What Kind of Person Has a Video Biography Made?
Posted on January 26, 2010 - Filed Under Geneaology, Networking, Personal History, Preserving Memories, Social Media
In talking about my business to families and individuals, I often come across the perception that you have to be “almost famous” to have a video made about you or your family. People will say, “well there’s nothing really that interesting about us. We’re just a regular family doing regular things. Nothing like the people you see on TV.” The perception being that your life has to have been distinguished by something remarkable and media-worthy in order to justify the production of a biography.
One of the things that I often ask people is if I had a video of their great-grandfather talking about his life, what would that be worth to them? Most people get it and smile. “Of course, I would do whatever I could to get a copy of that.” It deserves some thought about what we are creating now that would leave something behind for our great-grandchildren. How will they know us?
Genealogy is the number 1 hobby in America today. I have been working on my own genealogy chart and it’s such a thrill when I find some small bit of information about one of my ancestors. I spoke with a great-aunt this past weekend who gave me some information about one of my great-grandmothers that I didn’t know. (That’s her in the photo above.) It was so exciting to hear these details, facts that even my father wasn’t aware of. Small thrills in the discovery of clues about her life. Other people I know are involved in the same pursuit. Putting together pieces of their own family puzzle. We’re all hungry for connection; knowing where we came from helps us figure out where we might be going. Most of our ancestors were just ordinary people, doing what they could to create a better life for themselves and for their families. My ancestors were all poor immigrants from eastern European countries. There were a few that had some flash and sizzle episodes but none were John D. Rockefellers or Fred Astairs. How I wish one of them had had the forethought to sit down in front of an audio recorder or write some type of record of what they were up to in life.
Most of our clients experiences with family research mirror my own experiences. True, some are community icons having made a name for themselves in business or philanthropic commitments. But most of our clients are just “regular people” who are committed to passing on their values and ethics, the events that shaped their lives, and their visions for the future in the hopes that their future ancestors will know and understand who they were. Many are children of people who see the need to capture their parents histories, while the parents themselves consider it a lot of fuss (although they are secretly pleased to have their family care enough about them to take the time and spend the money recording their personal histories.)
To me, recording one’s history is as important as a Last Will and Testament. One transfers your physical assets, the other, passes on something less tangible but much more important, you.
Stefani Twyford is a personal historian sharing life stories, connecting generations and preserving legacies. To learn more, visit her web site, find her on Twitter as @stefanitwyford, visit the Legacy Multimedia Facebook Fan Page, or send her an e-mail.
Anatomy of an Archival Scrapbook Project
Posted on January 19, 2010 - Filed Under Family Memories, Media Archiving, Personal History, Photo Restoration, Photos & Snapshots, Preserving Memories
We are in the process of wrapping up a large scrapbook project for a client that has been such a delight to work on that I wanted to share the project and the process we’ve gone through as I believe many of my readers may have similar such scrapbooks and may wonder what can be done with them.
Some of you might be wondering, “scrapbook?? I thought you did video?” While our primary service is biographical and tribute videos, our core value proposition is helping you preserve your memories and create legacies. Inside of that, we often work with businesses and families helping them preserve the bits and pieces they have collected over the years and put them into a format that can both preserve the original materials in a safe, archival resting place while creating products that allow these to be easily shared with other family members. To that end we routinely create filing architectures for large scanning projects and often work with old scrapbooks and photo albums. Final products for these may be a printed copy of the book and/or the production of a video sharing the images but also allowing for the discussion of these objects by family members. I’ll talk more about that later.
This scrapbook we have been working on was created during the 1950s and 1960s by the mother of a large family. It chronicles the many camping trips and adventures the family took together over those two decades. The mom lovingly put captions under each image that narrates the image as well as things that happened during that specific trip and it is such a rich and treasured keepsake to this family.
Unfortunately over the ensuing years, the book has succumbed to the gradual effects of time and the deterioration that goes along with repeated handling of a much loved item. When the client brought it through the doors, little bits of the paper pages were falling on the floor of my office. I was afraid to let it leave or for that matter, even keep it! The pages were turning brown from acid and were brittle and cracking. Most had broken free of the album’s binding and were layered in order. Some pages were so severely damaged that parts of the handwritten text were missing. At one point, the mom had made an attempt to transfer everything into a new album and there were several pages of new paper where she had transferred the photos and begin the arduous process of rewriting all her little handwritten captions and notes. But unfortunately she was struck with Alzheimer’s disease and the project came to a halt. So the client brought the project to us with two goals, to save the current album and to create copies for each family member.
