I’m live blogging from inside SXSW. The first panel of my SXSW experience was Quit Your Day Job and Vlog, which is a panel about people who want to make vlogging their day job, duh. The panelists have made a career out of vlogging, and have experienced relative success.
The panel opened up with Pirates of Carribean 3 parody that was done by one of the panelists, Lisa Donovan (aka lisanova on youtube) the 7th most popular person on Youtube. She got her start after being hired for last 4 seasons of MadTv. She got in on the ground floor of YouTube. She said that nowYouTube is very saturated, and its very difficult to get noticed now. She did briefly mention the Long Tail. She was chosen to be part of the YouTube partner program. Everything she’s done has been on YouTube, but has explores traditional media options as well.
Zadi Diaz showed a clip of the 100th episode of her show which dealt with FU-netics, which was inspired by the anonymous vs. scientology battle that saturated the blogosphere a month or so ago. She started out in publishing and theater in New York. Her first project was documenting the RNC in NY. She then moved to L.A. and hooked up with Rocketboom. Her started show premiered in June 2006. She ended up changing the name of her program to Epicfu, which is a weekly show. She said that it takes a “crazy gene” to quit your job and vlog. She is currently working small production company that only has two full time employees.
Bre Petis started out as artist and art teacher. At one time he worked for Jim Henson making teeth. He started out by taking a lighting course and shot his first footage in super 8 and video. In that initial project he wanted to copy the success of gallery videos in NY that sold for $15,000, but that didn’t happen so he said, “F**k this, I want people to see it.” Petis said that editors are very highly sought after commodities right now.
Lindsey Campbell is involved with Mob Logic. She began her career as an actor, but worked at hedge fund as a temp while doing theater and cabaret dancing. She had a ton of awful jobs to support herself. Mob Logic was absorbed into CBS Interactive, but she has maintained artistic control of the show. Interestingly she appeared on two episodes of the Sopranos. Her most memorable quote was, “Everyone in the room is ahead of their time.”
Q&A portion memorable advice Petis, “cut right to the edge, publish often, make friends with musicians, take acting lessons, own you own IP, take care of your teeth”
Shey-“the web is not a second class medium”
Diaz-start where you are, what can you do to make a show with what’s around you.
Lindsay Campbell-email your heroes your stuff, promote yourself.
Cooper Cherry
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I think this is an interesting topic because it relates to some of the work I’m doing with Choose or Lose. Vlogging is really, really hard. Not everyone can do it. Hell, I can’t do it. Vlogging is about personality and being creative with camera angles. I don’t think it is enough to just sit in front of a camera and talk about your day. Scripting and editing is a significant part of creating a successful vlog.
Another aspect of vlogging involves self-promotion, which Lindsay Campbell states. You have to put your name out there on every social networking site, blog or Web site so you can get hits. You can have this beautifully edited vlog with witty monologue, but if no one sees it, who cares?
Vlogging can be a career if a person knows how to put the product together and how to promote themselves. Perhaps that is why Bre Petis said to make friends with musicians. What other career is about shameless self-promotion? You can learn a lot about promotion practices from musicians.
On a final note, I agree with the statement that the web isn’t a second class medium. It is a viable outlet that is still being explored, which why people don’t put as much stock in multimedia such as vlogging. That is changing and these people are obviously part of the movement.