How Much Should You Pay for a Video Biography?

I am going to let you in on some pricing secrets in relation to video biographies or “family history documentaries”, as they are sometimes known. How much should you expect to pay and what can you hope to get for your hard-earned video biography money?

Video biographies are gaining in prominence as a feature item for an anniversary, reunion or a significant birthday. Often there is no such occasion, just a desire to capture Mom and Dad’s stories, or grandma’s or grandpa’s story, or some family genealogy, before it’s too late. As a recent survey by Allianz Insurance discovered:

“Eighty-six percent of boomers (age 47-66) and 74 percent of elders (age 72+) agree that family stories are the most important aspect of their legacy, ahead of personal possessions (64 percent for boomers, 58 percent for elders) and the expectation of inheritance for financial well-being.”

So, if you are reading this, you probably need no convincing about the importance of a video biography (or “family documentary video” if you prefer that terminology) and you are starting to get serious. But how much does a video biography cost? No point asking for something you can’t afford, right?

So what is the price of a video biography? The good news is: Pretty much whatever you want. (Wait! Don’t run away. I am going to blow up video biography “omertà” and give you actual market prices, just hang in there). But I do have to say that the price or cost of a video biography will depend on the features you would hope to include. Makes sense, right? But even better than that, it needn’t cost a penny.

The Zero Dollar Video Biography Pricing Option
The most important part of any family history project is to just get started. And you should never let funds stop you from starting – these are projects of passion, not cashion (if you get my drift). And you actually can do quite a good job on your own.

You will need a decent video camera (promise me you won’t use your iphone or your laptop – unless you really, really have no other options); also the owner’s manual; a lavalier mic; and a tripod. Oh, and a bright room with no direct sunlight on your subject. There is ample guidance on the web, just try Binging “DIY family history video” to see some of the tips I have given elsewhere and then try “video biography questions”. You will quickly be on your way!

You may not have a family history documentary with this no-cost option, but you will have saved a life through video.

The Actual Dollar Video Biography Cost Options
OK, I suspect if you are still reading then your have in mind to contact a professional video producer. How much will that set you back?

First, let’s distinguish between an amateur or a friend; a wedding videographer and a family history professional.

Family History Videos By Friends and Family
An amateur or friend almost fits into the “Zero Dollar Video Biography Pricing Option”, but they might charge you three or four hundred dollars for their equipment and their time. Or if not, you should think about paying them anyway. This should be especially so if in addition to interviewing and filming, you are going to ask them to ingest the video, edit it just a bit, and output it somewhere.

Keep in mind that this stuff is fiddly and time consuming and it’s really not fair to ask them to do all that for free. Also, if you decide to rely on their best intentions (and not at least some money) you may find that delivery of the finished product gets a little held up!

Family History Videos By Wedding Videographers
This can be a pretty good option, especially if you are prepared to work closely with the videographer in relation to setups, questions, images and the like. A number of wedding videographers are attracted to family history video work because it allows them to film during their relatively quiet weekdays (weddings are shot, almost always, on weekends).

Most reputable wedding videographers who have been in business for – let’s say 5 years – really know their stuff. They can shoot with multiple cameras, know all about lighting, often have dollies and cranes, a modern editing suite, and are almost always terrific still photographers, and can often do good audio.

Now, you may not need all of their core talents (intimate knowledge of the tried and tested wedding and reception stages, wedding slow-pans, rack focusing from flowers to the bride’s mother etc). And they may not have lit, miked, and shot a video biography interview before. Perhaps check to see if they have much in the way of oral history training and have access to the institutional resources and knowledge base of a group like the Association of Personal Historians. But they are almost certain to be personable (hey, they are still in business in a very tough industry) and will not frighten mom or grandma! And as I said, they really know their equipment and can be highly trained.