The first thing we did was to disassemble the album putting each full page into a Mylar (archival safe) sleeve and then put each page sleeve into a heavy duty archival storage box that will become the book’s final storage place. After this was done and we had an inventory of page and image counts, we began the task of scanning the pages and images. Each page was scanned through the Mylar sleeve so as not to risk further damaging the already fragile edges. High resolution scans were made that would serve as working files.
After the pages were scanned, each photograph was cropped and selective enhancements were made depending on the image. Some were just corrected for color balance or brightness while some needed much more extensive restoration work. Then each restored image was placed back into a file of the full page.
At this point I want to mention that there were several conversations with the client on options. Because there were so many handwritten bits that were damaged or missing, we considered having the mother’s handwriting matched and a custom font developed. Each image would then be placed and the text recreated with that font. We also considered finding all the letters and creating an ‘alphabet file’ of each letter and using those to patch the missing text. In the end we all decided that the pages should retain as much of their aged character as possible while coming up with some creative solutions for translating the missing text.
We addressed the missing text by providing an index in the back with each caption and a footnoting system matching original text images with the corresponding translation in the index. Pages were also such as a Preface explaining what the book was and creating a context for time, location and who created it.
We are in the process now of creating the final galley proofs for the client to approve before it goes to the printer. The final book will be a 13 x 19″ leather bound album with foil embossing on the cover and spine. Six copies will be printed on 100 lb. dull coat high quality paper stock. The images are absolutely gorgeous and will be a family treasure that I am sure will be equally loved as much as if not more than the original album.
I have been discussing the idea of creating a companion video where the family members will be interviewed discussing the album, the images in the album, and their recollections and memories of the times and adventures that the album showcases. What an amazing opportunity to have each family member talk about what they remember and how much having this album has meant to them!
They are considering it.
Stefani Twyford is a personal historian sharing life stories, connecting generations and preserving legacies. To learn more, visit her web site, find her on Twitter as @stefanitwyford, visit the Legacy Multimedia Facebook Fan Page, or send her an e-mail.
PBS “Faces of America” To Ask “Where Do You Come From?”
Posted on January 11, 2010 - Filed Under Family Memories, Geneaology, Personal History
Henry Louis Gates, Jr., noted scholar and biographer has a new, four-part PBS documentary to air February 10 – March 3 from 8-9 PM on your local PBS Channel.
Focusing on 12 known US personalities such as Mario Batali, Dr. Oz, Meryl Streep, Yo-Yo Ma and other well known names, the documentary uses genetic genealogy to track the ancestral make up of each person. For the first time ever, the actual DNA genome sequencing was filmed and will be shown on television.
Technorati Tags: DNA sequencing, genetic genealogy, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., PBS Faces of America
Rescuing Texas History Mini-grants Available, January 15, 2010 deadline
Posted on December 31, 2009 - Filed Under Media Archiving, Preserving Memories
“The Portal to Texas History staff at University of North Texas extends an invitation to institutions for a “Rescuing Texas History” mini-project.
We are funding mini-projects for libraries, archives, museums, historical societies, and other groups that hold history materials. All of the materials will be scanned at the Digital Imaging Lab in the Willis Library on the University of North Texas campus in Denton, and hosted in The Portal to Texas History. For the digitization mini-projects we will allocate funding in the range of $25 – $1000, based on the costs outlined in the application.
The application deadline is January 15, 2010, and scanning will begin in March of 2010.
Learn more and download applications at: http://texashistory.unt.edu/about/news/rescue/
Questions? Please contact Tara Carlisle, (940) 369-8740, tara.carlisle@unt.edu.”
Technorati Tags: Portal to Texas History, University of North Texas
Holiday Ideas for Creating Family History Projects
Posted on December 18, 2009 - Filed Under Family Memories, Personal History, Preserving Memories
This is the time of year when we gather with our families and close friends and community to celebrate the holidays. It’s a special time of year often accompanied by many traditions, some of them passed down many generations, some of them new as we blend families or add new family members who may have come from other cultures. The cool thing about traditions is that we’re the ones that get to pick how we’re going to celebrate; what foods we’ll eat, what games we’ll play, how gifts will be distributed and what stories we will tell.
Another annual tradition is me writing a blog, a newsletter article or speaking publicly about how important it is to take advantage of the fact that friends and family are together and you have the perfect opportunity to work on your family history now!
