The New York Times recently added Bertram Lyons, an archivist at the American Folklife Center of the Library of Congress in Washington, to answer questions posted by NYTimes readers about preserving family audio.

Here is a link to the Part 1, where he answers questions about preserving audio. Over the next few weeks, Mr. Lyons will answer questions about photos, video, manuscripts and other issues.

Follow this link to read the full article.

There are so many sources of old audio that no longer support current playback technology. It’s so important to have these items transferred correctly and saved before they disintegrate.

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 post Tips on Preserving Family Audio appeared first on Legacy Multimedia.

Have you ever wondered if there are secrets in your family’s past you don’t know about? Even if you have never wondered, what would your reaction be if you found out your family was not who you thought them to be?

The Flat (2011 Documentary by Arnon Goldfinger) examines this premise as the Director, Arnon Goldfinger, and his family begin to clean out the flat in Tel Aviv that belonged to his grandparents Kurt and Gerda Tuchler, both immigrants from Nazi Germany. At first the family sorts through typical bric-a-brac of a home occupied for decades; clothing, books, grandmother’s large collection of gloves and other accessories. They really did not know what they were looking for, just sifting through the remains of a European past. But soon they begin to find letters, magazine clippings and photographs that lead them to uncover a shocking story. Their Jewish grandparents were very close friends with Leopold von Mildenstein, a head SS officer in the Nazi regime and the predecessor of Adolph Eichmann, and his wife. Goldfinger’s grandparents, in fact, took the couple to Palestine in the early 1930s as the officer investigated it as a suitable place to send German Jews.

The documentary follows along as Goldfinger finds and visits different family members, including the daughter of the von Mildensteins, and pieces together this confusing family history that nobody ever talked about and was a mystery to even his own mother, the Tuchler’s daughter. Some of the interviews with her were painfully awkward as a story she had no idea about, continued to unfold.

The film took five years to develop and during production, the crew expanded until the film became a German-Israeli coproduction with a prominent film company coming on board as co-producers. Clearly Goldfinger had no idea what he was taking on when he shared the fact that he was clearing the flat with the first cinematographer, Talya Galon, who lives not far from there. As new details were uncovered, Goldfinger became aware he was documenting something significant, and there are times where the camera just sits, watching him while he processes the deep emotional significance of what he’s just uncovered. I think that watching the people who appear in the film, as they deal with the truth and process their own raw emotions, was one of the best aspects of the film and allowed the audience to connect so well with the story. I found myself thinking, “how would I process that shock, particularly with a camera in front of me?” It was extremely powerful.

The original film was released in July of 2011 to sold out film festival audiences. In September 2011 it was theatrically released and is now considered to the third most viewed Israeli film of 2011. Sweeping over 13 international film awards, The Flat is now considered one of the most important documentaries made in Israel in the last decade.

Here’s a link to the IMDb where you can watch the movie trailer.

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 post The Flat – 2011 Israeli Documentary appeared first on Legacy Multimedia.

For me, this is incredible validation of the work I do. The excitement I feel working with each new client, discovering who they are, what impact they have made with their lives, and then helping record that in video in a way that entertains and inspires future generations has turned this work into my life passion. To have the New York Times recognize this as a significant contribution to the field of retirement only validates that huge impact I and my colleagues are making in recording personal histories.

I hope everyone can read the article. It may only be a live link for a couple of weeks. After that it will get archived and disappear. Likewise, if you’re not a subscriber of the Times, there is a 10 article per month quota so you if you’ve read your 10, you may not be able to see this without either waiting or subscribing.

The writer, J. Peder Zane, contacted me as he was putting together ideas for this article. He told me he’d selected me because of the quality of not only the video biography samples he saw on my website, but the quality in the website itself. I sent him a copy of the video we created for Ron Henriksen’s mother and he told me his family watched the two hours and found it “riveting!”

I was also pleased to see John Butterfield’s video and the fact that doing a video biography inspired him to go on and self-publish a book for his family with further stories. He obviously gets how important these will be.

