Helping YOU preserve your precious family stories on video.
Steve Pender fields a question during
the May video bio workshop. (See the story below.)
Welcome
to the
June issue!
Wow. It seems like May went by in the blink of an eye. My
month was spent finishing a family video biography that spanned three DVDs,
conducting the latest "Create Your Own Video Biography" workshop with my good
friends Dan Crapsi and Ginny Temple, and speaking at a local church on Mother's
Day. I'm sure you kept busy as well. Please accept my wishes for a happy and
fulfilling June - and don't forget to capture YOUR family memories on video this
summer!
I hope you enjoy this issue of the Family Legacy Video™ Producer's e-Newsletter.
Please
e-mail me at
steve@familylegacyvideo.com or phone toll-free (1.888.662.1294) with
any questions or comments you have. Visit Family Legacy Video on the Web
at:
www.familylegacyvideo.com.
May's
video bio workshop is educational - and fun!
From May 19-21, the meeting room at the offices of the Arizona Small Business
Administration in Tucson was a beehive of video biography activity. For three
days, attendees from the Tucson and Phoenix areas immersed themselves in the
process of creating video biographies - and came away enlightened, excited and
empowered.
Video bio guru Steve Pender and video production pros Dan Crapsi and Ginny
Temple led fun and spirited sessions featuring instruction, lots of video clips,
questions and answers and hands-on practice. Everyone involved had a great time.
Planning for the next "Create Your Own Video Biography" workshop is underway.
NOTE: The next workshop, previously scheduled for August in Tucson, is being
moved to the Phoenix area. It will most probably take place in September. Look
for more information in the July issue of this newsletter.
Where do you come from?
Your genes may tell the tale.
How far back have you been able to trace your family's lineage?
Fifty-years? One hundred, two hundred, three hundred years? Well get ready - you
can now travel back thousands of years. Thanks to National Geographic, there's a service available that can give you a snapshot of who your
ancestors were and where they were up to sixty-thousand years ago.
It's called the National Geographic Genographic Project, and it
conducts your ancestor search using your own DNA. Just sign up for the project
and pay the fee, and you receive a kit containing a cotton swab. Simply swab the
inside of your cheek, mail back the swab, and the hunt begins. While you won't
learn the names of your long-ago forebears, genotyping can give you a
fascinating glimpse at your family origins.
Here's a source for royalty-free stock photos that may surprise
you: NOAA. That's the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration. NOAA's Web
site offers more than twenty-thousand images celebrating our planet's past and
present. Spend some time browing NOAA's collections. You'll be amazed at the
variety of the images - and you may discover photos you can use in your next
video biography.
Come see the show at the Family Legacy Video Theatre!
The Family
Legacy Video Theatre is the online theatre where you
can view all the video clips streaming from the Family Legacy Video Web site.
The clips you see there will surely inspire you with ideas for your family
video, plus you'll get to see Steve Pender talk about his passion for family
history video in two television appearances.
Ask
Steve - This month: Managing your video clips.
Q:
Dear Steve,
I'm thinking about starting a video bio project, but I'm wondering how I'm going
to store all the video I shoot. If I put it all on my computer, won't it take up
a ton of hard drive space?
- - Tom K., Reno, NV
A: Hi, Tom.
Yes, video does command a lot of hard drive real estate. So the key is to manage
your video clips (or video assets, as we pros call them) effectively.
First,
dedicate at least one drive to video only - and get a drive with as much
capacity as possible. I'd recommend at least 250 GB. Depending on whether you're
using a desktop or laptop computer, this drive can be either internal or
external. If it's external, be sure the drive has an IEEE 1394 (FireWire)
connection.
Next, don't
store everything you shoot on your computer. How do you know what portions of
the video to use? You figure this out by screening and logging what you've shot,
thinking about what to use in your video, and then capturing only those clips
you need. The Family Legacy Video™
Producer's Guide describes the process.
Finally,
after you've finished your video and made your DVDs, get that footage off your
drive. You can download individual clips to DVDs, if you'd like. But remember to
keep your original tapes. MiniDV cassettes don't take up much room. If you store
them properly, they'll last for years. And since you will have already screened
and logged the tapes, you'll be able to find the shots you like pretty quickly if you
decide to use them in another project.
Cheers, Steve
Got a
question about any aspect of family history video production?
Send it to Steve at
steve@familylegacyvideo.com.