Believe me, I understand how easy it is to get swept up in the shopping, and cooking and celebrating. Taking time to actually create opportunities for family members to talk about their past or their futures takes a bit of planning. But honestly, it’s not that much work and there’s so many great things that you can do.
So here are a few of my favorite ideas:
- My favorite thing is to get kids involved in documenting family history. Buy a bunch of disposable cameras and give each child (obviously not the very young ones) a camera and a pad of paper and pen, and assign them a relative to photograph and interview. Perhaps mention something they may have in common with that relative. If your son is into football and your grandfather was the high school quarterback, let your son ask him questions about his sports career and how that shaped his life. You may need to coach each kid and give them some specific questions to ask their assigned interviewee but I guarantee you that by the time they are done, each will know and understand the other a bit better.
- Even better is to use an audio recorder or video camcorder to interview people. Setup a video recorder in a bedroom and throughout the day, have people drop in to be interviewed. Ask them to talk about a specific memory from a previous holiday. I was at a party last night and we went around the table and said what our most memorable holiday gift was that we had received as a child. It was fascinating.
- Have some of the elders interview the younger generation. Ask them questions about how they see their role in the family, what they want to be when they grow up and why, what holiday traditions they really enjoy and perhaps what ideas they have for introducing new holiday traditions into the family. These interviews will become priceless as the years go by and when these kids are adults, they will look back fondly on these interviews!
- Watch some of the old family films and be intentional about identifying all the people and the locations in the videos. Sometimes, once the elders pass on, important family films get tossed out because they are full of unidentified people.
- Ask everyone to bring a copy of a photo from previous family gatherings, memorabilia from something you’ve all done together or a short story about your family and put these all together in a family scrapbook. You can even create a new tradition where family members add to this scrapbook every year.
These are just a few ideas to get you thinking. If your family is doing something creative, leave a comment and let us know.
Have a warm and wonderful holiday season everyone.
Stefani Twyford is a personal historian sharing life stories, connecting generations and preserving legacies. To learn more, visit her web site, find her on Twitter as @stefanitwyford, visit the Legacy Multimedia Facebook Fan Page, or send her an e-mail.
The Value of Visual Storytelling Through Video Biographies
Posted on December 8, 2009 - Filed Under Family Memories, Personal History, Preserving Memories, Video Tributes
Last week the American Chronicle published a beautiful article about what it is we do here at Legacy Multimedia.
While it’s always great to get PR, I particularly like this article because I felt that writer Pam Vetter asked the right questions and framed all the responses into a context that really gets to the essence of what it is that we do.
Because the process of creating a video biography or personal history is so detailed, it’s difficult to communicate in an elevator speech (that is how much information you can communicate to someone while an elevator goes up one or two floors and is a standard of networking and promotional coaching.) Traditional advertising usually fails for us because how do you communicate everything we do and the experience of working on a family history in a 3×5″ space? When I am being glib, I will say that what we do is make people cry. There is some truth to this. The experience of seeing your family or a family member honored and their stories told can be deeply moving. I have even heard from a couple of readers that this American Chronicle article had them in tears. This is great to hear since it shows me and Pam that we really communicated the emotion of how we help people.
Having the ability to watch a video that succinctly tells others who you are, what you’ve given your life to, the lessons you’ve learned on the way and maybe some that you wish you hadn’t, is a chance to share who you are. Relatives and future descendants can understand the values that were passed on to them without their conscious awareness in such areas as education, work ethics, the friends that were part of your life, what church you went to or why you chose not to go. How you celebrate or don’t celebrate your holidays and the traditions your family has developed that leave their own unique footprint on your family. All of the things we do, that we’ve always done, explain who we are. Some we can point to and say, “my parents always taught me that….” and others we’ve incorporated into our behavioral repertoire because they made sense in the context of our other values.
We are all curious about what our ancestors did and yet most of us, for a variety of reasons, don’t take the time to chronicle our own stories. I think this article really gets to the value of what we do and why it’s important for all families to keep a record or family history. I hope you enjoy reading it.
(If the link ends up breaking, which it will eventually do, you can read a PDF we’ve created of the article and posted on our website.)
Stefani Twyford is a personal historian sharing life stories, connecting generations and preserving legacies. To learn more, visit her web site, find her on Twitter as @stefanitwyford, visit the Legacy Multimedia Facebook Fan Page, or send her an e-mail.