Here is the link to the article “Hey, at Least You Can Be Virtually Immortal.” Please let me know if you have difficulty viewing this and as always, I welcome your comments.

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 post Legacy Multimedia Featured In The New York Times Article on Video Biography appeared first on Legacy Multimedia.

Grief in a Digital Age

This was Jessica Ghawi’s last tweet before she died.

Jessica’s Story

For Jessica Ghawi’s friends and family, their digital grieving began on the 20th of July, 2012. One of the 12 victims of the Aurora Shooting in Colorado, Ghawi tweeted her excitement to a friend about going to watch ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ at the midnight screening. 30 minutes later Jessica was killed after suffering gunshots to the leg and head.

A month before the Batman Massacre, the aspiring sportscaster survived a separate shooting at the Eaton Center in Toronto. She blogged about the event and the ‘empty, almost sickening feeling’ it left in her chest. That blog post and the last few tweets she sent out before her death have been viewed by thousands globally. Her wit, her insights and her personality are captured digitally and preserved for friends, family and well-wishers who have never met Ghawi.

Online Outpouring after Jessica’s Death

In honour of her memory, people used the hashtag #RIPJessica to memorialise her death on Twitter

After her death, Ghawi’s followers banded together and #RIPJessica trended, a fitting tribute as Ghawi was an active and engaged Twitter user. Her brother, Jordan Ghawi, blogged about the moments after her death and the establishment of an Official Jessica Redfield Sports Journalism Scholarship Fund in her name.

“The outpouring of support for my family is overwhelming. Hearing from people from all over the world. My family thanks you. Let us continue to focus on the victims.” Jordan Ghawi

Her friend and fellow sports-writer, Jesse Spector, wrote a tribute to her on sportingnews.com. He lamented the loss of a friend that, while their relationship occurred mostly in a digital space, was very dear to him.

“It was pure silliness, sharply sarcastic and made me smile. Only now, her shout of “MOVIE DOESN’T START FOR 20 MINUTES” is just haunting.” Jesse Spector

More Last Messages Left Online

Below are stories of people who left messages online before they died. These include final tweets, tumblr posts, photos, forum posts and blogs.

 

It has been a natural progression for people to share their feelings and experiences on social media the same way they share all their other experiences. The access to digital tools is giving us new ways to mourn death and loss.

Kristie West, a Grief Specialist based in London, said that collective grief can happen on a much larger and much more open scale through social media. Sharing thoughts and feelings with millions of people around the world can now be easily done with social media, which also provides a platform for interaction between them. In response to such deaths and disaster, solidarity and support are often shown through a formation of Facebook groups, as an example, bringing a community connection.

Grieving Online

West also said that social media has changed the way we connect with others and it is transforming the method of how people express and share their grief in the event of a death. With social media, she believes that people can be more open about their experiences. It also puts the topics of death and grief in others more often, which is really important, as it adds more awareness surrounding death.

Many popular social media websites are able to memorialise a person’s profile after they die, or provide the opportunity to create a shrine to a lost loved one, for example:

A new set of tools to grieve online:

• Grief Forums – Just like you can join the Facebook or the Pinterest online community, there are a number of social networks dedicated to bringing together mourners who want to memorialise a loved one, share memories and share their grief experience to help them deal with their loss.
• Online Memorial - There are also dedicated websites which will allow you to create a digital memorial of your loved one, archive photos, profiles, letters and documents, as well as access their final message. This creates a place for people to remember their loved ones.
• Pinterest Shrine – Allows loved ones to pin photos and letters of a person who has passed away, to create a visual memorial online.
• Tweet to Remember - Memories can be shared and loved ones memorialised through Twitter with the use of hashtags, allowing friends and family to track memories or photos posted about a person.
• MySpace Death – This is a catalogue of MySpace users who have passed away, and offers a forum and archive where loved ones can go to share their grief and work through their experiences.
• Facebook Memorial - Facebook is able to turn an ordinary profile page into a memorial page after the person dies, to allow friends to continue to post messages of love and support for the family, while removing the deceased person’s wall posts and contact details. Another option is to create a private Facebook group which is accessible by invitation only, to allow friends and family to share memories, messages and photos.

