Ten Ways to Use Multimedia To Tell Your Life Story and Family History

There are a variety of ways you can use multimedia to tell your life story. These days you can be very creative with multimedia and choices include some of the following.

1. CAMCORDER. Use a camcorder to record a video of some aspects of your life story, or all of it. If you are new to using video software try an easier program such as windows movie maker, since it comes with your computer.

2. SCAN PHOTOS. Scan childhood and family photos into the computer and add them to the storyboard in the video software.

3. SUBTITLES. Add subtitles to the photos and video clips. If you are new to making videos this might sound complicated but it's just more click and choose types of steps.

4. RECORD. Make a vocal recording of a reading of parts of your life story, that plays while showing photos or video clips.

5. VIDEO CLIPS. Visit your childhood home or other important places from your life and make video clips showing them today. Research on the internet to find vintage photos of places or things from different historical eras in your life. For instance, if you grew up in the 1940's you might want to have photos of automobiles from that time.

6. INTERVIEWS. Make lists of questions and interview your family members about shared memories, perhaps of holiday times or other events.

7. HISTORY. Add historical material to give additional interest and perspective to your life story. For instance, if you were a teen-ager during the 1960's describe the national or world events that were taking place. What were you doing on the night the astronauts landed on the moon?

8. TAPE RECORD. Tape or use a digital recorder to record your memories when something triggers them. Try telling your story to a recorder and then transcribe it for a more spontaneous flow.

9. COMBINE. Combine video, music from eras of your life, photos scanned into the computer, subtitles, and more in a series of life stories from different parts of your life.

10. GRAPHICS. Add a graphic of your family tree to the video, and/or photos and videos of the family members.