Storyteller Family Video

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Life History Media Broadcasting & media production company

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAs-3qsQS7o

Jimmie Wright, storyteller extraordinaire, tells her favorite joke about the three sisters. Jimmie is such a gem and can tell a joke like no one else. If you enjoyed this video, please leave your comment below. Like us on Facebook at https://www.fac...

We are a video production company specializing in family stories. We can come to your family reunion or your home and interview your family members, professionally edit it and put it on to dvd. We can set your photos to copyright-free music and make them into a moving photo montage and/or we can transfer that box of old photos or slides onto a disk for you. Services available for every budget.

Interviewing A Family Member: Question Preparation

You’ve finally gotten your grandmother to agree to let you take a video of her telling some of the stories she’s delighted you with for years, but she’s got so many, where do you start? If your granny is fairly outgoing, do you just turn on the camera and let it roll? Maybe. Sometimes there’s nothing like spontaneity. But if your grandmother is more of the shy type or isn't used to being in front of a camera, this may not work as well. While you don’t want to ruin the spontaneity of your video with stifling control, a little preparation can go a long way to helping both you, as well as your subject, be it glib granny or aunt Rose, the wall flower, to feel at more at ease make your video more organized and watchable.

First up, what kinds of things would you like your grandmother to talk about? She may have some ideas to start with. This may be all you need. But if granny is a like the rest of us she may need some help thinking of things to talk about. A chatty friend once told me he uses the acronym FORM for Family, Occupation, Recreation, Motivation for topic ideas when striking up a casual conversation with someone. This would definitely work here as well. You also may want to try a family brain storm session whether in person or on paper. The strength of this is that one person may key off of another’s idea and help think of even more topics. During this process, don’t edit. If someone thinks of an idea, just write it down. This keeps the energy flowing in a positive way. You can discard and edit later. Click here for a list of sample topics.

After you are finished collecting ideas, if you aren’t under a time constraint, put away your list for a few days before deciding what to use. It’s often easier to edit this way since you will be looking at them with fresh eyes. In addition, you might even think of some new things to add. When formatting ideas into questions, be sure to use open ended questions as opposed to closed ended questions. An example of a closed ended question would be:

Q: “Where did you grow up?”

A: “Bugscuffle.”

An example of open ended question would be

Q: “Tell us a little bit about where you grew up. What was it like there?”

A: “I grew up in Bugscuffle. I loved the simplicity of the people and the country around me. It had very warm winters. One year, however there was a blizzard and my brothers and I made snow cones from grandma’s peach preserves.....”

After you are finished with your question list, it is helpful to think of your video as a whole and how you want to organize it. Do you want it to be a collection of eclectic stories, or do you want it to be a life chronology or do you want it to have topical sections such as but not limited to ‘growing up on the farm’, ‘funny stories’ and another could be “my best navy buddies”? It’s up to you. After you have decided on your format, make an outline and put your questions into the appropriate sections. If you don’t have video editing capability it is a good idea to get the questions in the order you’d like to watch them. Even if you do, the more organized the interview questions are, the easier editing them will be later.

After your questions are outlined, give your grandmother a legible copy to look over beforehand. It will be helpful for her to have a few days to look them over and suggest changes if needed. It will also make for a more relaxed video if you can go over a few of the questions with her so that she can get an idea of what the interview process will be like. Be sure to give her a heads up that you will want her to restate the question and answer in a complete sentence. (You might have to remind of of this from time to time during the interview.) Let her know that during the actual interview, she won’t be speaking directly to the camera but to someone off camera. This should help assuage any jitters she might have. Also, ask her about what she wants to wear. Most anything will be fine, except white. Pastels work especially well.

The day of the interview, place yourself or another family member beside the camera and tripod have her talk to them instead of looking directly into the camera lens. If you’re lucky, after a while, she’ll forget the camera is even there which will make for a great interview. When you’re all done, you’ll have a treasure that you and your family members will be able to enjoy for years to come.

For all of you video do-it-your-selfers, keep your eyes out for our article on interview preparation coming up later this week.