How To Deal With Loss on Social Media

 

 

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Real-life Examples of Dealing With Grief Online

Digital mourning is giving us more and more unique ways to express the feelings of grief when we lose a loved one. The cases below show how this has changed.

 

Today, it is possible that people find themselves memorialized digitally in some form in the future.

Online Celebrity Death Tributes

The following stories show how the death of public figures and celebrities ignite social media channels. Millions of fans pay their respect through blogging, videos, tweets and heartfelt messages.

 

 

Hoax Morgan Freeman Facebook page

Not every celebrity death is well received. And not every celebrity death is even real.

The celebrity death hoax is not a novel phenomenon – Steve Burns and Scott Baio have been ‘dead’ since 1997 and Bill Cosby has ‘died’ no less than four times. Morgan Freeman’s particular iteration of the fad began on the Facebook page ‘R.I.P. Morgan Freeman’ which has over 60,000 likes. He is only the latest in the morbid internet meme, and likely not the last. Freeman’s representative had to publicly announce “Morgan is alive and well, and joins the long list of actors who have been victimized by this hoax” to E Online.

Facebook pages about Morgan Freeman now have written in the ‘About’ section “He’s still alive and well, stop believing what you see on the internet.”

With the internet being an open forum, these hoaxes crop up often and repeatedly. Essentially, they are harmless and easily dissipated. Less so are the cases where online memorials were ‘trolled’. R.I.P Trolls are a next level in the mockery of death online.

Warning! Watch out for those who prey on online memorials

Beware of R.I.P Trolls

The anonymous nature of the internet has created the perfect environment for harassment, where people known as ‘trolls’ make insensitive comments about other users to spread hate. Unfortunately the attacks from trolls are not limited to the profiles and pages of living users, and some trolls will even make these distasteful and hurtful comments on memorial websites and the profile pages of the deceased. These individuals are known as RIP Trolls.

 

The hurt and despair felt by the family and victims of a RIP Troll is hard to imagine – on top of the grief and loss they are feeling, they see hateful comments and obscene photos posted by strangers to incite and spread anger. In the case of RIP Trolls on Facebook, the behaviour can be reported to the Facebook team, who will remove the offensive posts and disable the Troll’s account. The site also relies on self regulation and careful moderation by the page owners. Self regulation through careful moderation by page owners and other users is also very important as it is the most direct and fastest form of treatment against Trolls.

How to Protect your Memorial Pages

While the recommended course of action for dealing with Trolls is to ignore and ‘not feed the Trolls’.

Here are some simple tips to consider when protecting a loved one’s profile:

• Memorialise their page – this will ensure that only friends and family can see and comment on the page.
• If you want to create a page, make it private – try to avoid creating a public page as these are open to trolls.
• If you do make a public page – monitor the posts very carefully and implement a comment moderation system where possible.

Crackdown on Memorial Vandalism

The biggest threats to public memorial pages on the internet are R.I.P Trolls, but their distasteful behaviour is not without consequence. The Internet is not a wholly unregulated forum for abuse. In many countries, laws and systems have been put in place to ensure that this kind of attitude is not tolerated.

Chief among these forward-thinking nations is the U.K. with their Communications Act 2003. The legislation has already been used in the latter half of 2011 to try one R.I.P troll who defaced the memorial page of the 15 year old Worcestershire teen, Natasha MacBryde. He posted insensitive comments, calling her a ‘spoiled little slut’, despite never having met MacBryde, and even created a video mocking MacBryde’s manner of death; she jumped in front of a train and the vandal’s video, ‘Tasha the Tank Engine’, mocked that by using MacBryde’s face on the children’s character, Thomas the Tank Engine. The page became a popular spot for other trolls, inciting comments like ‘I heard she caught the midnight train goin nooooo whereeeeeeee’ and images such as a Simpsons screenshot of Lisa’s valentines card saying “I Choo- Choo- Choose You” with a picture of a train.

