An interesting niche that is slowly turning (hopefully) into a second career is to help people tell their story. Everyone has one you know. This little clip is part of a three and a half hour DVD made for an Itailian-American family attempting to preserve their stories, traditions, and values. All of the people in this are brothers and sisters and they wanted to pass this information (from when their parents came to this country in the 1920's) on to their children, grand-children, etc. I get to meet the nicest people doing this type of "work". Truthfully, it's not like work at all.

Here it is

Good job, nice video and audio, very professional.

Don

Thank you, Don. I appreciate your comments.

Larry

Good job, nice video and audio, very professional.

I enjoyed watching it very much.Thanks for Posting

Great video!

 I agree this is an expanding niche market. I'm having requests for family history "sessions" more often than in the past.

I'm interested in which camera (Sony 2100?) you're using for the sample video and the specs for the file you uploaded to Youtube if you don't mind sharing... 

I use three of the 2100's and love the low light capability. I'm moving to HD but so far have only been able to buy one XDCAM EX3, and I shoot almost everything with at least two cameras. So I wait... 

Thanks Steve. The camera I use is a Sony DCR-VX2100 NTSC. It is a 3-ccd camera, and does very well in low light conditions. I suspect probably most 3-ccd cameras would do a great job. The price was right when I got it a couple of years ago. I have not had an interest in HD at this time... the price and technology has not come to the point where it makes sense for my business yet. I use a Sony wireless Lavalier Mic and a Sony wireless hand-held mic. They were relatively inexpensive a year ago when I got them.

For YouTube I render the project to an MPEG-2 file. In Studio 12 select MPEG-2 for the file type, and DVD Compatible for the Preset. That will give you a resolution of 720x480 and a standard frame rate. I'm thinking that YouTube has a couple of restrictions: (1) length not to exceed 10 minutes and; (2) file size not to exceed 2 gb. These settings seem to give a good result for me. Don't worry about standard screen size vs wide screen... YouTube takes care of that.

If you search YouTube for "larryinbristol" you will see a few other files I have uploaded, and that a couple of them say they are HD. They are not. I was experimenting with various settings and managed to somehow fake it into thinking they were HD. They look okay so I just left them. If you upload a video to YouTube then decide you want to upload it again using different settings, you must delete the first one then upload the corrected one. YouTube has no mechanism for overwriting an existing file. Of course, if the first file (the bad one) has "views, comments, etc." then they will be lost too.

I'd like to stay in touch with you and any others who are interested in "oral histories". I find it to be very interesting! It is an emerging niche worldwide. Mostly it involves just text (written stories, etc.) and some involves audio (i.e. Story Corp which is a product of National Public Radio). Not many are doing video and I'm not sure why. So, send me a private email or email me from my website at www.StoriesRetold.com and I'm glad to share what I know with you. I would also be interested in hearing of your experiences or interest. I can tell you that you get to hear the best stories, meet the nicest people, and in the case of this Italian-American family I have been invited to the best meals!

Larry

I had checked out your website before I replied to your initial post. It looks impressive! Don't you love it when cutomers call and want to know how much it will cost to "make a DVD" ?

The only video I have online is our local city council meetings which I provide as a public service at www.roanokerapidsinfo.com. They are hosted by Youtube. It's not a paying gig at this point so it's strictly simple two camera documentary style. Username on Youtube is roanokerapidsinfo. I'm making an mp4 and uploading that. I'm not totally happy with the quality. If I burn a DVD from that video it is crystal clear so I am exploring other file formats and bit rates.

I agree that you meet some of the nicest folks and their families in this business. I create 3 - 4 DVD slideshows per week for weddings, anniversaries, birthdays, etc, using paper and digital photos. I have to "know" the family to create the "feel" for the video.

My meat and potatoes business is frame-by-transfer of 8mm & Super 8mm movie film. I am now incorporating this footage into family history DVDs. Nothing like Grandad or Uncle Joe narrating the audio for old silent movies so that future generations will know who, what, where, and when the family events happened. I have transferred over 1.5 million feet of film so far - one frame at a time.

Do have any idea how many times I've seen Disneyworld and Tweetsie Railroad?

Like you, uploading an MP4 to YouTube results in really bad quality for me. I heard an online tip from a guy who said to render a video as MP4, then after it is rendered simply change it's file extension to FLV, then upload the FLV to YouTube. YouTube converts video into whatever format they use (maybe it's FLV) but doing it this way may somehow bypass that conversion. When I have another video to upload maybe I'll try this technique.

As far as "Don't you love it when customers call and want to know how much it will cost to make a DVD" I agree with you 100%! Every day seems to bring this question. My tendency now is to ignore requests to supply that "easy answer" on the website and in the brochure, trying not to appear elusive. It must be because they don't understand at all about how these video projects are put together (each one different), but I don't expect them to understand it and that's why we discuss the types of things (and styles) that will properly portray their specific story. Afterall, if they don't know what they want, how much less do I know what they want until we talk about it?

I'm convinced that most people can take nice video/audio, but not everybody can tell a story with the story being the "main character" of the project and the audio/video presentation a nice by-product. For me, the most difficult part of a project is coming up with a price... and staying within that price range as the video progresses (invariably they want some additional things along the way). As our businesses are evolving (and as we are becoming known as the Ken Burns of personal documentaries - ha!) I suspect we forego the additional we would charge for the sake of "getting our name out there". I'm not much of a marketing/sales person and this is a weak point for me. Slowly it is turning into a more profitable revenue stream.

It's nice to share our collective information about this since there is SO-O-O much to learn about how to make all of this happen effectively!

Along the lines of "What are you doing with your software?" and this little business I have of helping people tell their stories with video, I had a meeting this week with a man who has pancreatic cancer and has not much longer to live. He has been active in our area for over 50 years helping disadvantaged kids find a focus for their life. He is certainly well known and well loved around this area. We met this week to lay out a few questions to be used in the near future for an interview (free) with him. He has so much wisdom to be passed on, and so many lives to be touched with his story. People usually permit me into the intimacies of their lives during normal interviews, but this is over the top. I'm honored to be sure, but certainly awed by the magnitude of what he has to say. Sometimes this video software thing reaches into areas where we never can imagine. Way beyond money, and way beyond technology. Anyway, I may post a short clip of it if he will allow me. I guess this is what we do with our software.

Larry

I found that the best format for YouTube upload is Windows Media - High Quality 16X9 Upload NTSC setting. The file is much smaller and the resolution is very clean. Once YouTube "processes" it to an MP4 format, I don't really notice and loss in video quality compared to the other formats.

 Just my 2 cents