How it works.

Free · 30 minutes

The consultation

Thirty minutes by phone or video. We listen to who the story is about and where things stand, recommend the right product, often a smaller one than you had in mind, and send a written quote, valid for thirty days. There is no obligation, and we never follow up more than once.

Sessions of 60–90 minutes

The interviews

Our interviewers are professionals trained in oral history and documentary work, chosen for patience before anything else. Sessions run sixty to ninety minutes, long enough to get somewhere, short enough not to tire anyone, by phone, video or in person.

For remote film and audio work we ship a prepaid recording kit, a lavalier microphone, a small light and a phone mount, with a fifteen-minute setup call before the first session and a prepaid return label after the last. For in-person filming, a director and cinematographer come to the home.

Writers · editors · directors

The making

Writers, editors and directors shape the conversations into something finished. Films and voice archives are chaptered, childhood, work, love, family, the things they believe, so they can be watched or heard whole, or dipped into for years. Written work is drafted by one professional and edited by a second.

Photographs come to us digitally or by tracked post; we scan them, restore where needed, weave them in, and return every original the same way.

Two rounds included

Your review

You read the draft, or watch a private cut. Two rounds of changes are included on every product, wording, order, photographs, whole passages, and nothing is printed, published or shared with anyone until you approve it.

Delivered, and yours

Delivery and ownership

Digital files, print and a private online page, its first year of hosting included and $49 a year after that ($195 prepaid for five years), with every master downloadable at any time; film and audio work also arrives on an archival USB drive. On final delivery, once payment is received in full, the copyright is assigned to you, we keep nothing to license or resell.

Throughout

Privacy, throughout

Every participant signs a consent and release form before recording. Storage is encrypted, nothing is public unless you choose, deletion is a request away, and your story is never sold, licensed or used to train anything.