How Do I Create a Family Documentary? and What Interview Questions Should I Ask My Grandparents? are two questions we often hear from genealogy enthusiasts looking to take their family history to the next level.
At Your Legacy Story, we LOVE hearing the excitement around creating family history documentaries. Sure, written life sketches and photos are great ways to keep our loved ones’ stories alive long after they’ve passed, but nothing beats hearing those stories in their own voices.
So, how do you get started?
The first question you need to ask yourself is: What do I want to accomplish with this interview?
You might want to capture an entire life sketch. Perhaps you’re interested in a handful of meaningful life experiences. Or maybe you’re focusing on the spiritual side of your parent’s or grandparent’s life. Knowing your goal will help guide the questions you ask.
Once you have your objective, you can start crafting the types of questions to ask. The most important tip is to ensure all your questions are open-ended and designed to encourage your loved one to elaborate.
Here are a few example questions to get you started:
- Can you tell me about your parents and/or siblings, and share a few traits for each of them that you love?
- Can you tell me about three of your favorite stories from your childhood and how they shaped your life?
- Tell me your and grandma’s love story. How did you meet? What was your first date? When did you know you were in love? How did you propose?
- If the person you’re interviewing is religious, you can ask how they gained their faith and request specific examples of times they’ve felt God’s love.
The key to being a great interviewer is asking questions in a way that prompts thoughtful and detailed responses.
While we love helping people prepare for interviews with their parents or grandparents, the truth is that creating a compelling interview that people want to watch takes effort. Home videos often suffer from poor sound quality, inadequate lighting, and shaky footage. Additionally, with the abundance of photos and videos on phones—averaging around 3,000—less than 50% are actually viewed.
Unfortunately, many DIY family history projects start with good intentions but quickly get lost amid selfies and food photos. Even worse, hundreds of millions of photos and videos are lost each year when phones are upgraded and data isn’t backed up.
Your loved ones’ stories deserve to be recorded and preserved in a way that captures their personality, energy, and excitement. That’s exactly what we do at Your Legacy Story!
What are the benefits of working with a family documentary specialty service like Your Legacy Story?
First and most obvious is production quality. Our interviews feature two ultra-high-definition cameras, professional-grade lavalier microphones, and LED lighting kits that can be adjusted to best suit the interview space. Our equipment is on par with that used in Hollywood documentaries or top-tier news broadcasts.
Once the interview is complete, all packages—from Basic to Diamond—are edited using industry-standard video and audio editing platforms. The final product is a beautiful documentary that truly reflects your loved one’s personality.
Beyond production quality, there are other advantages to working with a professional team.
We’ve found that scheduling time for filming is often not a priority for the DIY crowd. Arranging an hour or two for a family member to sit down and answer questions rarely happens. When it does, sessions tend to last no more than 15–20 minutes. In contrast, when a professional team conducts the interview, your loved one is more willing to schedule the time and isn’t in a rush to finish.
Our interviewers have decades of experience and know how to ask the right questions to elicit detailed responses. They’re skilled at encouraging individuals to elaborate, providing insights that might not surface otherwise. Since the interviewee is hearing the story for the first time, your loved one is more likely to set up the situation, share details about all involved, and even reveal parts of their story they might feel embarrassed to share with family. This results in a more authentic and comprehensive account of their life and stories.
With a variety of package options, Your Legacy Story is ready to work with your family to produce documentaries that tell your loved ones’ stories in the way they deserve to be remembered.
