Like blogging, vlogging (video blogging) is a way to share your insights on a subject with an online audience. However, vlogging goes beyond the text of a blog post, transforming your content into an audio-visual broadcast. If you’re interested in vlogging, but don’t know how to start, here are some tips:

The first thing you’ll need is the right equipment, and the good news is you don’t need much, just a camcorder or a web camera and a good microphone. Also, for a vlog that has a more polished look, you’ll want to learn how to use video-editing software. This will enable you to add music, subtitles, etc. to your vlog. There are numerous online programs like Wax or Zwei-Stein Video Editor that you can download for free. Also, Apple iMovie and Windows Movie Maker are both easy to use and come pre-installed on Macs and PCs.

Once you’ve assembled your equipment, I recommend experimenting. Test the sound quality of your microphone; make sure there is sufficient lighting where you’re recording your vlog and figure out how you want to look on camera. Remember that vlogging is a form of communication, so you want to not only be visible (no low lighting), but also intelligible. Most vlog “episodes” should be one to three minutes, keeping the amount of bandwidth needed to host them to a minimum. Therefore it’s a good idea to rehearse your content. At the very least, I recommend preparing a script or some type of plan before each video so that you can deliver concise, focused content. Finally, don’t be afraid to have fun with your vlog. Depending on your audience, you’ll want to be more than just informative; you’ll also want to be candid and entertaining. Like blogging, it’s important to pick subjects you love and can explore in a series of posts. One episode doth not a vlog make.

After you shoot and edit your vlog, it’s time to post it online. Most vloggers post on video-sharing sites such as YouTube or Vimeo. However, WordPress is also a great place to privately host your vlog, and many WordPress themes have been created especially for vloggers who want to express their unique personality or professional expertise. Regardless of where you post, make sure to tag your videos and make them fully accessible to your audience. Title each entry and write useful, searchable descriptions that are more than just a five-word blurb. Finally, before publishing your vlog to the Web, test it one last time to make sure it’s working the way you want it to; your audience will thank you.

Remember that you’re vlogging in a community environment. This means it’s not only important to respond to constructive commentary on your own blog, but you should also seek out and interact with other vloggers. Once you start commenting on other videos, you’ll discover that this interaction can inspire new videos of your own or lead to collaborations between vloggers that generate positive publicity for both parties.

To further encourage your endeavors, here are three of my favorite vloggers (some language NSFW). Who are yours?

• Natalie Tran (aka communitychannel) is one of YouTube’s most popular vloggers, known primarily for her self-deprecating and observational humor.

• The Nostalgia Critic offers hilarious commentary on the entertainment of a not-so-distant past. For those who grew up during the 80s or 90s, prepare to have your childhood favorites skewered.

• Starving Designer is a vlog community on Vimeo. Styled as a “semi-reality” show about the creative process, this is storytelling that will amaze and inspire.

Megan Jeffrey is a graduate student in the MCDM program at the University of Washington. She has a bachelor’s degree in journalism and public relations from Cal Poly University, San Luis Obispo. She has worked as an account assistant for Verdin Marketing Ink, a community manager for Serra Media and as a HubPages.com columnist. Megan is currently the social media strategist for the UW School of Drama.

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• August 31, 2009 -- Visual Storytelling For Web: Tips And Techniques (1)
• February 24, 2009 -- The Search for the Elusive CC Music (Part 1/3) (2)
• January 23, 2009 -- The Death of Story? Not in My Class. (10)
• February 2, 2011 -- Will you tell your story with a Qwiki? (4)
• March 3, 2009 -- The Search for the Elusive CC Music (Part 3/3) (1)

The film industry is slowly but steadily being forced to part with quaint artifacts like the “hero’s journey…”

Of course in my Storytelling & Digital Media class, we meet Joseph Campbell and Aristotle head-on, cos’ you need to know the “rules” before you can break them.  Many of my students reached for the stars with our latest exercise: shoot a 2-minute film with a beginning, middle and end (Aristotle), doing only in-camera edits.

