The reported benefits of family legacy videos are usually more anecdotal than clinical. But now and again an official study affirms what video biographers know: personal legacy projects often have profoundly positive mental and physical impacts on storytellers and their families. Who says so? Researchers at the University of Michigan and University of Alabama, that’s who.

The “Legacy Project” study is one of the first studies to examine the benefits of family life review efforts. The study concentrated on individuals with chronic, life-limiting illnesses, aged 60 and older. Researchers helped patients and their family caregivers create personal legacies in video or scrapbook formats; the participants were surveyed throughout the course of the project.

Less difficulty breathing, reduced stress and depression and greater social interaction are some the benefits documented by the study. According to co-author Louis Burgio, a research professor at the University of Michigan, “Working together on a joint project called a legacy improved the quality of life of both patients with life-limiting illness and their family caregivers.”

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Exciting news! Just got word that Family Legacy Video, Inc., has won two Awards of Distinction in the 2010 Communicator Awards competition. Our honors came in the History/Biography category. The winning entries were A Legacy of Family, featuring the life stories of Tucson couple Bill and Wilma Hansen and Charlie’s Story, featuring WWII B-17 pilot Charlie Wilson of Austin, Texas.

The Communicator Awards is the leading international awards program honoring creative excellence for communications professionals. The international video competition attracted 7,000 entries this year. The Communicator Awards are judged and overseen by the International Academy of the Visual Arts (IAVA), a 550+ member organization of leading professionals from various disciplines of the visual arts dedicated to embracing progress and the evolving nature of traditional and interactive media.

So you’re watching a taped interview on the evening news. The interview subject starts to answer a question, but after about ten words the position of her head suddenly changes from leaning forward to leaning backward. Then, after a few more words, her head suddenly tilts to the left. The audio sounds fine, so what’s going on with the video?

What’s going on is this: When they got the tape back to the studio, the producer and editor decided to slice and dice the interview a bit. Maybe the subject made a mistake that needed to be eliminated; maybe the producer decided to slap the beginning of one answer onto the end of another; maybe the answer ran too long so the producer had to trim a bit to stay within a defined time. Whatever the reason, the driving factor behind the editing was the audio. And if you closed your eyes and listened to the interview again you probably wouldn’t guess it had been edited. But with your eyes open, the edits are obvious. These kinds of edits are called “jump cuts” – because the video image seems to jump at the point of the edit. Jump cuts can be pretty ugly and distracting. But there are ways to apply a little video “sleight of hand” to either hide the jump cuts or at least minimize them.

Cover ’em up:
The best way of dealing with jump cuts is to hide them under visuals. If you have photos, films or other visuals that apply to the subject being discussed, insert them before the jump cuts occur and continue with them on screen until it makes sense to return to your interview subject. If you don’t have photos, you might be able to construct something – maybe a text screen that has some relevant information. Whatever you use, just make sure it relates to the topic at hand. Throwing in a visual that doesn’t pertain to what’s being covered in the interview distracts your viewers from what’s being said. Choose the right visuals, however, and they’ll reinforce and enhance the interview while hiding those distracting jump cuts. Your viewers will be none the wiser.

Smooth ’em out:
What if you really need to make a cut but you don’t have a visual to use as cover? In this case, your best option is to “soften” the cut. One way to do this is to place a dissolve at the cut point. The duration of the dissolve could be as short as three to four frames (known as a “soft cut”) or as many as ten. You’ll have to experiment and see what looks best to you. While it’ll be obvious to viewers that you’re making a cut, at least it’ll be easier on their eyes.

Another technique you can use is known as a “white flash.” Using your editing software, or graphics software like Photoshop, create a graphic screen that is white. Place the screen at the point of the interview edit, let it sit for a few frames, and then dissolve back to the interview. Experiment to see what looks best to you. You might even want to dissolve to the white screen a few frames before the cut, let it linger for several frames, and then use a longer dissolve as you return to your interview. The white flash will help “dress up” the cut a little and make it less distracting.

