If you are having trouble deciding what anchor photo to use or visualizing your Family History Video, take a little time to watch a documentary.  Maybe catch a little of The Roosevelts on PBS or at www.pbs.org/kenburns/the-roosevelts/.  Yes, the story is interesting, but try to look beyond the story and see the pieces of the production. 

• Ken Burns does a great job at making an inert still photo come alive.  
  

• There are plenty of still photos of the Roosevelt family, but in other documentaries, you find the same photos used many times because there simply wasn’t more photos taken of the subject.
  

• Watch for the names and credentials of the people that are interviewed.  
  

• Watch for the mix of narration, interviews and still photos.
  

• Watch for general “era” footage.  The subject of the film may not even be in the footage but it depicts a timeframe of the subject.
  

We’ll be looking at all those elements as we make our own Family History Video and recognizing each element will help you visualize yours.

Today we resume our video tutorial.  Click here to see Part 5 of using Corel VideoStudio X7 Ultimate to make your own Family History Video.

Last month we talked about the vision of your family history video.  You were to think about whether you were going to concentrate on an event, a family member, a couple, or a family unit.  For instructional purposes, we are going to use a family unit.  That way we can encompass many different aspects of editing – research, photos, interviews, stories, family moves, etc.  We’ll be using this photo as our anchor. 

Right after our discussion on the vision, we went into how to use the software.  Using this photo as our family history anchor, we have added it to our video editing library.  Please choose a photo that represents your vision for your family history video and follow along over the next few weeks as we expand from a photo to fully realizing the vision.