The troll responsible for the video was tried for the MacBryde comments, but also for three separate cases of trolling memorial pages. Lauren Drew, 14, Hayley Bates, 16 and Jordan Cooper, 14, were all victims of R.I.P Trolls, their families understandably distraught by the comments but consoled in that the perpetrator was sentenced to 18 weeks. Despite the defence citing his Aspergers Syndrome and alcoholism as contributing factors, he was also given an Asbo barring him from any social media access for five years.

A person is guilty of an offence if s/he sends by means of a public electronic communications network a message or other matter that is grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character

-Section 127 of the Communications Act 2003, Improper use of public electronic communications networkThere are multiple cases of R.I.P Trolls who have been tried under this particular section of the legislation. The previous year, in Manchester, another troll was tried and sentenced for posting insensitive comments, defaced images and sexual slurs on the memorial pages of Jade Goody (a reality TV star who died of cancer). In this case, the prosecuting lawyer commented on the defendants attitude: ‘The defendant told police that he finds the comments amusing. He said it causes reaction”.

Another case of trolling concerns April Jones, the 5 year old girl with cerebral palsy who went missing from her yard in Wales in October, 2012. The comment, likening the missing girl to the Madeleine McCann case, was posted during the height of the search for the young girl, inciting the 215,000 members of the Facebook page to anger. He, being from Lancashire in the U.K, was charged under the Communications Act 2003, section 127, and sentenced to 12 weeks in an Young Offender Institution.

Social media and the internet can be used for wonderful purposes, but there do exist those who will abuse the forum to troll. Making hurtful and abusive comments online and on memorial websites, saying things they would never say to a person’s face, is cowardly behaviour and it won’t go unpunished.

Trial by Social Media: How Online Mourning Can Have an Impact on Court Cases

While online memorials can help friends and family of a lost loved one find closure, recent cases have shown the power that these memorial sites have in jeopardising court proceedings as online anger surges against the accused.

In Australia, a teenager by the name of Thomas Kelly, 18, was murdered in July at Kings Cross, the well-known Sydney red light district. Kelly was walking with his girlfriend when he got struck in the head by Kieran Loveridge, 17, just after 10 PM. Loveridge, having gone on a rampage before crossing paths with Kelly, assaulted an 18-year-old boy just before and two other men after within the same area. All attacks were unprovoked and occurred in just under an hour. While the other victims survived Kelly tragically passed away two days later. Kelly’s case quickly sparked strong opinions across different social media networks. Loveridge’s pictures sprang up all over Facebook and Twitter with accusations of ‘murderer’ and “monster” along with them. An anonymous user was reported after opening a Twitter account under the name ‘Kieran Loveridge’, sending photos of the accused to journalists and media organisations.

Trial by social media, as they call it, caused a red flag amongst Australian legal experts as it posed a threat to criminal cases. It is important to remember that the accused has the right of presumption of innocence and for a fair trial. Associate Professor Alex Steel, from the University of New South Wales’ (UNSW) law school, said that people publishing comments online on social media networks without thinking of the consequences can be problematic.

Leigh Sales, ABC1 anchor, tweeted a reminder to her followers regarding Thomas Kelly’s trialIn contrast, University of Sydney’s Associate Professor David Rolph, said that in the eyes of the law, particularly when a trial is in motion, non-traditional media channels will not be distinguished from that of traditional media. So, it is possible that users could be held legally responsible for the comments posted on their social media accounts. Dr Rolph also stated that when a channel facilitates conducts such as interference with a person’s right to a fair trial, defamation, breach of confidence, or invasion of privacy, the legal system may view the website that carries the content or the user to be liable.

A tweet by Victoria Police, in the light of a recent murder case with an ongoing trial

Future of Online Memorials

Your life is transitioning online, therefore it is important to prepare for your digital death, in the same way you would for a physical death. Plan the legacy you want to leave behind for your family to remember you by, and the thoughts, experiences and images you want to share with future generations.