Technorati Tags: American Chronicle, Pam Vetter
Days With My Father by Philip Toledano
Posted on November 23, 2009 - Filed Under Family Memories, Personal History, Photos & Snapshots
My son recently sent me a link to a beautiful website called “Days With My Father.” It is a beautiful and sentimental photo gallery done by a professional photographer with his writings about dealing with the final stages of his father’s Alzheimers Disease.
As someone whose work it is to preserve memories, I found this a beautiful and touching memorial. I sent it out to several of my friends who sent me back emails thanking me for sharing the link and how much they really appreciated seeing the site.
We each have our own way of memorializing our loved ones. Some of us create photo books, some save specific items of that person, sometimes we keep their room intact, or hire a company like ours to create a video about that person. Toledano’s unique combination of writing and photography as well as his perspective of being the loving and grieving child of a dying parent really allows for a very sensitive and thoughtful approach to a bittersweet and yet beautiful experience.
Stefani Twyford is a personal historian sharing life stories, connecting generations and preserving legacies. To learn more, visit her web site, find her on Twitter as @stefanitwyford, visit the Legacy Multimedia Facebook Fan Page, or send her an e-mail.
Lily Koppel’s “The Red Leather Diary”
Posted on November 13, 2009 - Filed Under Family Memories, Personal History, Preserving Memories
If you follow me on any of the social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, then you know a couple of weeks ago I spent the week in Valley Forge Pennsylvania at the Association of Personal Historians annual conference. It was an amazing five days (plus I tacked on another two to do some urban touring around Philadelphia), and I met some remarkable people and learned a lot. My last blog post was a general recap of the week there and some of the highlights but I would have to say that I was profoundly affected by one of the keynote presentations there that has lead me down a huge rabbit hole of thought and exploration into the concept of an “ordinary life”.
The presentation was by Lily Koppel, a writer and author of “The Red Leather Diary.” In 2003, Lily found the diary in a dumpster when the manager of her NYC apartment building cleared out one of the storage rooms. The diary was started by 14 year old Florence and written in every day for five years. It chronicles her coming of age in a time (late 1920s to early 1930s) when young women were schooled in the artistic life and allowed to pursue art, dance, writing and theater as a vocation. Ms. Koppel became entranced by the book and finally located the diarist, now in her 90s. Together, they explored the diary and this one girl’s life and the book was born, weaving the story of the diary, the story of Florence, and Lily Koppel’s own story of how finding the diary changed her own life.
What’s had me so engrossed is something that Lily said in her keynote presentation. She talked about how the young girl in the diary was so unfamiliar to Florence when she was finally reunited with the diary again. How reading about her own exploits as a young woman ‘breathed new life’ into her “old woman” and got her excited again. The secondary title is “Reclaiming a Life Through the Pages of a Lost Journal” and I think that concisely addresses the reaction of both Florence, the diarist, as well as Ms. Koppel upon finding the diary and my own fascination with this story as a discussion for the concept of an ordinary life.
We tend to become comfortable in our own skins as we go about the tasks of work, marriage, raising children, dealing with tragedy and setbacks and particularly learning to age gracefully as we face the passing years. I’ve interviewed so many people who claim their lives are not interesting, that they are in fact, ordinary. We envision giant apartment complexes with each apartment containing one or a few people going about these ordinary tasks; fixing dinner, reading the paper, washing and ironing clothes. And yet inside these ordinary lives are strings of magical moments, each as perfect and unique as a pearl but which all start to look the same when viewed on a string from afar.
Often in the course of working with a person, only when I begin to shape these moments and events into a story does the person begin to recognize the depth and breath of what they’ve done and who they’ve touched in their lives. (I wrote of this phenomenon in my Blog article “The Three Dynamics of Personal History.”) These are the moments that are shared over holiday dinners with other family members or at reunions of any sort. “Remember the time…” is what these moments are made of. It can be a humbling experience when someone helps you to see that your life has not be insignificant and that while you are busy measuring what is next and what you haven’t accomplished, there is someone (your historian or biographer) who is there to help you remember each post in the miles of fence you’ve planted on the way.
Ms Koppel’s reuniting Florence with her diary and then helping her go through it and fill in the flesh of the stories gave her her life back. But her life was always there, it had just receded into the past, grayed and covered with dust, just like the diary was when it was found in the dumpster.
Stefani Twyford is a personal historian sharing life stories, connecting generations and preserving legacies. To learn more, visit her web site, find her on Twitter as @stefanitwyford, visit the Legacy Multimedia Facebook Fan Page, or send her an e-mail.
