How It Works
What is the process for making a family video biography?
Here’s everything you can expect from beginning (your filled out contact form) to end (the finished film and book delivered to your family).
Step 1 — Your Contact Form: We read every message ourselves and write back with a real answer, usually the same day and always within one working day. A call only if you want one.
Step 2 — Questionnaire & Preparation: Once an interview date is agreed on, and in the calendar, you complete a guided questionnaire. These answers inform the conversation and make sure nothing important gets overlooked. It is a great way to prompt stories that might otherwise go unsaid.
Step 3 — Filming Day: We arrive at the subject’s home. A relaxed, full-day visit (up to 5 hours). After selecting the ideal location in the home for the interview, we spend about an hour setting up all our gear (two cameras, professional lighting, and boom microphone). Then it’s between 2 and 3 hours of conversation, followed by walking around capturing “B-Roll” footage of the home and the objects that are important to the family. Finally, it’s about 30 minutes to pack up our gear and wrap up.
Step 4 — Editing & Crafting: Our editors craft your film in about four weeks, weaving together interview footage, b-roll, and (if applicable) photos and archive footage.
Step 5 — Writing the Book: Once the film is edited, we write their story from it. It isn’t a transcript. A transcript reads like a conversation because it is one, full of the half sentences and cross-talk that sound perfectly natural on film. We write it the way a good reporter would, as if someone had spent the day at their kitchen table and then gone home and written their life down, quoting them in their own words wherever they said it best.
Before we print, we’ll send you a short list of names and places to check, because you can say a name on camera forever without anyone needing to know how it’s spelled, but on a printed page it’s either right or it’s wrong.Step 6 — Delivery: Your film arrives in a book. About six weeks after filming, we send you the first printed copy with a short letter. The code at the back opens your film on its own private page, where you can watch it, share it with the family and download a copy to keep. If anything in the film or the book needs changing, tell us and we’ll take care of it. If you’d like the film on a USB as well, just ask.
Ready to get started?
Send us your questions, or tell us about who you’d like to film, and how they’re doing right now.