Plan Your Digital Death

What Happens Online When You Die

Expert Guide to Protect Yourself Online Before You Die

As you consider how your digital self is going to live on through changes in technology, communication and data storage, consider how your family will memorialise you, and how your friends and family will continue to interact and remember you after you’re gone.

The original source for this article…
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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 post Digital Mourning – Grief In The Online Age appeared first on Legacy Multimedia.

One of Betty’s sons hired us to help document his mom’s history. Previously, she had done an enormous amount of genealogical work, creating family history books for each of her three children as well as biographical books on both herself and her late husband using first person reflective. She also had very well organized archives of photographs and other memorabilia, all organized, annotated and preserved in archival albums.  It was a delight to work with someone as well organized as this she was. Creating a video was the icing on the cake of an already well-documented family history.

But in addition to the video history this family will now have, her son bought her an experience. Much like a roller coaster ride through one’s life, the process of going through creating a video biography allows the subject to be the star in the front seat on a ride through their own history. It was definitely an experience. From the very beginning, she was very excited and I know it gave her celebrity status in her assisted living home. When we would show up to shoot, other residents would come up to us and ask us how it was going. One of her neighbors stood in the doorway one day while we setup all the cameras, lights and other recording gear and we finally had to ask her to leave so we could close the door to the apartment. Filming in front of the house she was born in gave her the opportunity to meet the current residents who were so generous and fascinated by the project as well. “These people are making a movie about me!” was an often heard exclamation.

I have observed this phenomenon before. I once told a potential customer that the experience was like going to camp. To the children who commission a personal historian to work on developing a family history, they are also buying their parent(s) this experience. I suppose you could send them on a cruise, or have a portrait commissioned. These have predictable outcomes. The process of going through a personal history is unpredictable. The client may think they know all their ‘stories’ but through guided work, other memories and connections appear, making this a completely customized adventure. Clients may, in the process of looking back, transform their view on how they see themselves, their families and their communities.

Of course at some point, the lights and cameras have to be shut down and we go away. But our clients are left with an incredible memory and a film that holds the promise of education and entertainment at any time.

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 post Personal History – An Unpredictable Experience appeared first on Legacy Multimedia.

2013 marks the 10 year anniversary of Legacy Multimedia. It will be later this fall and I will commemorate the decade in a fitting manner…. later.

Right now, with the new year, and this huge blank slate of time before me, I want to focus on my new mantra regarding my own personal history, “get ‘er done!” (Since I live in Texas, I can talk to myself in cowboy language.)

Right about the time that I was starting Legacy Multimedia, I also started the long and complex process of digitizing and organizing my own family and my parents’ vast collection of photographs and film. I think I started with dad’s film, transferring some 5 hours of old 8mm film, shot between the early 1950s through the early 1970s. Then I began to focus on my own boxes of film. When I began shooting some time in the early 1980s, I had a huge VHS recorder, the kind that weighed 10 lbs and you had to rest it on your shoulder in order to shoot. Later I downsized to a smaller 8mm tape camera but between the two of them, I transferred some 10 hours of film. After that I started working on scanning and organizing all my old family photographs, most were in albums. And that was when I got sidetracked with my parents’ collection.

Photos were everywhere, all hard copy photographs and negatives, none of them organized in any meaningful way. All thrown into shoe boxes, cardboard boxes, and other ‘storage’ containers spanning some 50 years. I slowly began the task of sorting these out and putting them into collections, organized either by subject or time frame. Then I scanned most of them. At that point, I started to design several hard-cover photo books so that my family could have access to all the photos without having to further degrade the quality of the originals, which were put into archival storage boxes.

Then I found myself on another track. My father, who was a prominent photographer in the late 1940s to early 1950s, had a resurgence of interest in his work; museums and private collectors began paying attention again. So I began helping him organize his archival collection, building a website, www.martinelkort.com, and eventually, the start of a documentary about his work, which I am in post-production on now. I still have to get it finished but it’s taking shape and I am expecting it to be complete sometime later this year. As my father moves into his 84th year, I still have a lot of things I am doing to support his photography. I have been organizing the digital archives of his photography and I have joined an organization that supports people managing large photographic estates and am learning how to setup his so that when he’s gone, I will be able to continue his photo legacy.

