Personal History Documentaries
The filming of a person's life stories and experiences: a loving, enriching experience that creates closeness within your family, a connection between generations, and an artistic legacy to treasure for years to come.
What I Offer
Personal Video Services
Every family has a story worth telling. Long Story Short captures your most meaningful moments with care, creativity, and over 20 years of video production experience. From personal history documentaries to wedding montages, I create videos that become treasured family keepsakes.
Milestone Celebrations
A personal history documentary is the ideal gift for a milestone birthday, graduation, wedding, anniversary, or retirement. Because nothing says "I love you" quite like a professionally edited video.
Wedding Montages
Cinematic wedding montages that bring your love story to life, from family interviews and childhood photos to ceremony highlights, all woven together with just the right music.
Bar & Bat Mitzvah Montages
Celebrate the milestone with a montage that captures family stories, childhood moments, and the journey to the big day. Available with or without interviews, but always with heart.
Legacy & Memorial Videos
Preserve the memory of a loved one with a thoughtful, cinematic tribute. Photos, video, music, and narration come together to honour a life well lived.
Family Reunions & Events
Capture the laughter, the stories, and the togetherness of your family gatherings. A professionally filmed event becomes a keepsake everyone will watch again and again.
What goes into a personal history documentary?
Every documentary is unique, but here's what the process typically involves.
The at-home interview
How long can they talk? It can be as little as 2 hours, and as long as 20. It can include them talking with their children, grandchildren, siblings. We'll work together to estimate the time needed.
Special places
I can film them visiting their old neighborhood, homes, workplace: anywhere their memories live. I recently filmed a man visiting the New York Botanical Gardens, where he showed me his favorite childhood spots.
Photos & music
Photos are crucial to the storytelling process. Images from the past edited together with just the right music can enhance the emotions of any story. It's like time travel, but with a better soundtrack.
Why make a personal video?
Filming these stories while your loved ones are still with us brings out their personalities in a way that photos cannot.
Preserve your family history
By making a permanent record of your loved one's life, you ensure that present and future generations will know who they are and feel connected to your family's history.
Bring stories to life
Having a live video of your parents telling stories, visiting childhood places, and talking about the highlights of their lives brings them to life in a way that photographs or letters simply cannot.
A gift for the whole family
Everyone can participate in making a personal history. What a gift it is to hear what life was like before TV, during the Depression, or WWII. Sometimes we're too busy to sit, listen, and enjoy being with the people we love.
No occasion needed
No special event is necessary to capture your life and your stories on film. The only thing needed is your desire to preserve the people, places, and events that shaped who you are. Your grandchildren will thank you.