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Get Into Vlogging

By Michelle Hainer

Like most grandparents, Susan Kirkpatrick's mom and dad can't get enough of their grandchildren, Rain, 7, and Dylan, 6.  But since Susan and her family live in Texas and her parents live in Maine, quality time is hard to come by. To ease their separation anxiety, Susan began recording videos of her kids, and sending DVDs to her parents. "They loved it, and I thought, 'If I could put this on a web page, they could watch it every day,'" Susan says.

Then last May, she stumbled upon what's known as a videoblog, a site that allows users to upload their own video content.  It was then she realized that sharing videos of the kids with family members wasn't as hard as she thought. She found a site called Blip TV, which allowed her to upload her home videos for free. And she also found a Yahoo Group of vloggers who were on hand to help her navigate the video editing process. Now Susan, a veteran text blogger, updates her new vlog about three times a week. It turns out the grandparents aren't the only ones who follow her vlog -- subscribers do, too. "I made the site for my and my husband's parents, but the fact that 96 other people are interested in our lives is pretty cool," she says.

While Susan is a self-confessed computer geek, you don't need to be super tech savvy to start vlogging. All it takes are a couple of tools, a willing audience, and a free afternoon before you too will be camera ready and saying "A-a-and, Action!"

Step 1: Start watching vlogs
Even if this is the first you've heard of vlogs, it's probably not the first time you've heard of the web video hot spot YouTube. The wildly popular site features homemade videos that run the gamut from people trying to get into the Guinness Book of World Records, to footage of dancing slugs, to popular vloggers' clips. You can search the site by keyword or just watch the most popular videos of the day.

You can also search Technorati for blogs tagged "videoblog" or check out popular vlogs such as Roger's Adventures, which features films in 3-D format. Kirkpatrick recommends two vlogs: JoshLeo. "Josh Leo is very kid friendly and funny, and Galacticast has great graphics," she says. "My kids love that one."

Step 2: Get equipped
To create videos for the web all you really need is a digital video (DV) camera, which costs around $200 to $300, says Michael Verdi, co-author of Secrets of Videoblogging (Peachpit Press) and creator of Freevlog, which offers tutorials on how to start your own vlog. While the quality won't be perfect, "most people won't be able to tell the difference, especially since they're watching it on the web," he says.

Just make sure your computer has a firewire port, since you'll need that to connect the DV camera to your computer. If you have a regular digital point-and-click camera, mobile device or cellular phone that also has video capabilities (it'll have a setting with a movie camera icon next to it), these will work too.

Finally, double check that you have a memory card with at least 512MB. You'll also need a broadband Internet connection and filmmaking software, such as iMovie or Windows MovieMaker (which, if you bought your computer within the past few years, it probably already has loaded). Both programs have detailed instructions on installation and usage.

Step 3: Think like a filmmaker
Since you're going to be showing your video on the web, the picture will be pretty tiny (even smaller if people watch your film on an iPod). If your family's stars are talking into the camera, zoom in on their heads and shoulders so that viewers can see and hear them well. If you're shooting indoors, turn on all of the lights in the room, but have your subject stand to the side of the light source. Otherwise they'll look like a silhouette on camera. (The same is true if you're outside in direct sunlight.)

For web videos, the golden rule is to keep your videos short -- no longer than two or three minutes. "Most home videos can get boring because you've got an hour of tape and a minute of good footage," Verdi says. "The great thing about videoblogging is that it allows you to grab that one good minute."

Step 4: Edit your work
Channel your inner Martin Scorsese and add and delete scenes from your videos using software such as iMovie or Windows MovieMaker. Kirkpatrick also likes the video editing software called Roxio Toast.

If you're feeling really creative, you can add words or music to your vlog clips. Just be careful which songs you choose, because you may run into copyright issues.

That's what happened to Erin Nealey, a stay-at-home mom in Elgin, SC. Fearful of infringing on copyright laws, Nealey started downloading songs from a site called Freeplay Music for use on her vlog at Blogspot. But contrary to the name, their tunes weren't gratis. "I didn't read the user agreement closely enough," she says. "By the time I realized they charged $25 per song, I had already downloaded six or seven of them!" Pod Safe Music Network features music by up and coming artists who are OK with people downloading their work. And it's only $.99
per song.

Step 5: Share your videos
Posting video on the web isn't hard, says Nealey, whose vlog earned a "Best of the Web" distinction from last year. "I had my first vlog up in half an hour," she says.

Once you have a digital video on hand, you can upload clips to your existing blog hosted by a service like Typepad. Blip TV also lets users create a vlog and write commentary to go along with clips. And they'll even archive your videos for you on The Internet Archive, where they'll be preserved forever. "Plus, if you have a problem, they get back to you within minutes," Nealey says.

If you're posting your video to a site such as YouTube, you'll need to register and see the Help section for instructions on how to post your videos or embed YouTube clips into your existing blog to transform it into a vlog. For more tips, check out Freevlog. Before you do anything though, you need to compress your video file (i.e. make it smaller) so that it will transmit to the Internet quickly. To do so, save your file as an MPEG4 before uploading it to the popular sites. In iMovie, you can do this using Quicktime. If you're using MovieMaker, the wizard can walk you through the process.

Want to be an Internet star? People also usually label, or tag, vlog clips with keywords so they are easily found through search engines. That said, personal safety is an issue here. You might not want to post vlog footage of other people's kids (such as kids at your daughter's soccer game) without permission. And if you're concerned about your own kids' privacy, make sure not to post any identifying information within the clip or description. On YouTube, you can also mark videos as private (see its Safety section) and only allow people you've identified as Friends or Family to view your videos.

Kirkpatrick, for one, says vlogging has indeed become a family affair. She and her kids watch vlogs together -- a great way for her to monitor exactly what they're viewing, although luckily, many adult themed vlogs require a paid subscription. And her son, Dylan, has recently started his own vlog, Duck Duck Dylan, where he plans to star in every show. (Mom will be on hand to edit and upload his masterpieces.) "There's a real educational aspect to vlogging, which I love," she says. "We get to learn about places we've never been." And without ever having to leave home.