Helping YOU preserve your precious family stories on video.
Steve Pender greets a visitor to
Family Legacy Video's booth
in Portland, Oregon. (See the story below.)
Welcome
to the November issue!
Happy Halloween! I know this is the November issue, but I
couldn't resist sending it to you early so I could wish you some good, old
fashioned, spooky but safe chills and thrills. I hope you're generous to all the
ghosts and goblins haunting your home in search of sweet treats. But I hope
you're never haunted by the regret that comes with missing the opportunity to
capture your family stories and storytellers on video. So get started today!
By the way, please accept my wishes for a wonderful
Thanksgiving.
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.
"Create Your Own Video Biography"
- A new deadline and a discount.
To those of you who've already signed up for the November video biography workshop -
welcome! You're in for an inspiring, informative and fun-filled time. You'll be
receiving final details by e-mail in a few days.
To those of you still on the fence about attending - the final deadline has
been extended to November 2. And, as an extra incentive, there's a special
discount for e-Newsletter readers, family and friends. Save 10% off the workshop
price when you register online (or by phone) and use the following discount
code: november.
The Tucson workshop runs from November 10 to 12 (Friday to Sunday). The venue is
the meeting room at the Arizona Small Business Association, in the Crossroads
Festival Shopping Center, 4811 East Grant Road (the corner of Grant and Swan),
in Tucson.
"Create Your Own Video Biography" workshops from Family Legacy Video offer three
jam-packed days filled with inspiration, learning and fun - and leave you with
the tools you need to preserve your own precious family stories on video.
SO if you're itching to tackle your own do-it-yourself video biography
project - BUT you lack the skills and experience you need to move forward - THIS IS YOUR CHANCE to learn professional video production tips and
techniques.
Complete details (along with testimonials from past workshop participants) are
on the
workshop page of the Family Legacy Video Web site.
Family Legacy Video travels to Portland for a
personal historians conference.
From October 4 to 8, Family Legacy Video took its show on the road. Company
president Steve Pender traveled to Portland, Oregon to attend the annual
conference of the Association of Personal Historians.
Family Legacy Video has been a member of the APH (which boasts 600+ members) for
two years, and this was the first chance Steve had to attend the conference.
Attendees were treated to inspirational speakers and informational workshops as
well as many opportunities to mix and mingle with other personal historians.
Video biographers represent about a quarter of the APH membership, but they
turned out in force for the conference. Two evening sessions, called "media
shares," gave video producers a chance to show their work and answer questions.
At the Thursday evening gathering, Steve showed the openings to three recent
Family Legacy Video video biographies - and received glowing compliments for
days afterward.
Steve was also asked to lend his expertise to a workshop on video techniques. He
spent his time at the podium offering video editing tips and answering questions
from the audience.
On Saturday, Steve hosted the Family Legacy Video booth at the conference's
"Town Square," an event that showcased APH members and their work. Family
Legacy's booth attracted quite a bit of traffic (from both APH members and the
public), as well as some sales.
Steve has already been tapped to lead a workshop or two at the next conference,
scheduled for October 2007 in Nashville, Tennessee.
For more information about the Association of Personal Historians,
visit the APH Web site.
Drop a pebble in the water & create ripples that
impact generations to come.
Drop a pebble in the water; just a splash and it is gone;
But there's a half-a-hundred ripples circling on and on,
Spreading, spreading, from the center, flowing on out to the sea
And there's no way of telling where the end is going to be...
- Anonymous
On October 5, during the opening session of the annual conference for the
Association of Personal Historians, I experienced a keynote address that was the
most inspiring I've ever heard. The speaker was Bob Welch. He's a columnist for
The Register-Guard newspaper in Eugene, Oregon, and an author. His talk
chronicled his experiences researching and writing his book, American
Nightingale - The Story of Frances Slanger, Forgotten Heroine of Normandy.
Frances Slanger was the first American nurse to die after the D-Day landings.
She was killed the night after writing a letter to Stars and Stripes, a
letter that praised American GIs and, in turn, inspired many of those soldiers
to write letters in response. It's a fascinating, inspiring and heartwarming
story. And what I'd like to do is focus on a small part of that story: the poem
you see above.
A copy of the poem was found in Slanger's "chapbook," a scrapbook-like volume
filled with
writings and poems she held dear. As Welch pointed out in his address, it's a
poem that speaks volumes to those of us dedicated to preserving personal and
family stories and histories.
That's because we're the pebbles. When you start out to create a family or
personal history, you create an initial splash. And the ripples from that
splash, your efforts, can produce unexpected and delightful results.
In my own case, I never would have dreamt back in 1998 that the video biography
I produced about my grandmother's life would impact my family as greatly as it
did. The video continues to provide comfort to the children who miss her dearly.
