Looking for TIFF related videos? There's no shortage of them now that the annual film festival has begun. Both local and international media are obsessed with covering TIFF - many of them chasing the same photos, the same sound bytes and the same moving images. It's enough to drive a media pundit crazy. With so many worthy stories not being covered by both traditional and online outlets, why dedicate precious resources to publish the same stuff that can be widely read or viewed elsewhere?

The answer of course lies in the fact that (a) we live in a celebrity obsessed culture and (b) marketers are clamoring to have their brands associate with TIFF-related content. Just pick up the latest issue of NOW to see this in action where a thick, largely meaningless multi-page film festival insert has been included just so they can plug a certain European beer brand. But, hey, we'd sell out too if we could. Right?

But, alas, this post isn't supposed to be about all that. We're talking TIFF videos. Over the next 10 days there will be plenty uploaded to YouTube, Vimeo and other video sharing sites, but there are also a number of web sites and online production companies making an effort to stand out from the clutter. Here are a few of them.

The Substream

This is a local site that's going to be focusing on covering as many of the Midnight Madness screenings as they can possibly stomach. But they've also already posted a number of preview posts and tips on how-to-festival like the How To Rush a Film video below.

Red Carpet Diary

A company called Mediathink is creating a series of TIFF videos that it's syndicating on sites like the Hollywood Reporter and Toronto Life. Most of the videos are branded Red Carpet Diary and basically include interviews of stars on the red carpet.

Toronto Newspapers

There are also TIFF advertorials, er, videos on some mainstream newspaper sites like the Globe and Mail, Toronto Star and National Post (below). Of the three, the Globe's are definitely better production quality but the content is a bit underwhelming for something that claims to the status of Canada's national newspaper. But points go to the Star and the Post for actually letting other sites embed their videos.

The Associated Press

One of the world's largest content syndication services is creating good quality but ultimately bland host-less videos on the red carpet that it will no doubt be offering to all their mainstream news partner sites.

TIFF Media Gallery

TIFF is posting a combination of film clips and audio slideshows to the video section of its web site. So far they seem to be a very random selection and aren't all that interesting. There also doesn't seem to be a way for other sites to embed them.