In the last weeks of 2012, I refocused my attention back on my own media. I upgraded hard drives and began the process of moving video files off old and smaller drives to larger and more efficient drives; organizing, key wording and notating as I went. I also reviewed several hours worth of video and got inspired to continue to build family history videos that I started 10 years ago, before I got sidetracked. All of this organization and review has led me to a bigger picture on what I have and what needs to be done. Chances are, I will get sidetracked again, I know that about myself. (Oh look, it’s a butterfly!) But I can see, 10 years down the road, that I have made a huge dent in the work that needed to be done and the task appears much more manageable to me now. I am committed to getting it done!

How about you? I am sure the task looks insurmountable if you haven’t even looked in the closet and appraised the collection of media yet. I help people all the time with this very task, and yet dealing with my own past and piles of media was a daunting process. I know that yours looks similar to you. My advice, break it down into baby steps. Get one thing done at a time. If you want to really be organized, take an inventory of media and write out the process for approaching this. I am happy to help you look at it in a way that doesn’t overwhelm you. You can email me questions on this website, tweet them to me @stefanitwyford or post questions on my Facebook fan page www.facebook.com/legacymultimedia. I am happy and excited to help you.

So what’s stopping you this year?

Stefani Twyford is a personal historian and video biographer 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 post 2013 Resolution – Time to Get That Personal History Done! appeared first on Legacy Multimedia.

My Dad during a reflective moment.

I was speaking with a friend the other day about my observations of some of the people that I work with, explaining that for some people, there is a melancholy in their recollections of the past and where they are today. My friend told me how much she loved that word, ‘melancholy’ and how distinctly different it is from the current usage of the word ‘depression.’

I spent some time researching the word melancholy, it’s initial source from Aristotle and the Greeks who believed it was an imbalance of bile in the system. The term ‘melaina kole’ literally translates to ‘black bile.’ At some point in time, the two words collapsed and in current psychology, they are synonymous with each other; melancholia being a current term for depression.

In a completely different conversation, another friend reminded me of the researcher Erik Erikson’s Stages of Development theory. The final stage, called “Integrity vs. Despair’ takes place in later adulthood around age 60 or older. Occurring when the individual experiences a sense of their own mortality (either through retirement, death of a spouse or other life changing social role), the individual begins to reminisce in a life-career review (often with a personal historian like myself.) This outcome can be either positive or negative resulting in an eventual acceptance of life, or a depression coming from the fear of death and a sense that life is too short and not enough was accomplished.

I think this reminiscence and life review is definitely part of the melancholy but what I experience with some of my clients is something very different from depression. It is a bittersweet mood coming out of the contemplation and reflection of a life we’ve loved and a past we continue to long for. It can be motivating in some ways, allowing the person to think about things they might want to ‘get back to again’ although that may no longer be possible. Perhaps the sadness comes from realizing that one can no longer accomplish those things physically even though our mind tells us we can.

Melancholy comes from memories of people, places or things we’ve done. It can involve degrees of sadness as well as pleasure. It encompasses reflection, longing, nostalgia; all shades of other emotions experienced during reminiscing. It is a ‘mature’ emotion, allowing us to look at both the dark and the light sides of our existence and the distinct pleasures and pains we’ve experienced.

Thomas Wolfe said it so elegantly in his quote:
“You can’t go back home to your family, back home to your childhood, back home to romantic love, back home to a young man’s dreams of glory and of fame, back home to exile, to escape to Europe and some foreign land, back home to lyricism, to singing just for singing’s sake, back home to aestheticism, to one’s youthful idea of ‘the artist’ and the all-sufficiency of ‘art’ and ‘beauty’ and ‘love,’ back home to the ivory tower, back home to places in the country, to the cottage in Bermude, away from all the strife and conflict of the world, back home to the father you have lost and have been looking for, back home to someone who can help you, save you, ease the burden for you, back home to the old forms and systems of things which once seemed everlasting but which are changing all the time–back home to the escapes of Time and Memory.”