At least one grandchild included the video in a history project at his school.
And, years later, it helped spawn Family Legacy Video - helping others preserve
their precious histories. So the ripples continue to this day.
And, as the ripples of your efforts continue to spread, you'll find you inspire
others to tell their stories. There's just no end to this personal history
"ripple effect." It will continue for years, and generations, to come.
So go ahead. Drop a pebble in the water. Do it today.
- - Steve Pender
(If you'd like to learn more about Bob Welch and his book, American
Nightingale, visit:
http://www.bobwelch.net.)
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.
You'll see a window containing a video screen with controls and a list of clips.
Decide which clip you'd like to view and click on the correct speed (High, Low)
to match your Internet connection. In the bottom right of the theatre window is
a list showing the appropriate speed for your kind of connection. NOTE:
Please be patient - you may need to wait a few seconds before a clip plays.
Enjoy the clip!
Select another clip or close the theatre window.
The Family Legacy Video
Theatre is always open, and YOU decide when the show begins.
Ask Steve - This month:
Audio tips for two camera shoots.
Q: Dear Steve,
I wanted to let you know I'm interested in the two camera format you suggested
in the October e-Newsletter. Please address the sound system, etc. for two
camera work in your next newsletter.
Thanks so much!
- - Kathy M., Kent, Ohio
A: Hi, Kathy.
Okay. Let's say you've decided to videotape an interview with two family members.
In order
to give yourself some options when you edit, you want to shoot them using two
cameras - one on a two-shot and one that you'll use for close-ups, panning from
one subject to the other as needed.
So how do you capture audio? And how do you synch up the
tapes from your two
cameras during editing?
Recording Audio
Option 1: You can mount a lapel microphone on each subject,
run the mics into a mixer, and feed the outputs of the mixer to the audio inputs
of each camera. Of course, in order to do this you need a mixer and someone to
mix the audio while you're recording. This is probably not something that's
going to be possible for most family projects.
Option 2: Most consumer and many prosumer cameras have only
one microphone input. When shooting with two cameras, you'll
need to run one microphone to each camera. (Note: Unless you're
using stereo microphones, the camera will place the audio on only one half of
your camera's stereo channel. You'll need to copy the audio over to the other
half of the channel during your edit.)
Option 3: You can buy an audio adaptor that contains two
audio inputs. The inputs are of the professional XLR type (three-pin). The
output of the adaptor is a mini-plug that plugs into the mic input of your
camera. The adaptor will allow you to combine the audio from both mics and send
the mixed feed to both left and right channels of your camera OR you can choose
to keep each microphone
isolated on its own channel. This option requires the purchase of an adaptor
and some professional cables, though. If you do go with Option 3, remember that
you're feeding the output of the microphones to just one camera. However, your second
camera will still need to record audio (you'll be using this camera's audio as a
reference only - I'll get to this in just a moment) so make sure the onboard microphone
contained in the camera is working.
No matter how you record the audio, keep in mind that you're going
to need to synch the tapes from the two cameras during your edit. One technique
that will help is to record a very recognizable sound on each tape, a sound you
can later use to match your tape positions. If you have a clapper, (you know,
the small slate with a handle that slaps the top of the slate, used in motion
pictures), that'll be just fine. If you don't have a clapper, use your (or your
subject's) own two hands. Start both cameras recording, wait a few seconds, and
then clap once, as loudly as you can. Do this each time you start recording. You
now have audible reference points on each tape.
Synching Tapes
First of all, you'll need editing software that provides a
timeline with a number of video and audio layers. After you digitize your
videotapes, you're ready to begin. The first step is to create a "rough edit"
during which you synch up all your tapes. Let's say your two-shot is on camera
1. Import tape 1 from camera 1 into video/audio track one. Find your first clap
(you'll hear it, of course, but you should also be able to see it clearly on the
audio waveform displayed on the audio track) and
mark the point with a clip marker. Next, import your close-ups from camera 2.
Find the first clap on this tape and then mark it. Finally, line up the two
markers.
Now, play the two tapes together on the timeline. If you
don't hear any echo, you're right on the money. If you do hear an echo, you may
need to shift one of the tapes back or forward by a frame or two. Once the tapes
are synched, group them together using your editing software. Grouping guards
against accidentally shifting the position of one of the tapes and losing audio
synch as a result.
Once the tapes are synched, create another timeline, sequence
or project. Use your
rough edit as a source and cut and
paste segments from your rough cut into the new timeline as you create your
final program.
Cheers, Steve
Got a question about any aspect of family history
video production?
Send it to Steve at
steve@familylegacyvideo.com.
