Last weekend a friend of mine donated some “free music” to my iTunes library. As I was importing the files I asked if he thought he was putting himself at risk by acquiring so much “free music” and passing it along to his friends. He promptly told me to buzz-off or something to that effect then explained all the cool music he’d been getting lately had come from a site called Jamendo specializing in music under Creative Commons licensing.

just in case you chose to skip over the hyperlinks in the first paragraph, music under Creative Commons Licensing is free and in most cases permits you to share it, reuse it, or even remix it. But perhaps most importantly, you can feature it in your short films and media projects!

Vermont filmmaker Michael Fisher is on a tear. It seems like he comes out with a new, beautifully rendered, gothic masterpiece short film every month. His latest, Shell, is set in World War II Europe. It was shot (with no pun intended, by cinematographer Nate Beaman) at Shelburne Farms. He’s posted the film online here, and you can see Michael’s previous film, To a Flame, here.

Both films were shot using Nate’s Panasonic HVX200 high definition video camera and edited with Final Cut Pro. Check out Nate’s HD-DV tech blog, Final Cut User, for some great tech notes.

Jackie Yantachka is a senior at Champlain Valley Union High School and is doing her Grad Challenge in television production. As part of her challenge, she’s been shooting a movie review show at VCAM, both in the studio and out in the field. Look for the as yet untitled show in the coming months on the channel. Good luck, Jackie!

Welcome to the newly reinvented VCAM blog!  We tried valiantly to save the old blog’s content, but I couldn’t get the blogger-to-WordPress migration tool to work right, so I gave up and we’re starting fresh.

I hope you like the new look.  It’s based on a WordPress theme called “Life is a Byte” and the header image was designed by our own Seth Mobley.   It’s our intention to use this blog a lot.  Any VCAM news will go here as well as any interesting tidbits we think might be worthwhile for our membership to check out.  We will also be highlighting some of the more creative uses of new media in and around Vermont on this page, so stay tuned.

Blogs are not a one-way mode of communication so we hope you’ll add comments and help keep the discussion interesting.

-Bill (blog editor)

We are installing a new VCAM blog engine. Please be patient. The new blog will be up and running shortly. For questions or comments, email us or call 802-651-9692. Thanks for your understanding.