― Thomas Wolfe

Stefani Twyford is a personal historian and video biographer 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 post Reminiscence and Life Review – The Experience of Melancholy appeared first on Legacy Multimedia.

In the wake of Hurricane Sandy, the Professional Photographers Society of New York State is offering photo restoration services to those whose family photographs have been damaged by the flood waters or other impacts of the hurricane, free of charge as a public service.

“As a society of professional photographers, we understand the true importance of photographs to sustain our spirits. We work with individuals, couples, and families every day to capture these memories,” said PPSNYS First Vice President Honey DeLapa. “Photo restoration is a way we can assist in the healing process for our neighbors in communities that experienced devastation from Hurricane Sandy,” DeLapa continued. Professional photographers throughout New York State are volunteering their time and resources to assist families in restoring treasured memories damaged in the recent storm.

PPSNYS provides the following “tips” for photo preservation as a public service:

Tips for Keeping Water Damaged Photos Safe

Check with family members to see if other copies of the photo exist, or even old negatives.

Lift the photos from the mud and dirty water carefully. Remove photos from water-logged albums and separate any that are stacked together.

If you have time and space right away, lay each wet photo face up on any clean blotting paper, such as a paper towel to blot dry.

Begin with photographs for which there are no negatives, or for which the negatives are also water damaged.

Photos in frames need to be saved when they are still soaking wet, otherwise the photo surface will stick to the glass as it dries and you will not be able to separate them without damage. Use a water stream to gently separate the photo from the glass. If the photo has already dried, leave it this way! Restoration professionals can scan the photo through the glass.

Try to get to photos as soon as possible. Freezing photos will delay further damage including mildew, which can set in quickly. Also, you can stack them between wax paper to keep them from drying and sticking. Older photographs should not be frozen without first consulting a professional.

Sending any damaged heirloom photos to a professional is recommended.

To help prevent this type of damage and loss in the future, photos should be stored in archival quality locking tubs that can be moved quickly when a storm is approaching. We recommend routinely storing them on high closet shelves in the event of a flash flood. In the past, I have put my own photo tubs in the car trunk when a severe storm is approaching. Other items to consider storing in the same manner would be scrapbooks, children’s artwork, and other ephemera (collected items that have meaning to you.)

Legacy Multimedia also provides excellent photo restoration and retouching services for photos previously damaged or neglected. Please let us know how we can help you.

Stefani Twyford is a personal historian and video biographer 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 post Photo Preservation Reminder In The Wake of Hurricane Sandy appeared first on Legacy Multimedia.

Last week I was at an annual conference for the Association of Personal Historians in St. Louis, Missouri. This is my fourth conference to attend, and one of the highlights for me is catching up with people from all over the world that I communicate with regularly but don’t get to see in person all too often, as well as meeting new historians and learning about the work that they are up to.

This year I had the pleasure of having dinner with a Danish woman. She told me about a long standing value system in Denmark that was incorporated into the social structure of Danish people. The law is called Law of Jante and was written by a Danish-Norwegian author, Aksel Sandemose, in his novel, “A Fugitive Crosses His Tracks” in 1933.

This book and included law identifies a social culture of not standing out from the crowd. For example: rule one states “you are not to think you’re anything special.” Rule two: “you are not to think you’re as good as us.” And so forth. These rules have been incorporated into the way Danish people see themselves and live their lives. The final rule 10 states that: “you are not to think you can teach us anything.” In this fictional book that takes place in the town of Jante, townspeople who transgress this unwritten law are regarded with suspicion and hostility, going against the communal desire to preserve harmony and social stability.

