YES, THOSE WORDS are spelled right. "Vlog"—the newest derivation of "blog"—means a video web log. Vlogcasting, blogcasting and Podcasting are all variations on a theme of making your content available via the Internet, often in a format that can be downloaded and carted off via media players and the like. Be sure you know that your creative juices can be bottled up and spirited away when you pour out your vision online. Baring your soul to millions of strangers on the Internet is often the uncontemplated consequence of this budding new method of self-expression. Remember that as you launch yourself out into the blogosphere (a term meaning all weblogs out there in cyberspace). As you use the format to create your own content, from movie "shorts" to video diaries, photo albums, and just about any other creative (or not so creative) visual expression, remember it can use you, too.

Video communication across networks has come a long way since 1966, when analog videoconferencing was born. Wayne's World-type programming has come a long way, too, since basement cable access shows…or has it? I can't help but tweak and paraphrase David Frost, and say that, too often, the Internet is an invention that permits you to be entertained in your home by people you wouldn't allow into your home…

Are we facing an onslaught of terrible virtual trash ready to clog up the e-ways like the Los Angeles freeways? Perhaps. Or are we, instead, witnessing a paradigm shift in filmmaker freedom? Could this be where the "little guy" truly, finally, has the chance to write, produce, direct, edit and broadcast his or her or their project in an affordable way with the potential to reach an audience of millions?

Unfortunately, just like the morass that is the Internet in general, the blogosphere and vlogosphere have no easily traveled roadmaps. There is a cosmos of content, growing exponentially every day, but the cyberslop is inexorably woven into the trillion-helix that is the DNA of this new creature. There are attempts at vlog directories, and you can Google your way to a few, but each has its own agenda, its own sponsorship, so beware.

What does this mean to aspiring auteurs? It has the potential to mean a media revolution. It has the possibility, the ripe promise, of building a global creative community without boundaries, sharing knowledge, advice, mentoring and guidance. Why, there's even a conference called "Vloggercon" which took place in San Francisco in June of this year (2006). Check out www.vloggercon.com if you don't believe me. You'll find that there are myriad groups of people and businesses that have hopped aboard this new technology express, including services that let you record, upload and broadcast your video. You're not in Kansas anymore, Dorothy. More importantly, you're not alone in this wide-eyed universe.

So, do you have a trailer of a project you're showing around to get completion funding? Have you written a script you can shoot on the lowest of low budgets? Do you have ideas for TV programs or skits or reality shows or talent showcases? Do you simply think you're brilliant and should share your wisdom and wit with the world at large? If so, a Vlog may be just what you need.

A word of caution: Protection. Protect your ideas. Before you go charging out into cyberspace to show everybody who'll look, exactly what you've got, copyright it. WGA-register it. If necessary, trademark your image or brand name or spokescharacter or other unique creation. Patent that great invention before someone else does.

REMEMBER: Once it's "out there" it's up for grabs, and someone with more resources than you could take your seedling and plant it in their own well-fertilized field. And what do you get? Bupkus, buddy, Bupkus. Of course, if all you're pumping out into the podcasting pipeline is self-indulgent tripe, you needn't worry. To quote Robert Wilensky, "We've heard that a million monkeys at a million keyboards could produce the complete works of Shakespeare; now, thanks to the Internet, we know that is not true."  

Jeanne D. Corcoran
Production Manager
Press / Publicity, PR
Nevada Film Office
555 E. Washington Ave., Ste. 5400
Las Vegas, NV 89101
Toll-Free: (877) NEV-FILM (877-638-3456)
Website: www.nevadafilm.com
E-Mail: jdcorcor@bizopp.state.nv.us
Direct line: (702) 486-2713