Technorati Tags: Lily Koppel, The Red Leather Diary
2009 Association of Personal Historians Conference in Valley Forge
Posted on November 2, 2009 - Filed Under Family Memories, Networking, Personal History, Preserving Memories, Social Media
If you follow me on any of the social media platforms such as Twitter (@stefanitwyford) or Facebook, you’ll know that I spent the previous week at the 2009 Association of Personal Historians Conference in Valley Forge Pennsylvania.
Having never been to the Philadelphia area, I was particularly excited to be spending time at Valley Forge, the historic site of the American Revolution and birthplace of everything we now take for granted as being intrinsically American. I was not disappointed. For the most part, the weather was spectacular and I got in several hikes in the historic Valley Forge National Park where Continental Soldier barracks still exist and canons lay about the fields as if no afterthought was given to their disposal. I also spent a day in downtown Philadelphia and took one of those double-decker bus tours of the historic sights with my friend CJ Madigan. We had a great time and learned a lot about Philadelphia as well. Unfortunately we chose to tour on a Monday and most of the museums were closed so I guess that will just give me a reason to visit again.
This is the second APH conference I have attended, the first was two years ago in Nashville TN, whose local persona is still steeped in the Civil War (you could see an American war theme here although next year’s conference will be held in Victoria, British Columbia so that ends any comparisons.) When I went to Nashville I was new to the organization and spent my time meeting people, finding out what they were up to, and seeing where our work fit in among the other members. Since that time, I have gotten more involved within the organization, serving on their education committee, providing support in upcoming website changes as well as creating a social media presence for the organization. I’ve gotten to know several of the members well through emails, phone calls, and list serve postings, so I was excited to be going there and sharing some time with them as well as making new friends.
When you have a career in an area that is not too well known, in our case personal history or video biography, it is very exciting to find and meet with people who share your passion for storytelling. It provides an opportunity to share what you’re doing, learn from others, talk and even commiserate about specific issues you’ve faced and get advice on projects you may be looking to work on. There were close to 200 people at the conference and believe me, we’re not all doing the same thing. Many write books, more and more are going into video work, there are photo and film restoration experts, graphic designers that specialize in book layouts, printers that specialize in short run books and magazines, audio technicians, storytellers that specialize in hospice, storytellers that specialize in corporate histories and even an ‘celebrant’ who personalizes memorial services by sharing stories of the deceased’s life. You get the picture, we’re a unique and extremely talented group of people.
We had some terrific keynote speakers that still have me thinking. Maureen Taylor, known as the Photo Detective, shared details of the work she’s been doing researching photos and life stories for her upcoming book, “The Last Muster: Images of the Revolutionary War Generation.” This book has been in the works for nearly a decade and she shared with us the many hot and cold leads from one photo to another. With some interesting lessons on identifying hair styles, print backgrounds and clothing clues, I now am able to recognize the bonnet of a married women during the Revolutionary War without having to Google it!
Kurt Medina, of Medina Associates, talked to us about marketing to the Boomer Generation. Sharing his “77 Truths About the Age 50+ Consumer” he told us that age group was particularly looking for value and if they could find the implied value in a product or service, they would purchase. While I found his slide comparisons of ads that deftly targeted seniors needs and desires to those that were more about the advertiser useful in learning about marketing technique, when he completely dismissed social media I had to disagree. I approached him after and told him that yes, 70 year olds were probably not sitting on the internet Googleing how to find a personal historian. But women over 50 are the fastest growing demographic on Facebook and Boomers are increasingly shopping, socializing and learning on the internet. By so patently dismissing the current surge in social media, he was making a big mistake. I finally got him to agree that he may have been overstated his position but by then, most of the people had left the room and many who were registered for my social media workshop the very next day, decided that it wasn’t worth pursuing.
My workshop did end up having about 30 people attend and I thought that it went very well. There were basically two camps, those that were ready to embrace social media and wanted to know how, and those that were skeptical and wanted to be convinced. My position is that whether they chose to develop a social media campaign or not, they did need to recognize that social media is an evolution in communication and not a fad to be quickly dismissed. If they could get this, then they could choose from knowledge and develop a social media strategy that worked for them rather than avoid social media altogether out of fear. We had some interesting discussions and I didn’t get to cover all the things I had hoped we’d be able to do in the session but so far the feedback has been good. I’m looking forward to reading the written reviews from participants when they are sent to me.
