Archiving your kids... are you lazy or over-the-top?

[Erik Olson]

Preparing for today's much-anticipated Why We're Thankful Patriotic Americans Thanksgiving Pageant (Available in HD) shoot at my kid's elementary school, I've started thinking about how I've actually fallen way short of documenting our children's early years.

Actually, "fallen short" is an understatement. There are many key events - make that years - that have gone entirely undocumented. Sure, there are embarrassingly framed still photos (my wife's work, I assure you) of every birthday party, family gathering and ill-conceived wardrobe decision. But where is the video?

You see, I have enough 8mm and Super8 footage of my own childhood to make that trip to Mars (and back) that's been suggested in recent years. If the ubiquitous single-perf white leaders from my father's shaky, but endearing, home movies were a food, we would actually be able to feed an entire starving population of a distant third-world country for at least a day.

So, I'm curious. How would you rate yourself? Are you a...

1. Alfred Hitchcock Home Movie Mogul - This person routinely devises scripts for his family to act out on-camera during otherwise mundane family events. It is not unlikely - or uncommon - to see this Dad wearing a full SteadiCam rig, running up and down the sidelines during regular season Junior AYSO games. His wife, of course, relocates to the opposition's sidelines to watch the match and comment on the "idiot with the camera crane thingy" on the other side of the field. This documentarian-auteur also thinks the restaurant manager is an "unreasonable and boorish a-hole who doesn't understand his art" when he declines to allow electrics and grip pre-rigging in his Chuck-E-Cheese store.
2. The Oversubsidized Yet Apathetic Documentarian - "How different could Timmy possibly look in one year anyway?" describes how this person justifies not shooting entire portions of his child's life. There might be a 50' SuperTechno in the garage, but this guy won't likely even put his still camera in 1 megapixel video mode to capture a moment that will be gone in the blink of an eye.
3. Somewhere in-between.

Please comment and feel free to berate anyone who expresses a different opinion than you do.

e

 

[Jeremy Ordan]

Well, as you know, Mary & I don't have kids but we do have dogs.

I must have three harddrives worth of pictures of our dogs... In fact, that is all we do... photograph our dogs constantly.

I like it but can already see it being a weird obsession once we get around to having kids.

 

[Erik Olson]

I have to make a built-in spice rack (on heavy-duty full extension glides) for my wife right now, so I'll check-in later!

Jeremy, you and your pets will certainly enjoy many evenings of happy reminicense over their puppy pictures when you get old and your dogs are finally taking care of you! Keep it up!

e

 

[Jim Brennan]

We take lots of pictures of the kids, most of which are stored safely on our HD, away from the prying eyes of the world. We always get the school pics too. They are all still in envelopes.

We get a lot of grief from our families about that. But I figure if they want to see kids, they can have their own.

I rarely videotape the little critters though, which seems odd.

 

[krestofre]

As funny as it would be to be on one of the extremes of this poll, I have to say that I'm somewhere in-between.

Oh, of course for that initial DVX purchase eons ago, this was a selling point to my wife. "Think of the home movies hon! The kids in 24p!" But I have to admit I rarely shot any footage of them. I've got the first baths, first Chrismas, first birthday, and then assorted holiday footage, but just to break the camera out without a holiday involved never happened.

When I moved up to the HVX I started shooting a lot more of the kids. It sounds silly, but I think the biggest change is that it became so easy to pull footage off of a P2 card and slap it on a DVD that I don't mind doing it. No more capture process! Yeah! Now I'm the dad on the sidelines and the other dads look at me and marvel that I'm shooting HD. :laugh:

I have never broken out the crane to shoot my kids, never wired them for sound (though I probably should), etc. But I have actually uttered the words "That was great honey, can you move back over there and do it again?"

This whole thread has reminded me that I've got my daughter's 4th birthday that I need to edit for the family. I did some overcranked shots for that one. :grin:

 

[Erik Olson]

The most important thing I've shot in the past few years was an archival video of my grandmother on her 83rd birthday. My cousins and I each wrote three questions for her about her childhood, siblings, parents, what life was like before, during and after WW2 and so on.

I have yet to edit it.

A friend of mine recently called to tell me how, during his grandfather's wake, he played an interview tape he'd shot with him over five years ago.

He described it as very much like the one I did with my grandmother. His family was very overwhelmingly appreciative to have some words from him as they tried to work their way through their loss. That he talked in-depth about what each member of the family meant to him during that video was even more poignant.

Since we don't know what will happen tomorrow, I often think about setting up a private confessional camera room during family gatherings. A comfortable chair and a lamp in a quiet corner of the house is really all that would be required. Those moments might just mean a lot a few years down the road!

e

 

[krestofre]

That's a project that my wife has started: Capturing the stories / memories / whatever of family members. Anytime we get together with extended family I set up the camera, lighting, backdrop, the whole nine yards.

The family that we see more often is too easily overlooked, but we try to schedule some camera time with them at least once a year.

I'm the kind of person who frequently says "Do I have to bring the gear this time? We'll see them next birthday." But she keeps on me, and you're right overland, you never know what will happen tomorrow.

 

[dotconnproductions]

I shoot a fair amount of footage and archive it. Once in a while I'll cut it together and put it on a DVD with the raws for people. One of those was last year for my 10th anniversary. I went through over ten years of footage and rough cut a mini doc out of it. http://dcalaska.com/myfamily/ten.wmv Lots is really bad footage from back in the day.

My wife liked it quite a bit, but I love having it in a short form edit that I can run thru easily to show people the progression of my family's life.

 

[J.R. Hudson]

I've been pretty bad about documenting Jared's life on video; there is the learning to ride a bike video and he has been in countless test fottage as well as the DISSONANCE short film ....

This past summer I shot a S8 Roll of his surf fishing ...

But documenting sports and birthday parties, etc have gone by the way side sans still photos. A main reason I have lagged is that I am always coaching his teams or am involved in other hands on matters with him that prevent me from holding the DVX at the same time .

 

[Jim Brennan]

The most important thing I've shot in the past few years was an archival video of my grandmother on her 83rd birthday. My cousins and I each wrote three questions for her about her childhood, siblings, parents, what life was like before, during and after WW2 and so on.

I have yet to edit it.

A friend of mine recently called to tell me how, during his grandfather's wake, he played an interview tape he'd shot with him over five years ago.

He described it as very much like the one I did with my grandmother. His family was very overwhelmingly appreciative to have some words from him as they tried to work their way through their loss. That he talked in-depth about what each member of the family meant to him during that video was even more poignant.

Since we don't know what will happen tomorrow, I often think about setting up a private confessional camera room during family gatherings. A comfortable chair and a lamp in a quiet corner of the house is really all that would be required. Those moments might just mean a lot a few years down the road!

e

Did that with my in-laws about 8 years ago. THey both died a few years later. Priceless stuff. Been wanting to do the same thing with my aunt, who is approaching 80 and the oldes living relative on my Dad's side. She's incredibly frank and engaging, but she lives in NYC and I'm in Colorado.

 

[Batutta]

When you spend most of your working hours shooting and/or editing video, the last thing you want to do with your family is film and edit them.

 

[Erik Olson]

Yeah, the painter's house is never painted thing. True story - one of the neighbors on my street in Oakland, CA had a modest bungalow that was never more than half painted. Literally, half the house would be one color while the other was roughed-in with another. Not even whole sides of the house, just a third here, a bit there and a totally random color elsewhere.

We found out from another neighbor that the owner was one of the high-painters on the Golden Gate Bridge crew - a woman, by the way. Lore has it that they paint from one end of the bridge to the other each year, then start the process all over again.

e