Record your parents while you still can.
I sit down with your mother or your father, ask the questions nobody gets around to asking, and turn the afternoon into a film your family keeps.
Family legacy films, made in Vancouver and anywhere by video call.
It is me who answers, usually the same day.
A mother's journey from New Westminster to Prince George. A log cabin, a father coming home from the war, and the parts of it her grandchildren had never heard. Told in her own words.
I started doing this because I left it too late.
I never recorded my dad's story before his Alzheimer's diagnosis. I thought there would be more time. There wasn't, and now that I have kids of my own I have nothing of his voice to give them.
I have spent twenty five years as a documentary editor. This is the same work, turned toward the people who matter most.
Rob Postma, Vancouver.
Real people, their own words, nothing staged.
Three short pieces so you can hear what these actually sound like.
The legacy we leave behind
What mattered turned out to be the quiet roles, not the achievements.
A near miss, and the joke that came out of it
A frightening afternoon that became the story this family tells at every table.
A tribute that feels true
Made for a memorial, from photographs and the voices that were left.
How it goes.
You email me and tell me who you want to record. We talk for twenty minutes, on the phone or over coffee, and I get a sense of the person and what your family already knows.
Then I spend an afternoon with them. Two cameras, no crew, no lights in their face. Most people forget the cameras are there within ten minutes. If they can't travel or you are in another province, I do the same thing by video call.
A few weeks later you get the film. Most families spend between two and four thousand dollars, depending on how much life there is to cover. Memorial tributes are less. I will give you a number before anything starts.
Trusted with sixty years of somebody else's history.
North Shore Rescue asked me to make sense of their first six decades. I took thirty six hours of interviews and built a twenty two part legacy series meant to outlast everyone in it.
That is the care I bring to one family and one afternoon. See the project.
Your video was absolutely a highlight of the afternoon. It sparked tears and laughter, and just a general sense of warm and loving reminiscence.
Wendy V.
This is outstanding. So much emotion and one more way to share with old friends from a pivotal time in our lives, now separated by time and distance.
Charles C.
Amazing video. Great edit. Tears aplenty by me.
James D.
The someday film is the one that never gets made.
Tell me who you want to record and roughly how old they are. I will tell you honestly whether this is worth doing now or whether it can wait.
Or call 604 757 5277. Based in Vancouver, happy to meet for coffee.
I also make founder films and company stories for businesses and organizations. Same approach, same email.
Getting a group together for a birthday or a retirement? Little Hellos gathers short messages from wherever everyone is and weaves them into one film.