Record Your Own
Life Story Interview

The first step in filming your own Life Story Interview is to find a family member (or friend) who is happy to handle the technical aspects of filming the interview with a smartphone (or a video camera of their choice). If you point them to this beginners filming guide, they'll quickly get the idea of what's involved and be in a position to confirm that they're happy to take on the role of "Family Filmmaker" for this project.

It's easy to fall into the trap of thinking you have all the time in the world to record a Life Story Interview, but life moves on, and before you know it, the weeks and months turn into years, and sometimes those years run out. Actively scheduling a dedicated date, time and place to film this interview helps to make sure it happens whilst senior loved ones are relaxed, comfortable and freely able to recall and share their most precious life-memories.

*PRO TIP* Use an event like Mother's Day, a Birthday or Anniversary as the perfect excuse to get this on the calendar, but best to avoid clashing with other family events, so perhaps a day or two before or after the actual date would be ideal.

There are soooooo many videos cameras that you could use to create your Life Story Interview, but the simplest and easiest video camera to use can be nothing more than a Smartphone.

HANDY HINT: Make sure the phone has enough memory and battery charge for a 60-90 minute interview, and remember to turn off notifications during the interview so that nothing interrupts filming.

The other thing you'll need is a simple tripod with a phone mount.

*3 PRO TIPS* : Make sure the tripod head is tightly locked in place, standing on solid floor (not a wobbly surface), and once recording, DO NOT TOUCH the tripod or phone until the end of the interview.

The venue for the interview needs to be quiet and distraction-free. Recording-quality silence is hard to achieve. Watch out for:-
- Dogs barking
- Air conditioning units
- Dishwashers, Tumble Driers, Washing Machines, Vacuum Cleaners and other appliances.
- Traffic noise (including aircraft)
- Neighbourhood noise (close the windows)
- TV or music in other rooms
- People talking nearby / in other rooms
- Rattling jewellery
- Squeaking chairs
- Squeaky floorboards
- Microphones (if used) rubbing against hair or clothing.

*PRO TIP* : The WORST time to film a Life Story Interview is often during a family get-together when the house is even busier, noisier and more distracting than normal. It's DEFINITELY better to schedule a dedicated date and time to film this interview.

If you're using the in-built microphone in your smartphone at the main microphone, you'll need to get the camera as close to your subject as possible without distorting the face with the "teaspoon effect" with the camera's wide angle lens. Like the picture above, try getting close enough to fill a vertical frame with a clean head and shoulders shot. Not too close, and not too far away. This should give you the best balance of a flattering video angle whilst still having the microphone close enough to your subject to be able to get a clean audio recording.

Great audio is actually far more important than video quality, but the secret is not the microphone, it's the positioning of the microphone.

A cheap microphone placed close to the subject's mouth (roughly the distance of your hand with your fingers spread) will get far better audio results than a pro-quality microphone positioned too far away or next to something rustling like jewellery, hair or clothes.

If your "Family Filmmaker" is feeling a little more confident, there are loads of great-value options for external microphones that will attach to a smartphone. Some are wireless, and some have a wire to connect to the smartphone. YouTube is a great resource for checking out options specific to your smartphone or video camera. Investing in a dedicated microphone is a much better option than using the camera's built-in microphone because it allows you to position the microphone much closer to the subject's mouth, whilst still allowing the camera to be placed a little further away to create a more comfortable frame for the video.

 

Effective lighting for a Life Story Interview can be as simple as switching on the main room lights. It's not "cinematic", but it will allow your subject to be clearly seen. Daylight may sound simple, but it changes over time, and this can create mixed results with your video. If your interview lasts for 90 minutes, in that time, clouds can cover and uncover the sun, the sun moves, and if you decide to film your interview late in the day, the sun can actually set during the course of the interview.

For these reasons, it's best to let daylight be nothing more than a background light in the room, and switch on the brightest, main room light for the duration of the interview. Again, it may not look "cinematic", but it will be clean and simple.

It can be tricky to give your full attention to listening to the stories and life memories of people whilst also keeping an eye on the camera and audio. Phones can suddenly stop recording for a number of reasons (low battery, low memory, notifications etc), and so it's really helpful to have one person keeping an eye on the camera recording, whilst another person (the interviewer) can give their full attention to the person being interviewed in order to keep a fluid and natural flow of the interview. This could be a different family member, but sometimes an unrelated friend can tease out a more engaging re-telling of stories that may be very familiar to family members. Basically, we speak to strangers differently than we speak to family members, and sometimes that can be an advantage, especially when a person is retelling a story that they think the other person already knows. When we tell oft-repeated stories to somebody new, we share it as though it's fresh, and this is the ideal way to record precious life memories for generations not yet born.

You're free to talk about whatever you'd like to share in your Life Story Interview, but remember the real goal is to help future generations feel as though they know the real you. We live in a generation where we share enormous amounts of videos, photos, stories and opinions on social media, but too often, those posts only preserve one part of the story of who we really are. This interview is not meant for social media, it's for a tiny, private, intimate audience of great grandchildren and beyond.

With that in mind, here are the kinds of subjects we'd recommend for your Life Story Interview:

- Recollections of your own grandparents and great-grandparents.
- Birth stories
- Romance, love and marriage (who did they marry and why?)
- Childhood memories
- Proudest achievements
- Mistakes, regrets, painful life-lessons
- Advice you'd give your younger self.
- Hobbies, passions and interests
- Work and professional endeavours.
- Show 'n' Tell: Photo / Object talk-through.
- Beliefs which changed over time. Political, Religious, Social, Cultural.
- Your personality type. How would you describe yourself and your spouse (the good and the embarrassing).

If you haven't created one yet, this Life Story Interview is the perfect excuse to create your Family Media Archive. This is the place to store all your digitised old, VHS home videos, digitised old photos, slides, audio recordings, journal scans and photos of other important certificates and documents.

If, like most people, your family Life Story Archive is a scattered collection of photos, videos, audio recordings and documents that are spread throughout your computer, in a "cloud" or in a dusty old box in the attic, then have no fear, we're on this free-advice journey together. Watch this space for my free hints and tips on how to create your very own, organised family Life Story Archive so that future generations can quickly find and search your most important media memories.

*PRO TIP* - To get the ball rolling, here are TWO things to get you started in the right direction:

1 - Purchase a dedicated, "solid state" external hard disk drive and stick a label on it (solid state means it's just a computer chip inside with no moving disk so that it stands the test of time better). Ideally Find a dedicated keepsake box with a clear label to store it in as well.

2 - Once you have your finished Life Story Interview, RENAME THE FILE to something sensible so that the digital file instantly makes sense to anybody looking for it.

"IMG_0238.MOV" doesn't mean anything to anybody, but "Gill Rushworth - Life Story Interview - Jan 2019.MOV" is obvious at a glance.