Legacy Video Lounge Podcast

Steve Pender - Personal Historian & Video Biographer

The Legacy Video Lounge Podcast celebrates the art and science of capturing, preserving, celebrating, and sharing personal history on video. The podcast host is personal historian and video biographer Steve Pender, president of Family Legacy Video, Inc. (https://www.familylegacyvideo.com) During your visits to the Legacy Video Lounge, you’ll hear Steve share his passion for legacy videos. He’ll also offer tips on hiring and working with professional video biographers, hints for do-it-yourselfers, and much more!

  1. 04/30/2021

    Legacy Video Lounge Podcast – LVL 25: Talkin’ Legacy Videos with Steve Pender – Pt. 4

    In this episode, award-winning news reporter and magazine feature writer Elena Acoba and Family Legacy Video, Inc. president and award-winning legacy video producer Steve Pender conclude their discussion about the legacy video production process. Questions Steve addresses in this segment include: • How do you help storytellers prepare for their life story interviews? • How do you make storytellers look and sound their best? • What’s the key to ensuring storytellers look and sound natural during their interviews? • What techniques do you use to keep storytellers focused and on track? • Do you ever shoot footage other than an interview? • How do you successfully interview a storyteller who is nervous or has memory issues? • What elements can give a legacy video a more high-end documentary look and feel? • Once you start editing, is it too late to add something new? • Do clients ever want to sit in on the editing sessions? • Please describe the approval process. • What control over the final legacy video does the client have? • Have you ever created more than one legacy video for a family? If you’d like to watch excerpts from a variety of legacy videos produced by Family Legacy Video®, you’ll find them here.

  2. 03/31/2021

    Legacy Video Lounge Podcast – LVL 24: Talkin’ Legacy Videos with Steve Pender – Pt. 3

    Award-winning news reporter and magazine feature writer Elena Acoba continues her discussion with Family Legacy Video, Inc. president and award-winning legacy video producer Steve Pender. In Part 3, the focus turns to the legacy video production process. Questions Steve addresses in this segment include: • How does someone hire Family Legacy Video, Inc.? • Please provide an overview of the legacy video production process. • How much does a legacy video cost? • How long does it take from contract signing to delivery? • What decisions does someone have to make before starting a legacy video project? • How do you ease a reluctant storyteller’s concerns about appearing in a legacy video? • How much control do a client and storyteller have over the finished legacy video? • Does an interview have to be done all at one time? Note: Some pricing has changed slightly since this segment was recorded. Elena and Steve conclude their discussion about the legacy video production process in Part 4. If you’d like to watch excerpts from a variety of legacy videos produced by Family Legacy Video®, you’ll find them here.

  3. 03/01/2021

    Legacy Video Lounge Podcast – LVL 23: Talkin’ Legacy Videos with Steve Pender – Pt. 2

    In this episode, the second part of a four-part series, award-winning news reporter and magazine feature writer Elena Acoba continues her interview with Family Legacy Video, Inc. president and award-winning legacy video producer Steve Pender. Questions Steve addresses in this segment include: • What if my family doesn’t have a “fancy” story? • I’d love to put my family’s story into the context of general history. Can that be done in a legacy video? • What do I need for a legacy video? • Do I need a specific topic for my legacy video? • When did legacy videos become popular? • Why do you create legacy videos? • What’s your legacy video story, Steve? • What do you like best about producing legacy videos? • How many legacy videos has your company created? • Does everyone have a story to tell? If you’d like to watch excerpts from a variety of legacy videos produced by Family Legacy Video®, you’ll find them here.

  4. 01/26/2021

    Legacy Video Lounge Podcast – LVL 22: Talkin’ Legacy Videos with Steve Pender – Pt. 1

    Family Legacy Video, Inc. president and award-winning legacy video producer Steve Pender is usually the one behind the camera (or microphone) asking the questions. In this episode, the tables get turned as Steve takes the “hot seat” and is quizzed by guest interviewer Elena Acoba. Elena is a long-time, awarding-winning news reporter and magazine feature writer. In her own writing and editing business, she has interviewed thousands of people to tell the stories of companies, organizations and individuals. In this episode, Elena and Steve start off their chat by focusing on the following legacy video-related topics: • What is a legacy video? • Why would someone want to create a legacy video? • Can I still make a legacy video if the subject of the story is no longer alive? • If I can record an interview using my phone, why do I need to hire a professional? If you’d like to watch excerpts from a variety of legacy videos produced by Family Legacy Video®, you’ll find them here. Stay tuned – there’s more to come!

  5. 03/20/2018

    Legacy Video Lounge Podcast – LVL 21: A story of love and war

    Over the years podcast host, personal historian, video biographer, and Family Legacy Video president Steve Pender has spoken with lots of storytellers who’ve shared the stories of their WWII experiences, involving everything from combat overseas, stateside duty, and memories of life on the home front. In Episode 21, Steve shares the recollections of one couple, Dick and Mary-Lou. They met in college prior to the war, and then married shortly after it began. Luckily, the marriage far outlasted the global conflict. Even though this is an excerpt from a video biography, it also works fine as an audio-only piece. Steve is often asked if he can interview multiple storytellers in one sitting, or only one at a time. Actually, it all depends on what works best for any given situation and group of storytellers. For the piece included in this episode, Steve interviewed Dick and Mary-Lou separately, asking them similar questions, and then editing the two interviews together to create an engaging story flow. But Steve has also interviewed groups of two, three, and more storytellers in one sitting. Some reasons to do that: if the storytellers are more comfortable in a group, the dynamics created will be more entertaining and interesting, and if the family is looking for more of a live, spontaneous feel.

