With thousands of hours of content and over 50 channels to explore, the big question facing new visitors to the platform is just where to begin your journey. As always at Babelgum, we offer you plenty of choice.
Searching by Keywords
Type ‘football’ in the Search Clips bar in the centre of the page, and all our programmes related to football will pop up in the search results. Type ‘horses’ and all our equestrian content will appear. If you know the title of the show you’re looking for – for example, ‘End Tiger Trade’ – just type it in the bar and it will top the list of results.
Recommended Channels
We regularly highlight a small selection of the many channels we have on offer. Scroll over the thumbnails on the bottom left of the screen to see short descriptions of each of them. If you want to check a channel out, just click on the logo.
You can look through the programmes and click on the ones that interest you, or you can just click Play (on the channel icon), then sit back and watch a stream of programming we’ve already prepared for you.
Most Popular
If you’re looking for inspiration, our most popular programmes of the moment appear in the bottom right of the screen. Click on the tab marked Tags to see the most popular keywords linked to our content. Click on any that interest you to see all the related programmes.
Communities
Our three biggest Communities are shown in the top left corner. Hover over the pictures to see a short description of each. Enter the communities to see what programmes people have been posting, or join in the discussion on the messageboard.
Babelgum Bubble
The final option is to click on the Babelgum bubble in the centre of the entrance page, which you take you straight into the application. We’ll be posting plenty more tips here on the blog, so let us know what you think. In the meanwhile, enjoy exploring!
The Babelgum Online Film Festival Awards Ceremony will be held at a gala dinner in Cannes on May 20th 2008, where Spike Lee himself will be presenting the prizes.
You could be there too because there is a very special competition prize for the audience: fly to Cannes with Spike. The user who writes the best review for the winning film in each category will win a trip to Cannes to attend the awards ceremony with Spike Lee.
How to vote?
To view the films in the festival you’ll need to download and install the Babelgum client. Just click here.
To get the chance to fly to Cannes with Spike, write a short review telling us why you voted for the film. You can write your review by either using the “Comment” tool, or writing it on the message board, remembering to specify the title of the film you’re reviewing.
You can also invite friends to support your favourite candidate by sending them the link, embedding the clip in your blog or adding it to your Facebook profile.
As you all know, Babelgum Online Film Festival is now open for public voting.
You, together with the jurors, will decide on the best professionally-produced films in the competition.
You can vote for the nominees by awarding the entries from 1 to 5 stars using the “Rate” tool.
To open the tool, simply click on the star symbol on the right-hand menu while the clip is playing.
Click on the paperclip if you want to keep the Rate tool on top.
The other jurors are experts from across the globe, including the directors of established film festivals, film schools and film industry associations:
Joe Bateman, Festival Director of the Rushes Soho Shorts Festival (U.K.)
Ally Derks, Director of the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (The Netherlands)
Bhuvan Lall, Founder of the Indian Independent Filmmakers Worldwide Association (India)
Tiziana Loschi, Managing Director of the Annecy International Animated Film Festival and Citia (City of Moving Images) (France)
Joe Neulight, Co-Founder and President of Withoutabox (U.S.)
Sandra Ruch, Executive Director of the International Documentary Association (U.S.)
Teri Schwartz, Dean of the Loyola Marymount University School of Film and Television (U.S.)
James Mullighan, Creative Director of Shooting People (U.K.)
Carl Spence, Artistic Director of the Seattle International Film Festival and Director of Programming of the Palm Springs International Film Festival (U.S.)
Stefano Martina, Director of Arcipelago, International Festival of Short Films and New Images (Italy)
Johannes Newrkla, Founding member of the Art Directors Club of Europe (Austria)
The winners in seven categories will be announced on 20th May at a gala awards ceremony in Cannes, during the Cannes Film Festival.
We’ve a spring in our step here at Babelgum. The trees are in bud, Easter’s round the corner – and a long holiday weekend lies ahead. To celebrate, we’ve put together a special Easter playlist for you to enjoy.
1.In 1950s America, the Easter Parade was a chance to show off your spring finery. Watch newsreel footage of society ladies literally eating their hats in Edible Fashions and check out the outrageous bonnets on display in New York’s 1952 Easter Parade.
2.The egg hunt begins on our animation channel, where peculiar egg-based nasties are causing havoc in classic British kids’ show The Trap Door and Christopher Walken makes an appearance as a deranged Easter Bunny. Meanwhile, two hapless rabbits are trapped in a Russian prison in Usavich, an animated series originally made for MTV Japan.
3.Age-old themes of birth and resurrection are explored in the Babelgum Online Film Festival, including the French short Push/Pull and German entry The Baby.We have over 1000 festival films for you to explore – enough to keep anyone busy over the Easter weekend!
4.Aniland Birth and the Young and Wildseries look at birth and the rearing of young in the animal kingdom. Meanwhile, in the plant world, there’s a video from Green TV explaining how climate change has meant spring has come early to England’s Kew Gardens.
The Babelgum Online Film Festival received more than 1000 professionally produced short films so now you can watch, comment and vote for 1,012 entries submitted from 86 countries.
In particular, the Babelgum Online Film Festival has proved particularly popular in the United States, which has seen the highest number of entrants (31.2%), followed by the UK (21.5%), Italy (9.6%), Canada (4.6%), Spain (3.1%), Germany (3.0%), Australia (3.0%) and France (2.8%).
Spike Lee confirms that you should be impressed with what you find:
“The standard of the entries we’ve received thus far has been outstanding. [...] This represents a new era in film-making and puts the filmmaker in more control of getting their productions seen”
> Watch the feature-length (1hr) interview that Spike Lee gave to Lisa Nova.
We’ve developed an application for facebook. You can publish a widget on your facebook profile to show your FB friends a clip you liked. Here’s how it will appear on your facebook profile
Visit Babelgum Website to download the client and use the right menu when inside Babelgum to find the facebook widget.
The new Babelgum open beta release is now available for download.
It’s packed with new features:
A Mac version, at last.
User-friendly interface.
Social navigation tools.
Lots of new content.
A community system that allows you to set up your own communities.
And as you’ll have noticed, our new website has gone live too, with a whole new look and lots of information about what you’ll find on the new version of Babelgum.
Meanwhile, voting for the Babelgum Online Film Festival begins today. Go to the new Films & Festivals Community to view the entries and rate your favourites.
Remember, your vote matters because it will go towards compiling the shortlists, which Spike Lee will review before selecting the overall winners.
