Helping YOU preserve your precious family stories on video.
Join Steve Pender for "Video Biography Basics,"
a six-part Webinar kicking
off in January 2010. See story below.
Welcome
to the November issue!
November. The air is cooler and crisper (even here in Tucson)
and I can feel the energy all around slowly building as we get within striking
distance of the year-end holiday season. I've got a couple of video biography
projects keeping me busy and I'll shortly be flying out to New York for what
promises to be a really fun legacy video interview. In addition, my birthday
falls this month. Hello, all you Scorpios!
This month I bring you news of our next video biography
Webinar series, a new Family Legacy Video gift certificate with a high-tech
twist, and a veterans history project being conducted by my Rotary club. I'll
also answer a question about legacy video pricing.
I hope you enjoy this issue of the Family Legacy Video™
Producer's e-Newsletter. Please e-mail me at
steve@familylegacyvideo.com or phone
toll-free (1.888.662.1294) with any
questions or comments you have. Visit Family Legacy Video on the Web at:
www.familylegacyvideo.com.
Join us for "Video Biography Basics" in January 2010.
Get ready to dust off your headsets and double check your Internet connection -
Family Legacy Video's next Webinar series is on the calendar!
Family Legacy Video is proud to present "Video Biography Basics," a six-session
Webinar series led by award-winning video biographer and Family Legacy Video
president Steve Pender. If you've been wondering what it takes to create a
legacy video, this series will answer your questions and give you practical and
professional tips and techniques you can apply to your own do-it-yourself video
biography project. The sessions are designed for beginners and advanced
beginners.
Choose from morning or evening sessions. The dates: January 19, 26; February 2,
9, 16, 23. Individual sessions cost $40; sign up for the series and save 10%.
A video biography makes a fabulous gift, one that lots of
baby boomers are buying for their parents and grandparents. But the one downside
to the legacy-video-as-a-gift experience is the delayed gratification involved.
Y'see, with most gifts, there's more immediacy. You see the gift box.
Anticipation and excitement build as you tear off the wrapping and then open the
package to reveal - well, whatever the gift happens to be. The point is, the
gift is right there, ready to be worn, switched on or simply admired. And you
can take it home with you.
When you give someone a video biography as a gift, what
you're really presenting them with initially is the promise of the video. You
can try to add a little sizzle to the announcement by giving the recipient a
gift certificate, but let's face it, a printed piece of paper doesn't have much
of a "wow" factor. But what if that gift certificate was an actual
custom-printed DVD, featuring fireworks, music, a photo of the storyteller-to-be
and a personal message from you, the gift-giver? Sound a little more exciting?
You bet it does, and that's exactly what the DVDficate™ from Family Legacy Video
offers.
Think of Family Legacy Video's DVDficate™ as a personalized
trailer, announcing your gift of a custom video biography. You'll have fun
watching the reaction of your storyteller as the DVDficate™ plays, and he or she
is sure to be surprised and delighted by the prospect of starring in their own
legacy video. What better way to announce the gift of a video biography than with
a video?
Storming the beaches in the Philippines; flying B-29 bombing
missions over Tokyo – preserving these and other wartime memories is the goal of
a new initiative launched by Tucson’s Catalina Rotary Club - and club member
Steve Pender is proud to be a part of the effort. The goal of the Catalina Rotary
Club Veterans Project is to record, on video, the military and Rotary service
stories of club members. Copies of the interviews will be posted on a special
Web site the club will create. Each veteran will receive a copy of his/her
interview. The interviews will also be submitted to the Veterans History
Project, run by the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.
The first stage of the Catalina Rotary Club’s initiative is a
pilot project focusing on the club’s WWII veterans. The first two interviews,
with Les McQuary (Army Infantry) and Jim Kingston (Army Air Corps), were taped
on October 19 and 21, 2009.
The Catalina Rotary Club Veterans Project is being funded
initially by donations from Catalina Club members. The club also hopes to
attract additional funding through sponsorships and grants.
