Do you know how to make a family history video?
You may have spent weeks and even months collecting all that precious information about your family.
All this may include photos, a sea of dates and names, old manuscripts, interviews of your family members, and much more. The content you have gathered may not excite or interest your children and grandchildren. But obviously, you want them to know about their family history and pass it to them.
How to Make a Family History Video?
So how can you make them interested in their family history? The answer is to create an engaging family history video. Photos, interviews, old manuscripts, and other stuff may not instill excitement in them. But the thought of watching a family legacy video probably do because the idea of viewing something on-screen captivates the attention of today’s generation.
You may not have the resources and skills to make professional family video footage, but plenty of innovative, cost-effective, and user-friendly tools are available. They help you to create family legacy videos at a fraction of the cost.
To make the task easier for you, here are some valuable tools, tips, and more. These allow you to create fabulous and appealing family video footage to preserve your family history. Oh and do take a look here if you are wanting to include in your video some royalty free music to really give it some texture.
How to Make a Family History Video – Video Shoot of Your Family
Videos are all about movement. You may not have the perfect shots, but you can do fun with the available information like photos, manuscripts, interviews, etc. Remember that you’re not in a race to make an award-winning family video footage. It’s your family legacy that you want to show to your new generation. You’ll probably use your digital or mobile phone camera to shoot family history videos. And this is the most convenient and budget-friendly way to do it.
These are excellent tools that you can use, but you need to do some extra work.
You need to invest in a quality microphone, lighting equipment, and a tripod stand. There are numerous options available in the market that fit your budget. Investing in this additional equipment lets you shoot the best quality family video footage with proper lighting, sound, and stable shots.
Saving and Organizing Family Video Footages and Photos
Once you complete shooting your family history videos, it’s probably in snippets and saved in your digital camera or mobile phone. You need to save and organize them before starting with video editing. There are different options available that you can use. Transfer your videos and photos from a digital camera or phone to your laptop or computer’s storage in a separate folder.
Name the folders with the date and year to save them in chronological order automatically. Another option is to keep them directly in your hard drive or cloud storage such as Google Photos/Drive, iCloud, or DropBox. This allows you to access your videos and photos from any device, anywhere, and anytime.
How to Make a Family History Video – Video Editing
The next step is video editing after shooting and saving your family legacy video. You definitely want to make a smooth and captivating video with the proper lighting, effects, sound, and more. If you don’t want to edit the family history video, you can avoid it by filming it in a single sitting.
If you want to turn those video clips of your family history into a substantial video, you can surely do that with little effort and commitment. But this is often difficult because you may not have enough time for this, or there are so many interruptions around, making it difficult to film it perfectly. This is where video editing tools come in. It’s something you can do in just a few hours over the weekends. There are numerous easy-to-use video editing tools available, and many of them are free to use.
Here are some practical and user-friendly tools that you can use to do video edits:
Movavi
Movavi have a powerful video editing tool packed with several features that make it easy for you to produce attractive family legacy videos. Its clear and simple interface allows you to create and edit your videos like a professional without the need for any technical skill. You can check out their video tutorials before starting with video edits. In addition to its free version, you can subscribe to this application by choosing from different plans. This enables you to use advanced features of this video editing software.
Canva
Canva is a great video editing application that allows quick and easy editing without any prior experience. You can easily create compelling and professional quality family legacy videos. It offers a vast collection of pre-designed templates which you can use to enhance your videos. Plus, it gives you access to its video, audio, element, and photo library without any extra charges.
Hitfilm Express
Hitfilm Express is another free and one of the best video editing tools perfect for immature filmmakers. It’s easy to use with plenty of features and a customizable interface with an array of enhancements. You can drag and drop its special effects to enhance your family videos. It comes with a free library of instructional videos which you can watch before starting your family video editing project.
Youtube Video Editor
If you intend to publish your family legacy video on your YouTube channel, you can use the free built-in Youtube video editor. You don’t need to have any experience to use this simple and accessible tool. You can trim your video to remove unnecessary elements, add cards, music, and end screen to your family legacy video linking it to your other videos, playlists or channels, and much more.
Add Music to Your Family Legacy Video
Music spices up any video, and your family history video is no exception. You can find great options to add music to your family history video.
There are plenty of online music applications where you can search for awesome music without limitations of copyright or trademark, such as SoundStripe and iTunes. These platforms have tons of sound effects and music that you can quickly scan and add to your family history video.
Final Thoughts on How to Make a Family History Video
Creating a family history video is not an uphill task if you do it with little preparation. Your family history video is a thoughtful gift idea to present to your loved ones on various occasions. And they are sure to fall in love with it if you’ve put in effort in video editing. It’ll make your family legacy video much better with professional touches guaranteed to excite and engage your young ones.
Research Links
https://lisalouisecooke.com/family-history-videos/
https://familytreevideo.com/family-documentary/
https://techcrunch.com/2019/12/06/canva-introduces-video-editing-has-big-plans-for-2020/
https://www.tomsguide.com/us/best-free-video-editing-software,review-5301.html
https://www.familyadventureproject.org/tips-for-making-family-videos/
https://www.honestlymodern.com/how-to-create-easy-video-montages-for-your-family/