There were many other fantastic sessions featuring everything from techniques for interviewing people to reviewing the nuts and bolts of video biographies. Several unique project concepts were introduced that allowed members to explore outside the traditional box on what might be possible when approaching a new project. We also had a “Print Show and Tell” as well as a “Video Share” where I screened part of a video that we’ve won three awards for this year. There were some amazing videos there. I was quite smitten with a first attempt at a video biography – watching as the elder woman gave a tour through her china cabinet talking about what pieces she particularly liked. It was very sweet. There were many emotion-provoking moments at the video share, which I think, is probably the point.
The keynote speaker that made the most impact on me was Lily Koppel, author of “The Red Leather Diary“. I was mesmerized by her speech and have almost finished reading her book and will visit this in my next blog post so stay tuned for that in the next week.
Next year’s 2010 Personal Historians Conference will take place in early November in majestic Victoria, British Columbia Canada and the Call for Proposals is open until January 14, 2010. Hope to see many of you there!
Stefani Twyford is a personal historian sharing life stories, connecting generations and preserving legacies. To learn more, visit her web site, find her on Twitter as @stefanitwyford, visit the Legacy Multimedia Facebook Fan Page, or send her an e-mail.
Technorati Tags: APH, Association of Personal Historians, Kurt Medina, Lily Koppel, Maureen Taylor The Photo Detective, Social Media
Memory and Craft
Posted on October 13, 2009 - Filed Under Family Memories, Media Archiving, Personal History, Preserving Memories
I was recently watching “Craft in America“, PBS’s excellent series covering the major influences that play a part in each artist’s craft. The particularly episode I watched was episode V – Process, that looked at how an artist achieves the skill to become proficient. It profiled several artists about how they have learned their techniques. Artist Tom Joyce, was talking about how he has learned technique from a very old blacksmith. They showed them together, this very old man sitting in a chair with a blanket around his knees, and Joyce, the younger artist showing him the piece that he had worked on. The old man was very slow and careful inspecting this patterned grate but approved of the piece and said that Tom had done good work. Afterward, Joyce was talking about the fact that if these old craftsmen weren’t still around, most of the techniques would be lost as there would be nobody to pass on the information about how to create specific effects.
In episode 1 – Memory – the show discusses how craft artists carry on historical traditions in the creation of their own unique work.
“Unlike fine artists, who perhaps capture a moment in time, and are more concerned with an artistic style and technique, craft artists, through their objects, go beyond telling where we were, making a statement of who we are. Their objects will create memories for us, because the artists give selflessly of their memories in creating the objects.”
On their website I found this great article from the series on memory fragments and how we collect things, memorabilia, that are personal and evoke specific feelings or memories of people or events from our past. Boxes of old letters, ticket stubs, sports medals, and other items that are either on display as a collection or tucked away, safe somewhere where we can pull them out and reminisce. Sometimes we collect other people’s memories because it evokes a connection to the past in us that we can relate to. Materials for craft projects are often taken from found bits that are personal and evoke specific feelings or memories. I have a quilt I made for my son that has fabric from the lining of his baby sling worked into the pattern. I also collect old photographs because I am curious about who these people are and what happened that their family memories ended up in a flea market.
What is particularly interesting to me are these points and how they relate to what I do as video biographer. I think people tend to collapse what we do with videography, which according to Wikipedia “refers to the process of capturing moving images on electronic media.” While there are definitely skills associated with videography that distinguish a good videographer from one of less skill, we have always bristled a bit when people introduce us as videographers or ‘people who make videos.” Using classic filmmaking techniques and the latest digital tools, we weave together our clients’ ‘memory fragments’ such as vintage photos, memorabilia, old footage, and audio tracks with interviews, voice-over narrations, music, animations, and titles to craft a wonderful tapestry of images and sounds that share memories, impart wisdom, and mark history. These create works of art that inform, entertain and inspire – today and for many years to come.
I love the process of being able to take these fragments that our clients have, things that they know are important but don’t really know what to do with, and transform them into a story of who they are and where they came from. Like the old blacksmith passing on the techniques to younger metal smiths, if we don’t take what we know about the past and pass that on to the future, these ‘fragments’ will just occur to our ancestors as found bits without story and context.
I certainly hope they don’t end up sitting in a flea marketing where someone else may find them and wonder.
Stefani Twyford is a personal historian sharing life stories, connecting generations and preserving legacies. To learn more, visit her web site, find her on Twitter as @stefanitwyford, visit the Legacy Multimedia Facebook Fan Page, or send her an e-mail.
Technorati Tags: Craft in America keep looking »
