Family Historian User Group

I have just started converting my father's old cine films to DVD and am wondering how best to note who the individuals are. For example when I played it to my mother there was a woman I couldn't identify and she told me it was my great aunt Pat. I don't want to add a commentary because I am not a TV presenter by profession and I think my voice will sound very flat and monotonous. Another option would be to subtitle the pictures when a new person appears, but again I feel this will detract from the overall viewing experience. I could do these as hidden subtitles and allow the viewer to turn them on, but they may not notice the option. It will also take a lot of time to do this and I have something like 20 hours to convert to start with.

My concern is how will my future descendants know who is in the film. Has anyone else already found a suitable method to work with cine? There are similar problems with modern camcorder footage, but at least you have sound so they may well say their names at some point.

ID:3273

Why not do a 'title' or 'Ending' sequence, with fixed screen grabs from the main film, showing the best shot of the person and their name dates etc, like the opening to a TV show?

I found some 'old' standard 8 cine films in the loft and had them put on DVD a few years back. The trouble was one of them had not been re-wound so when we viewed them we have some memorable shots of of the family walking backwards down from the top of Scarfell Pike!![mad]

My thought would be to make a written commentary/script for the film, giving information as to when and where it was taken plus make notes of times when people, pets, places are on screen. Then whoever is watching can view it without interruption, but has notes there if they want to find out more.

Thanks all for the various suggestions, I will work on a combination of them. Whatever I do will be a balance between allowing general viewing, and documenting for family history purposes. The documentation side needs to be unobtrusive, but not so hidden that no one knows it is there.