Creating a Video Biography

Whether you are creating a video biography on yourself or on someone else think about why you are creating it. This video biography will bring in a few topics we have already talked about like, Photo Montages, How to Shoot Better Video, and even in some cases Funeral Videos. A lot of video biography videos are 30-60 minutes long, the shorter the better.

You will hopefully be interviewing many different people from different times in that persons life for the video biography. Much like in the funeral videos we talked about interviewing loved ones about the departed, in this case we are hoping we are going to be talking to family members and friends but more along the lines of the history of a family or even facts about what is going on now. The interview part should go smoothly if once again, you plan properly. Have your interview questions typed out and ready. If you need to send out what you are going to ask each person so they are not caught off guard, or even better so they don’t ramble on about how little Jimmy got his thumb stuck in a bees nest, although that could be entertaining and I’m sure there are photos of that.

When you are planning your video biography you don’t necessarily have to start off with when that person was born, it might be nice to start with what you think the most important part of his or her life is/was. I bet that would be a twist, if you start by taking what their best moment was and work backwards to where and when they were born your audience would have to stay focused because they would want to know where it all began. Starting from the beginning and working up to the big story might have people taking a snooze in the front row and we would not want that now would we?

When setting up your camera for your video biography you want to have your camera on a tripod, you want to make sure your camera is level with you and who you are interviewing as well, have you ever seen an interview done in a movie or on TV where the camera is set higher, and looking down on the subjects? Let me tell you it does not look great. You also what to make sure you have enough light while shooting, either grab some window light or make sure you have an extra light handy if you need it.

All the rest comes down to editing your video, adding in your photos and  your music, and most importantly making sure your video biography makes sense. If you forgot about a part in this families life when that video comes out or goes into the final directors cut, you might have some unhappy campers. Do what you can in the planning stages and make sure to have everything prepped and ready for your interviews. It will make shooting your video biography so much easier.