The project was conceived by Catalina Rotary Club member Irv Mindes, who saw the
need to honor military veterans and inform future generations by preserving
veteran reminiscences on video. He approached fellow Rotarian and video
biographer Steve Pender with the idea and together they proposed the project to
the club. After raising some initial seed money, they assembled a production
team consisting of Steve Pender, (director, interviewer, editor); Victor Lim (videography);
Halina Pender (make up); Irv Mindes (still photography). Project co-chairs
Mindes and Pender hope to complete the balance of the WWII veteran interviews in
2010, and then move on to later eras.
Family Legacy Video is proud of the premium video biographies
we create for our clients. In order to highlight the quality of our work and to
demonstrate the possibilities for you, we've posted samples from a variety of
our custom legacy videos online in the Family Legacy Video Theatre™.
How do you visit the Family Legacy Video Theatre™?
Simply go directly to the Sample Clips page
of our Web site. There you'll find a video player,
consisting of a monitor with playback controls and a list of available clips.
Here's how it works:
Click the large red arrow in the monitor. Clips will play in order from
the top of the list.
OR - click on the individual titles below the monitor to play the clips in any
order you like.
Raise and lower the sound using the slider control (short red bar) below the
monitor on the right.
To the right of the audio bar is what looks like a little square surrounded by
arrows. Click on this to expand the video to full screen.
Enjoy the show and please let us know what you think of the new video player!
Remember, the Family Legacy Video
Theatre™
is always open, and YOU decide when the show begins.
Q: Dear Steve,
I've been trying to price video biographies. It seems like the prices are all
over the map, from hundreds to thousands upon thousands. What should a quality video biography
cost?
- - Ed K., Bloomfield, New Jersey
A: Hi, Ed.
Great question! A lot rests on what you consider "quality." You've obviously
done some research, and in addition to finding a wide range of prices for video
biography production you've also probably seen quite a difference in the looks
and sounds of the videos being offered by video biography producers. In short,
the same rule applies to legacy videos as applies to most other services and
products: You get what you pay for.
At the lower end of the cost scale are the folks who come to
your home, set up a camera and maybe a light, conduct a one-hour interview and
then put the raw or lightly edited interview on a DVD for you. In short, just a
basic documentation of the interview with no bells and whistles. I see videos
like these priced in the low to mid hundreds. If your budget can handle
something in the low thousands, you'll find some companies that will add some
photos and music, resulting in a slightly more polished video. Legacy videos
with extremely high "production value" - like those produced by Family Legacy
Video, come with a higher price tag. That's because a lot more preparation goes
into planning our video biography interviews, great care is taken with lighting
and staging to create wonderful images and a lot of time is spent gathering and
organizing visuals, scripting and then editing the final video. That's a major
investment of time and expertise and it's reflected in our prices, which have
ranged from
$6,500 to $10,000, $15,000, $20,000 and beyond. While
these numbers can induce sticker shock in some folks, its important to remember
that each video we produce is custom and tailored to a client's budget, wants and needs. In
the end, the result is always priceless.
My advice is to take some time and figure out just what you
want to accomplish with your legacy video. Think about budget - are you paying
for the project on your own or can you get other family members to kick in?
Then, be a savvy shopper and do some research. See what various video biography
companies have to offer. Make sure to SEE the quality of their work - reputable
companies should have clips available on their Web sites that are easy to view
and should also offer samples on a DVD you can watch at home. Decide whether you
want a basic videographer or whether you'd prefer an experienced personal historian and visual
storyteller and ask prospects about their experience and expertise. Check out
testimonials from their previous clients. Then, make the best "apples to apples"
comparison you can and hire the company that fits your needs - at a price
you can afford.
I hope this helps. Good luck with your video biography
project!
Cheers, Steve
Got a question about any aspect of family
history video production?
Send it to Steve at
steve@familylegacyvideo.com.