My best advice? Try to get the main person who owns the shop to do the work. And keep in mind the features and options I will cover below. Consider too that wedding videographers often have a decent size crew of part-timers for weddings and sometimes use goodly folks like fire fighters for “second or third camera”. No disrespect to firefighters, but for something as important as a video biography you do want the very best they have (which is usually the owner).

For a wedding or a video biography you can expect to pay around $3,000 to $5,000 for a decent wedding videographer filming for the best part of a day and doing some solid editing, image work, and delivery on BluRay, DVD or hard drive (maybe more, or even less, depending on the features you require). And here’s the thing: it will almost certainly look absolutely fabulous (an unhappy bride’s mother is an unhappy client!).

Family History Videos By A Video Biographer
Specialist video biographers are not more or less expensive than a wedding person, we are all professionals after all with cost structures and overhead and the expectation that we get to feed our kids! By and large, for the same work, our charges should be similar.

But where video biographers may part company with wedding videographers is that they are likely to include a little more. Some of these features include:

Time spent in pre-production: The longer the time, the more you will pay. Serious video biographers like to spend 10 hours or much more time in pre-production: meeting the client; meeting the subject; talking to all the kids (to make sure we get the stories they like and remember); doing basic family and ancestry research; unearthing artifacts and sounds; scouting locations and the like.

The number of personal and historical photos to be included and hence the work needed cleaning up and repairing those images. Not all videographers are formally trained in Photoshop and know how to bring out the best in the images to create a true personal documentary (as opposed to simply showcasing a “talking head”).

The number of subjects involved: While there are cost savings in filming two people as part of the same project, there are also additional costs.  Two people, while they may be a couple, are really, um, two people and need to be treated separately as well as together. Two people are really two stories with the added excitement of blending parts of their lives together.

Time spend filming and length of footage shot: The more hours of footage filmed and captured means the more time needed to digitally process the material, review and catalog it, and then make selections and edit them in.

Length of fully edited final product: The longer the finished product, the higher the price. Editing and creating non-interview content (images, B-roll, occupational footage, etc) is time-consuming. Also, video biographers tend to prefer a longer finished product – reasoning that this is important family history!

Other factors will be at play in the cost or price of a video biography: whether graphic animations are used (we tend to go light on these); whether there is any old family movies or audio to include; and how much the thing needs to be reedited (or edited again – most video biographers will include a set number of extra hours to fix errors or make other changes; after that the client must pay an hourly rate ($40 to $150 per hour); whether travel is required etc.

Alright, you are getting the picture. But what you came here for is an actual market sounding to answer the question of how much people across the US are paying – i.e. what’s the cost – yesterday, today and tomorrow for an edited video biography or family history documentary.

The cost of a video biography

You can certainly get a professionally lit, miked and shot – and lightly edited – video biography for $3,000 to $5,000.

For a fully edited video biography from an experienced, video biographer who invests in the project and guarantees satisfaction in the result expect to pay between $7,000 and $15,000 depending on the features mentioned above. And, through client disclosures, I am aware of $30,000 and even $40,000 price points.

Too rich for your blood? My advice – if you are seriously constrained in the cabbage department – either go DIY or get a really nice interview done by experienced people and take delivery of the raw footage and worry about editing the thing into something elaborate and coherent later.

Hope this helps. If you need more help, check out our video biography website and our blogs. Video biography is a passion for me and I can almost always fit a product to a budget.

 

Filed under: Biographies, DIY Tips & Advice, Personal Documentaries, DIY, documentary film maker, family history video, video biography

New Video Memorial Resource Launched

We have been in the video memorial business for over ten years. Our aim is to design and create the most personal, affecting and watchable video memorial tributes in the whole country.

But our commitment to memorable funeral tributes does not stop with our professional services. For those people who are lucky enough not to be pressed for time or who have a high degree of technical proficiency we are also a source of ideas and inspiration. We have been publishing “do it yourself” blogs stuffed with advice and suggestions for as long as we have been making video memorials for people. Our article on things to include in a video memorial has been read tens of thousands of times! 10 things (apart from photos) to include in a video memorial

We love our family – and of course we have suffered losses over the years. And on the passing of our loved ones we have wanted to honor and remember them in a special way. So we know that that is true for other people. And because of our professional expertise, we are in a position to help you properly honor your loved one and are happy to help in any way we can. And now we can reveal a new resource that families with a loss are sure to find helpful.

