Danny Devito’s Short Film ‘Curmudgeons’ Launches Vimeo’s Staff Pick Premieres
The heart and soul of the Vimeo platform is its popular Staff Pick channel, for which a four person in-house curation team highlights the best short-form content on Vimeo. The Staff Pick laurel has become such a trusted brand it can often bring a festival-quality short — often one that has played at a major festival — from 50,000 to 200,000 views in a matter of days; it has even played a key role in launching the careers of indie filmmakers like The Daniels (“Swiss Army Man”).
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Having earlier this year celebrated its 10,000th Staff Pick, the company today announced that it is adding new layers of curation on top of the existing Staff Pick channel, including Best of the Week, Best of the Month and Premieres. Here’s a look at what those terms mean.
Best of the Month: Each month, an hour’s worth of films and videos across a variety of genres are selected from that month’s pool of Staff Picks to receive the “Best of the Month” laurel. There will be roughly 120 films selected per year, creating 12 hours of online programming not to be missed.
Best of the Year: At the end of each calendar year, Vimeo curation will appoint “Best of the Year” winners from its monthly Best-of pool in each of its core categories. In addition to receiving the ultimate Staff Pick laurel, filmmakers will receive dedicated marketing and promotional support for their winning film.
Staff Pick Premieres: A weekly global online film premiere of a pre-selected Staff Pick. Vimeo will support the film through both on and off-site promotion, including editorial coverage and marketing support. Staff Pick Premieres are selected by Vimeo’s in-house curation team, but will also have an open submission process for any film that has played in competition at an Oscar-qualifying event within the last 24 months.
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The first Staff Pick Premiere is “Curmudgeons,” which was directed and produced by Danny DeVito and premiered to rave reviews at the last year’s Tribeca Film Festival.
Upcoming Premieres will be “These C*cksucking Tears”(SXSW 2016), “Partners,” “Night of the Slasher” (SXSW 2016), and “Burnout” (Sheffield Doc/Fest 2016).
“These amazing films were already floating around on Staff Picks and what we are trying to do is bring even more attention to them,” said Head Curator for Vimeo’s Staff Picks Sam Morrill in a recent interview with IndieWire. “The way we are going to start to do that is building editorial around these films, reviews and interviews, and we’re also going to provide much more marketing support and social media presence around these films. They will be much more visible than your average Staff Pick.”
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The new curation system announced today is also part of an ongoing project, being spearheaded by Vimeo General Manager Peter Gerard, to revamp and improve the way viewers — now measuring over 170 million monthly visitors — consume content on Vimeo. The company is currently redesigning its apps for smartphones and smartTVs, and building upon Staff Pick’s curation, the end goal is to create a user experience that will make it easier to access, find and enjoy the best content on Vimeo.
In a recent interview with IndieWire, Gerard said that by elevating the Staff Picked filmmakers with the new laurels, “the goal is to build a must watch channel that could build upon Staff Pick’s already tremendous reach.”
Filmmakers interested in having their work considered for a Staff Pick premiere can email premieres@vimeo.com for more information.