You’ve videotaped your family interviews and collected your photos, films and other visuals. But now that you sit down to edit, the prospect of creating a video that may run a hour or longer is daunting. Just how do you put together a video biography that’s informative and entertaining without getting overwhelmed in the process?

Think: Chapters.

Any large project can be intimidating until you break it down into smaller steps or tasks. Editing your video biography is no different. And organizing your video by chapters is a great way to whittle away at it a little at a time.

If you organized your interview questions efficiently you’re probably ahead of the game. It should be easy for you to group your interview segments by themes like “Grandparents,” “Parents,” “Earliest Memories,” “School Days,” “The War Years,” etc. As you edit, focus on one chapter at a time. Treat each chapter as a “video within a video” with it’s own title, musical theme, tempo and unique beginning, middle and end. Focusing only on the chapter you’re currently editing will prevent you from being overwhelmed by the total length of your project. Before you know it, you’ll be done.

Structuring your video biography around chapters also makes the viewing experience more enjoyable and manageable. It’s much easier for your audience to digest material in smaller bits. And by varying the mood and feeling of each chapter you help keep your viewers engaged and interested. A long video without chapter breaks and no variety in music, mood and pacing can lull your audience to sleep – and the last thing you want your family members to do is to wind up using your video biography as a sleep aid.

Chapters also make things easier for folks who don’t have the time or the attention span to view an entire video in one sitting. By keeping track of the chapters they watched they’ll know exactly where to pick up when they sit down to continue. And if someone wants to revisit a particular section of the video, chapters make it easier to do that, too.

So learn to put together your video biographies one chapter at a time. It’ll make things easier on you and more enjoyable for your audience.

Video biographies are all about making and reaffirming connections – between the past, present and future and with the family, friends and sometimes complete strangers who help us on our journeys through preproduction, production and post production. Here’s a case in point.

Ever hear the story about the shoemaker’s kids? Their dad was always so busy mending shoes for customers that he neglected his own children, who went around with ever-growing holes in the soles of their own shoes, and maybe even barefoot.

Now, my business is custom legacy videos, not footwear. But the old cobbler and I share a common dilemma: How to shoehorn family projects into a schedule dominated by “paying” work. Well, this year I went the shoemaker one better and finished a family project I started three years ago: my mom’s video biography.

The three years since her November 2006 interview just flew by – and I resolved at the dawn of this year not to let a fourth slip past. So this summer I started devoting free hours to the project. My initial goal was to have the video finished in time for Christmas. Then Halina and I invited Mom to visit us for Thanksgiving, giving me an incentive to finish earlier so we could premiere the video during her stay.

Having that deadline did the trick. I felt a great sense of accomplishment (and relief!) as we screened the video in our Tucson living room, as well as the joy that came from sharing the video with family and friends as my Christmas gift this year.
So where do connections enter into the picture?

To start with, the video gave me an opportunity to reconnect with my mom’s cousin, who lives in Guatemala. I haven’t seen or spoken with her since I was a youngster, but since a portion of my mom’s remembrances touched on her husband (my grandfather’s brother) I thought she might enjoy a copy of the video. I asked Mom for her cousin’s address, packed up the DVD and shipped it off to South America, all the while keeping fingers crossed that it reached the intended destination. What a surprise I had when, a few weeks later, I opened my inbox to find an e-mail with the subject heading, “Hello from Guatemala!” My mom’s cousin was overjoyed by the video and had already shared it with many members of her family. She called the video “a travel through time” and invited me and Halina to visit when we could.

I made new connections and resurrected old ones throughout the process. From the antiques vendor who sent me photos of many of the makeup compacts and lipstick cases produced by a company my grandmother once worked for, to the friendly real estate agent in New Jersey who provided pictures of the retirement community where my mom’s parents lived for a time, to an old friend of my mom’s who e-mailed me some images from their days as Army wives in North Carolina – and to a former next-door neighbor I tracked down who fished out an old snapshot that showed what my boyhood home looked like just before my parents bought it in 1959.

In a larger sense, this personal project left me feeling more connected to my passion for video biography than ever before. It’s a passion I know will continue to drive me to help others to preserve, share and celebrate their life stories on video.