A Life-Stories project has 3 main stages: outlined below.
Any Questions? Please ask on our contact page; we’d be happy to answer!

Planning

Planning involves a conversation about “what, where and when”.   We can talk about the type of Life-Story Package you want, where would be a good location to do the interview, and work on a time-frame for the start and end of the work.

Life-Story Packages are outlined on our “Packages” page – please read up before we chat.  A whole range of options are available, from very simple and basic, to more full-featured and fancy at the top end.  It’s a matter of deciding your budget and what kind of perks and extras you want included.

For the person telling their story, we aim for a comfortable, familiar location – ideally, a quiet one with natural light and neutral backgrounds.  Depending on how complex the setup is, an hour interview might take a 2-3 hour window of time, including setup.

Interview

The Interview process is about an hour in length, inside of a two-to-three hour setup frame, for a simple project. For more elaborate packages, involving longer interviews, optional extras or interviews spanning more than one session, we would map that out in our planning session, and organize the interview(s) into as many “chapters” as we see fit.

Older man and childWe’ll plan a little bit about the interview beforehand, and interviews can be outlined, using a whole range of possibilities, from structured and planned to spontaneous and “organic”.  Oftentimes, the interviewer can nudge, prompt, and help encourage the narrative.  Or help the Story-Teller fill in the blanks, change gears, or stay focused on a subject or theme.

The Story-Teller may have their own ideas and their own way of navigating through their stories, which may need its own “free-range” expression!  The Story-Teller, and their family members may want to negotiate or discuss the most important themes and topics to cover before-hand, so a background strategy is in place.

Packaging

The final product is the “Package”.  In our initial discussions, we can help you arrive at a package that suits your needs and your budget, and discuss the options that best suit your finished product.

Depending on the level of Package chosen, the final product can take a matter of days or weeks for delivery.  The “packaging” involves what we call “post-production” and it includes editing both the audio and video, cutting out what doesn’t work and including what does.  Improving audio and color quality where needed.  Creating the final output files in the specific formats and archives requested.  DVD production can involve building a DVD menu and title hierarchy and rendering a finalized menu-friendly DVD playable on a variety of systems.  Finished packages can also involve printing, packaging and duplicating DVD’s to suit your needs for gifts and souvenirs.

“Packaging” quality and time-frame will be discussed in the initial planning stage, and other packaging options can be chosen and expanded at post-production time.