Denmark is known for its progressive and high standard of living. It is a culture of art, education and intellectual heritage. But in a society where deliberate attempts to distinguish oneself from others is seen as going against stability, it becomes ingrained in the people to not talk about themselves. The effect of this sociological attitude is that a person involved in the recording of oral history would find it very difficult to accomplish this.

My friend told me about her involvement in The Global Dignity Project. This program involves young people in activities and conversations to implement the universal right of every human being to lead a dignified life. Her hope is to introduce a new conversation around getting to know the family history and talking with elders, such as grandparents, to find out about their roots. This, after all, is what the work of an oral historian does. But in a society that is uncomfortable talking about oneself for fear that you may be perceived as being better than others, this self-reflection can pose a lot of problems.

I too have encountered Americans that initially feel uncomfortable talking about themselves. They say things like, “who cares about my life,” or “I have done nothing important to merit all this attention.” I have always felt that these reactions are probably more to do with how that person was raised rather than a social system that ostracizes one for speaking about oneself. But on a national level, I see how much my friend is taking on by attempting to help change this conversation. Oral history is so important to how we see ourselves on an individual, family, community and global level. We have so much to learn by learning about those that came before us.

While at our conference, I saw that she was so excited to meet so many people already working in the field of documenting personal history. We were able to inspire her and show her that yes, this can be done. I really admire her willingness to take on a conversation that shifts a national social perception. That’s big stuff!

Stefani Twyford is a personal historian and video biographer 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.

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Last week I spent two days filming 13 people giving testimonials for 13 other people for an event in early December. This event is an annual social event that honors local Houstonians for their charitable and philanthropic commitments.I am not going to name names but the people I interviewed were right up there; personalities you see on television or read about in the local and sometimes international columns.

A tribute is an act or statement that is intended to show gratitude, respect or admiration. Our context was to give each person talking on behalf of the honoree, a finished 90 seconds to say something nice and memorable that would introduce their friend or associate (the honoree) to the other guests. The questions provided were:

How long have you known him/her?
Under what circumstances did you meet?
Describe him/her.
What projects have you worked on together?
What is something about him/her we don’t know?
Why do you think he/she is so devoted to community service?
What would you like to say to him/her?

We had hair and makeup there, great lighting in a phenomenal suite in one of the city’s best hotels. Everyone was very relaxed and we all had a lot of fun. But… I found it interesting what was said.

Most of the people speaking were experienced speakers and some had such experience that they were able to accomplish creating a warm and emotive testimonial that really spoke for their honoree with one take. This was magic and always has me surprised and impressed. There were a few that while they had great public speaking experience, they were not comfortable in front of the camera. Those you have to play with a bit. Figure out what they enjoy while putting their makeup put on, find a common denominator, and then run with that. One woman, when she found out that my cameraman was a golf fanatic, was so excited. She got so animated talking about golf that I thought we were never going to break them up for the rest of the shoot. We ended up shooting her a second time because she clearly relaxed a lot more after making this connection.

Another had to be coached throughout the time, with the cameras starting and stopping while she pulled her notes out and refreshed her memory about what she was going to say. One woman had me hold up some large notes she’d brought so she was sure to mention everything she’d written down.

I have to say, that I am not a big fan of tele-prompters. First, you can see people’s eyes moving as they read what’s on the prompter. That being said, most people tend to read in a flat tone, rather than the natural lulls and trills of someone who is speaking from the heart. That is my goal as an interviewer, to get them talking from the heart. I have many techniques that I try, mostly I try to get comfortable with them and find something we can bond on, that will allow them to relax and have some fun with the interview.

Sometimes in a short interview, that comes across brilliantly, and other times, it’s not quite what you were hoping for. Just like with most things in life, you do the best with what you have. We got some really great footage those days even with everyone’s different style of communicating in front of a camera. That, and some good editing, well orchestrated music and some nice graphic touches will provide enough drama that only the wonderful testimonials and the true nature of the testimonial event will be communicated. I can’t wait to watch the honorees watching themselves being honored!

Stefani Twyford is a personal historian and video biographer 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 post Filming a Tribute Testimonial appeared first on Legacy Multimedia.