Here is just some of our work (all of our films are up on our class social networking site, www.mcdmspace.ning.com).

The idea of shooting a 2-minute film without editing it later may sound like a simple exercise, but these films required considerable planning.

Nicole spent a lot of time storyboarding this, and then shot it with the video function on the new Canon 5d SLR camera.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Then there’s Matt’s edgy, “This Encounter is a Lie:”

Click here to view the embedded video.

I loved the fact that Jay filmed this with her Macbook’s webcam (good thing Seattle wasn’t living up to its rainy reputation that day):

Click here to view the embedded video.

To complete the relationship angst trifecta, here’s Margery’s “Waiting for Him” (we penalized her a bit for using copyrighted music, but I see that YouTube now provides an on-screen link to buy the song from iTunes):

Click here to view the embedded video.

Annie blew my mind with this interactive “analog” survey:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Update: I had to add Yen-Ching’s French cinema-comes-to-UW-campus film:

Want to see more of our work? Find more videos like this on MCDM Media Space

Related Posts

• May 10, 2010 -- How to Create a Vlog (2)
• February 2, 2011 -- Will you tell your story with a Qwiki? (4)
• August 31, 2009 -- Visual Storytelling For Web: Tips And Techniques (1)
• September 3, 2010 -- Storytelling, the new Studio System and the “Death” of the Web (4)
• May 2, 2009 -- Twitter & Skype classroom coverage of Paul Gillin (4)

Not any more.  It seems as if everyone has gotten HD religion in the last month or two: with the proliferation of inexpensive HD cameras (such as the Flip Mino HD and Kodak Zi6) and an upgrade of various video platforms.

Take a look at this Facebook video, shot on my Pentax W60 point-and-shoot camera (lousy for still images, but it’s waterproof and takes 720p video at 15 frames per second). It showed up with an “HD” icon on my Facebook profile:

(It may be even sharper on my Facebook profile as I’m not sure if the above viewer is “HD”).

Then there’s the same video uploaded to YouTube.  Unlike Facebook, which automatically recognized the HD resolution, YouTube didn’t (thought it does look better in this player than it does in YouTube itself).

Click here to view the embedded video.

I’m not sure why YouTube didn’t see my file as HD, especially since it has just launched HD video capability.  Regardless, this latest development will certainly challenge Vimeo.com — which previously held the HD advantage.

In fact, I signed up for Vimeo’s “Plus” $60 plus account recently so that I could upload 1 GB video files (still more than what YouTube allows) and embed HD viewers (can’t do that in YouTube).  This allowed me to easily share my latest film, “Rising from Ruins” with my collaborators.  I shot RFR on the $7,000 Sony 1080p EX1 — a far cry from the $250 Pentax.  Here’s the embedded HD trailer of the film, which has just been delivered to its Canadian HD broadcaster.  As you may conclude, compression, whether HD or not, is still the great equalizer when it comes to what’s sharp in an embedded viewer:

Click here to view the embedded video.

The lesson here?  If you’re serious about video — online or on TV — and you’re trying to figure out what kind of camera you should get, now’s the time to go HD.

Recommended:

Flash memory video cameras: Kodak Zi6, Flip Mino HD [not broadcast quality HD, but good enough for online]

Point and shoot still cameras with HD video: Panasonic Lumix TZ5 [careful with the weak audio]

Inexpensive HD Video cameras: Canon HF10 (flash memory), HV20 (tape)

Related Posts

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• February 23, 2011 -- Syria Shows Facebook Doesn’t Automatically Equal Freedom (9)
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Related Posts

• May 10, 2010 -- How to Create a Vlog (2)
• January 23, 2009 -- The Death of Story? Not in My Class. (10)
• February 2, 2011 -- Will you tell your story with a Qwiki? (4)
• September 3, 2010 -- Storytelling, the new Studio System and the “Death” of the Web (4)
• December 10, 2008 -- HD and Online Video (3)