  6. 02/27/2018

    Legacy Video Lounge Podcast – LVL 20: Life story legacies: True stories about sharing values & preserving wealth

    The oldest members of the Baby Boom generation have started to retire. Because of that, the United States is now in the midst of the biggest transfer of wealth from one generation to another that the country has ever seen. But according to Barclays Wealth Insights, history has shown that 70% of family wealth fails to transfer to the third generation. One of the main causes of this failure is not preparing your heirs to appreciate and properly manage your estate; to be aware of the history behind it and to share in a family vision that will shape their stewardship of your family wealth moving forward. In this episode, podcast host, personal historian, video biographer, and Family Legacy Video, Inc. president Steve Pender is joined by personal historian and author Stephanie Kadel Taras, Ph.D. They share some real life examples of how their high net worth clients used life story legacies, in both video and print formats, as communication tools to pass along their values and visions surrounding family wealth to the next generations of their families. Stephanie is an author and personal historian. She lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan. She started her company, TimePieces Personal Biographies, in the year 2000. Stephanie works with clients who want to tell their own stories, hire a writer to work with family members, or document their organization’s history. Her 2013 memoir and social history of West Virginia, titled Mountain Girls, won a West Virginia Writers Book Award. Her 2008 history of Eckerd College won an Independent Publisher Book Award.

  7. 02/10/2018

    Legacy Video Lounge Podcast – LVL 19: Four Quick Tips for Do-It-Yourselfers

    In this episode, video biographer and Family Legacy Video, Inc. president Steve Pender offers some tips for folks who prefer to record their own family storytellers as opposed to hiring a professional video biography company like Family Legacy Video – perhaps because they can’t afford to hire a pro or maybe because they just prefer to do it themselves. Tip #1: Steady as she goes. • Mount your cell phone, DSLR, or video camera on a tripod. A shaky shot will distract viewers. • Use a video tripod if possible. • But – you can get away with using a camera designed for still cameras if you don’t move the camera. Tip #2: Walk to the light! • Use proper lighting to create a pleasing and flattering image. • Google “Three Point Lighting” to learn more about it. Tip #3: Shot composition: Stay close. • Legacy videos are very intimate productions. If you frame your shot too wide, that intimacy is diminished. • Try to go not much wider than someone’s waist. • Vary the shot from waist high, to chest high, to shoulder high. • Don’t go super close. That can be off-putting. Tip #4: Use an external microphone. • Don’t rely on your camera’s built-in microphone. • Use a lapel mic. A consumer quality microphone is not expensive to purchase. • A lapel mic will give you good sound, and sound quality won’t change if you move the camera closer or farther away.

  8. 01/31/2018

    Legacy Video Lounge Podcast – LVL 18: The Cost of Legacy Videos

    In this episode, video biographer and Family Legacy Video, Inc. president Steve Pender tackles the topic of pricing professional legacy videos. LET’S PUT THINGS IN CONTEXT Hour-long documentaries produced for outlets like the National Geographic and Discovery channels have budgets ranging from $125,000 on up. A single segment on 60 Minutes can cost $200,000. Family Legacy Video’s personal video biographies rival those network productions in quality and usually run longer than an hour – sometimes much longer. So even if a legacy video clocks in at $40,000, that’s a pretty good deal compared to what those broadcast and cable productions cost. Not everybody can afford these prices, of course. But for those who can, it’s a great, great value. SO WHAT AM I PAYING FOR? Producers with years of expertise organizing and planning video biography projects. Skilled interviewers and seasoned and creative video editors. Experienced camera operators and lighting directors, audio technicians, and makeup artists devoted to making you look and sound your very best on screen. Family Legacy Video crew members are talented professionals who need to be compensated accordingly. So people are on thing – gear is another. Professional cameras, lenses, lighting and audio equipment in our experienced hands yields fantastic results – but cost much more than consumer gear to purchase and maintain. And then there’s travel. While Family Legacy Video is based in Tucson, a large chunk of our productions are shot outside Arizona. I’ve traveled to the east and west coasts, points between, even points beyond, like Hawaii. Travel incurs expenses like airfare, car rental, hotel rooms, meals, etc. It’s only fair to include these costs on top of the production expense – if not, Family Legacy Video could easily lose tons of money on each video. And yet, a lot of prospective clients seem to think this is somehow unfair, or they just want to save money by trying to find someone local to them, or they just don’t like the idea of paying for someone else’s travel expenses, as if our crew is taking a vacation at the client’s expense. Just to be clear, we travel as economically as possible, meaning we squeeze into coach airplane seats, we stay in moderately-priced hotels, and we don’t raid the mini-bars. Finally, custom legacy videos are time-consuming efforts that can easily run into the hundreds of hours. WRAPPING UP It would be great if everyone could afford Family Legacy Video’s service – but the company needs to price productions at a level that compensates it fairly and allows it to stay in business. Whether you can afford to hire Family Legacy Video or you opt to go it yourself as a do-it-yourselfer, the key is not to wait – get started on your video biography now!

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4.7
out of 5
3 Ratings

About

The Legacy Video Lounge Podcast celebrates the art and science of capturing, preserving, celebrating, and sharing personal history on video. The podcast host is personal historian and video biographer Steve Pender, president of Family Legacy Video, Inc. (https://www.familylegacyvideo.com) During your visits to the Legacy Video Lounge, you’ll hear Steve share his passion for legacy videos. He’ll also offer tips on hiring and working with professional video biographers, hints for do-it-yourselfers, and much more!

Information

  • Creator
    Steve Pender - Personal Historian & Video Biographer
  • Years Active
    2016 - 2021
  • Episodes
    25
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Family Legacy Video, Inc.
  • Show Website
    Legacy Video Lounge Podcast