A Source of Funeral Memorial Quotes

Sometimes the feelings we have about a person, or words that reflect their life or their life’s philosophy, have been said by other people.  One of our personal favorites comes from Dr. Seuss (Theodor Geisel) which helps us see the glass half full:

“Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.”

Another quotation we like speaks to the rather unplanned way life often often unfurls.  It was penned by Douglas Adams:

“I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be.”

Usually there is comfort in our faith, as Pope Francis reminds us:

“In the face of unjust and painful situations, faith brings us the light which scatters the darkness.”

For a boatload more quotation samples useful in funeral memorials just click on the heading which links to our new website. No tricks or data collection – just a bunch of quotations.

 

DIY Advice for Memorial Video Tributes

We also have advice for folks working on their own funeral slideshow. If you have the time and just a few computer skills you can easily make you own funeral slideshow for free.

While there is an endless array of “slideshow makers” out there, many not-free, chances are you already have on your computer (Apple or PC) everything that you will need. Think Windows Live Movie Maker available on newer PCs or iMovie available on most Apple computers.

And if you can’t find the editing program that came with your computer then there are more than a few reputable photo sharing web sites that will let you upload, arrange then convert to a slideshow for free.

But whatever slideshow maker you choose, make sure your photos don;t let you down. You will probably need to digitize some images – that means you need to get them into your computer using a flatbed scanner (or by carefully taking digital photographs of them.) You should, if possible, clean the images up with a simple (free) photo editing program like Microsoft Photo Editor (older PCs), Microsoft Photo Gallery (newer PCs), or Apple iPhoto.
And when scanning, use a reasonably high scan resolution (around 300 dpi – more for very small images).

Tribute Video Samples

If you just want to see a bunch of tribute video samples then you can click over to our sample page.  Some might be a tad sophisticated for first-timers but there are still ideas that you are likely to find useful.

So, good luck with your memorial. We won’t lie to you: they are a lot of work – even for professionals like us.  There is no fast way to create personal, delicate, affecting memorial slideshows and tributes.  But it’s time well spent for those who have earned our love.

Filed under: death, DIY Tips & Advice, Memorial Video, Uncategorized

Photo Repair and Restoration for Family Historians

As family historians, our job is to research and collect documents, information, stories, artifacts and photos about our clans. If you are lucky, you will come across some old family photographs. And if you are very lucky, you will discover grandma’s very own photo album full of all sorts of images and even (be still my beating heart) captions and descriptions.

But discovering old photos is not always the end of the journey. Creating digital copies is the next thing you really need to do. That will give you the ability to share the pictures around the cousins, and it will give you a vital backup should anything happen to the originals. And after that, the question will arise: should you also do a little photo repair and restoration? Is that needed; is it even “right”? Here’s what you need to know.

Filed under: Uncategorized, photo repair, photo restoration

Veterans Stories Recorded on Video

Many of our veterans have now told their stories. And some have even had them recorded for posterity. These three Orange County, California residents decided to record their WWII battle experiences in Your Story Here veterans’ videos. If you have a veteran in the family, don’t wait till it’s too late…

Jim Peirano: Firing back at Pearl Harbor
Jim Peirano fired at Japanese bombers from the deck of his submarine USS Dolphin during the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. He remembered with horror as the Arizona blew up scattering burning oil over the water – burning hundreds. Jim remembered the looks on the faces of the young Japanese pilots as they swooped in to drop their bombs. “They had the scarves and everything. You could see them real well because they were flying so low. It was just like you see in the movies!”

