changing daily, so not all resources will be available at all times. And note that not all of these sources are free and some are limited to personal, not public, viewing. These links are intended as productive starting points. To inquire about acquiring material for instructional purposes for a full summer session or semester, please contact Deb Blecic, UIC Libraries Collections Coordinator at dblecic@uic.edu.

Streaming media resources updated regularly

Crowdsourced spreadsheet of streaming media content, courtesy of colleagues at Brown University.

Kanopy

Kanopy is the streaming service all faculty and students have access to through the UIC Library, as well as through many public libraries. To request a title from the Kanopy platform for classroom instruction, please use the request form that comes up in Kanopy or send a note to lib-electronic@uic.edu.

MOMA list of streaming content

The Museum of Modern Art has released a comprehensive streaming list for a vast range of content, including a lot of silent, experimental, art and documentary titles.

Cine-File

A number of archives and independent distributors are streaming on a limited or extended basis with rotating content. Local programmer Patrick Friel and his group at cinefile.info send out weekly emails and maintain this blog with timely recommendations.

Telescope

Telescope is an online resource with pathways to international films

Elle Magazine list of free streaming movies

Elle Magazine published this overview of free (often on a limited basis) movies streaming online as of April 2020, including many popular titles.

Consumer Reports Guide to Free Streaming Video

Consumer Reports published this guide to fourteen ways to stream shows for free. Thousands of movies, TV shows and other programming via no-cost services. Caveat: you’ll probably have to sit through ads.

Please send additional tips and resources to sahall@uic.edu.

 

updated 7.27.20