Kathy and I have spent the past two weeks in Duncan, Okla., with my parents, Henry and Eunice Tuell. Both are 92, and in relatively good health.  I again conducted videotaped interviews with them, asking them to tell me everything they can remember about a long list of relatives, and about growing up in Oklahoma in the 1920s and 1930s.

I learned a few things from my previous videotaping that helped me improve this week's interviews. First, the built-in microphones on consumer video cameras do not produce high quality audio, and they pick up ambient sound in the room -- such as air conditioners, ticking clocks, etc. I purchased a relatively inexpensive RODE shotgun mic that does a much better job of picking up the voices of  interview subjects without the audio clutter.

Second, my earlier interviews shot indoors were a little dark. I purchased a shoe-mounted camera light that runs either on battery or AC power. It was better, but not great. Then I adjusted the gain on the camera and that brightened the entire scene, including the background. It produced much better video. Unfortunately, it will be a challenge to mix clips from the previous interview with the new video. I may be able to improve the older clips with the editing software (Avid Media Composer) by adjusting gamma, brightness and saturation.

Another challenge I'm facing is the size of video files. After a about an hour and a half of interviewing, I had 74 GB of raw HD video (in JVC''s proprietary condensed format). I thought I'd get a jump on converting it to Quicktime for editing, but that was a mistake -- the conversion tied up my laptop for about 24 hours, and I had to plug in a portable drive after running out of disc space. I'm reasonably sure I'll be investing in a couple of 1.5 TB drives for my editing station before my family genealogy documentary is ready to burn to DVDs.

On a related note, I'd hoped to shoot more B-roll for that project while here on the Lower Plains, but we so enjoyed being with family that it slipped down on our list of priorities. Now we're out of time  and reluctantly catching a plane home to South Florida this afternoon.

Tom