A good story-teller needs good material to work with….and investing some time in planning your story before handing over a box of photographs will be well worth the effort.
When planning your story for DVD you should consider the story you want to tell and the audience you will be speaking to as well as the specific design elements of the DVD itself. Story Weavers have prepared a “Story Board” worksheet that will help you answer these questions – work through it with the guidelines below to become your own story weaver.
Planning your Story Content
The basic place to start is to determine what you want to say! Having a general idea of where you are going with your DVD photo story will make the rest of the planning process easier.
Questions to ask yourself include:
- Is the DVD being prepared to mark a milestone event or special occasion? We have prepared a checklist of information to gather about a variety of life milestones that will help you plan the content and design of your presentation.
- How would you like to structure your story? One long chronological presentation, or a series of smaller presentations each focusing on different aspects (hobbies, work, family for example)?
- What source materials would you like to include? Photos and video footage make up the majority of presentation that Story Weavers deliver, but any image that can be scanned can be included. See our page on Scanning for further ideas.
- What soundtrack would you like to accompany your presentation? This is such a big question, we’ve dedicated a whole page to it! Check out our tips for selecting songs to accompany your show and some specific track and artist suggestions.
- See our posts on Working with Photos for further tips on planning presentation content.
Consider your Audience
While in most cases the audience for your DVD presentation will be easy to define – the birthday boy or girl for example – there may well be a wider audience to consider. If the birthday DVD is to be played at a birthday party for example, consider who is on the guest list – your 21 year old son’s mates from the footy team, or the entire extended family from 82 year old Uncle Vernon to your 2 year old niece.
Considering who the audience is and how they will be watching the presentation will help you select appropriate content and design for your DVD.
Questions to ask yourself include:
- Who is the DVD presentation for?
- How do I want these people to feel at the end of the presentation? romantic, sentimental, silly, serious, fun/upbeat, excited, happy, sad, proud, respectful…..
- Will the presentation be played at a group event? If so, what will the environment be like? Will people be sitting or standing? How long should the presentation be in order to cater for these conditions and keep people entertained?
- How familiar will the audience be with the content – will captions, music or spoken word narration or other visual clues be required to help them understand the story?
Creating the Design
With an understanding of what you want to say and who you’re talking to, you can now consider how you want the photo story to look. Design elements include backgrounds, frames, image manipulation, animated effects, graphic embellishments, print size, colour and placement of captions, and image transitions. All of these elements can be manipulated to create the “look and feel” of your DVD.
Review some of the samples on this site for ideas or tell us what you’re looking for and see how creative we can be!
Questions to ask yourself include:
- Is there a theme that you would like to use throughout the show? – the list is really endless, but some ideas include sports, hobbies, special interest, corporate brand, favourite colours….
- Is there a style that you would like to use throughout the show? – for example elegant, contemporary, traditional, bright, subtle…