Once John Doe, then a star! Many of us have asked ourselves how filmmakers found their cast members for a feature. Not talking about famous actors, but about newcomers, people who were unknown till the present moment and who suddenly appeared on our screens, playing their characters alongside old, famous actors and actresses. Well, in fact, if one starts to dig a little to find out about these newcomers, their past would eventually show that they are not really newcomers, that they coquetted with acting from an early age and so on.

However, a space for such people is Sony Pictures Entertainment’s re-launched online video site, where non-professional actors, producers and directors could start their career by posting clips that could eventually be turned into movies or TV shows. Crackle is the name that Sony gave its last August’s acquisition, hoping to reposition the site as a streaming entertainment network.

When Sony bought Grouper in last August for $65 million, this was a pioneer video-sharing site, just like You Tube, which was eventually also acquired by Google Inc. While Grouper had also featured UGC (user-generated content), Sony’s new Crackle would now focus on more videos made by directors, producers and animators that haven’t been yet discovered. Sony’s promise for these persons is to help the best ideas turn into potential movies or TV shows.

"Crackle's irreverent editorial team, with a little help from our viewers, programs our provocative and entertaining channels for an audience of 25 million monthly unique users. We reward the best video creators with Crackle funding, promotion, syndication and even greater exposure to our large media partners. Great content surfaced from our open studio model is the key to our success," said Josh Felser, founder and co-president of Crackle.

Crackle offers access to artists from Sony Pictures Imageworks and Sony Pictures Animation. Winners of the quarterly contest on Wet Paint, Crackle's edgy animation channel, will receive a cash prize and fly to Los Angeles to pitch Sony Pictures Animation executives for a chance to have their animated short theatrically released.

The best emerging stand-up comedians spotlighted each month on High Wire, Crackle's stand-up comedy channel, will win a chance to be center stage at the world famous IMPROV comedy clubs. They will have an opportunity to pitch their comedy shorts to creative executives of the IMPROV Comedy Lab (a new comedy centric broadband content studio) for final production and distribution.  The premier comedy   club chain will offer one very hilarious contest winner a chance to fly either to LA, NY or Chicago to perform a 15 minute set on a hot ticket Thursday, Friday or Saturday night.

For audiences Crackle will offer videos in widescreen, 16x9 format, and have continuous viewing capability even while surfing through different channels on the site. The first major site to offer this seamless, dynamic stream of videos, Crackle audiences will no longer have to suffer through interruptions while browsing and discovering new videos.

So Sony is searching for new talented people who haven’t yet found fame and glory. Although just a few of them will be lucky enough to become potential stars, everyone’s videos will be available for sharing on social networking sites such as My Space and Facebook and on Sony’s PSP. This way, everyone’s talent will be eventually coming out.