Filed under: Biographies, WWII

Digital Legacies: The Options

John Giacchino had been collecting information about his Italian American family for years. He had family trees, portrait photographs, immigration and census records, WWII registration cards, historical maps of the Philadelphia streets where his grandfather grew up, photographs from a family visit back to the villages, silent film (converted to video) of his Dad in high school and in the army, detailed biographies of most of his ancestors – and he had audio of his grandmother – now deceased – talking about her trip to America as a little girl.

John also had relatives spread across the United States, as well as back in Italy. And he knew it was time to do something with all this stuff for all these people. But what?

Filed under: Biographies, DIY Tips & Advice, legacy video

Creative Considerations For Your Tribute Video Production

There are only a few great ways to honor a life, celebrate a career, or just say “thank you”. And one of the best is to create a tribute video.

Tribute videos are really just another kind of life story video, but are made with an audience in mind wider than just the subject and their family. Often (but not always) the tribute video will be screened at an event coinciding with an anniversary or a birthday or a retirement. So it will be important to tell the story of your subject’s life. But you will need to do it in a way that is informative as well as entertaining and – if you are up for it – humorous.

In this article we are going to give you some ideas about the kind of material you should think about including in your tribute. And we are going to give you some suggestions for themes that will make the video more interesting, and possibly even funny. And we will talk briefly about pacing…

Filed under: DIY Tips & Advice, tribute videos, Videos and films, tribute video

Life Story Lessons From Bilbo Baggins

The rise to prominence of one Bilbo Baggins has thrust genealogy and the recording of life stories into the limelight. First, it was Lord of the Rings – now on video – and then came (and continues to come) The Hobbit (itself now out on video). Because Bilbo is, right down to the soles of his hairy, oversized feet, a family man and a personal historian.

True, Bilbo has no wife or children of his own (that history records) but Bilbo adopts a son (Frodo) and is as devoted to his kith and kin as ever a person was. No one knows their lineage better, or throws better parties for the relatives, or struggles to get right the dictates of etiquette, or gives better presents to nieces and nephews than Mr. Bilbo Baggins.

Speaking to his assembled cousins on one famous occasion (his Eleventy First birthday in point of fact) he says, “I don’t know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.”

Which, if you can tease it out, is a statement of regret that Bilbo doesn’t know his relatives as well as he should—and has judged them a little too harshly in the past. Sounds about right, doesn’t it?

Filed under: Biographies, Videos and films, film and video

Leave Something of Value: Life Stories

We spend a lot of time worrying about money, don’t we? First, do we have enough for ourselves? Should we work more or work longer; are we saving enough; can we afford that trip; and how much should we spend on ourselves and on gifts?

Later, the questions change. We start to reflect on our mortality and our legacy and we think about preplanning for the inevitable. Have we made our funeral or memorial arrangements; do we have our wills and estate plans in place? And how much will we be leaving to the children and grandchildren? Very often these are dollar and cents questions.

But is money our greatest and most important legacy?

Filed under: family history video

Lincoln, Death, and the Family History Enterprise

You would be excused for thinking that Abraham Lincoln – whose life has lately been the subject of a critically successful and popular motion picture from Steven Spielberg and starring Daniel Day-Lewis – had no interest in family history and genealogy:

“I don’t know who my grandfather was”, Abraham Lincoln famously said, “I am much more concerned to know what his grandson will be.”

Being as how us folks at Your Story Here LLC create family history videos, this comes as a disappointment. But is it true?

Filed under: death, family history video, Videos and films, history

Life Stories on Video from the Inland Empire

The recent special exhibition entitled “When I’m Sixty Four” at the Wignall Museum of Contemporary Art at Chaffey College in San Bernardino County, California gave a chance for local seniors to recount some of their life stories on video. And how astonishing those stories turned out to be!

Originally conceived as an oral history project involving Storycorps, life story video specialists Your Story Here LLC stepped in to video record twelve remarkable stories from locals 64 years and older…

Filed under: Biographies, Personal Documentaries, family legacy documentary, veterans video, video memoir