tellmystories.org family legacy videos created with Zoom
Covid hit and millions of us started using something called Zoom for the very first time.
Zoom was supposedly better than Skype, and, well, it was. So much so that every. single. generation. started. using. it.
Grandparents started using Zoom to keep in touch with family and friends. Kids and students started using it to attend new “Zoom schools.” And parents started using Zoom to keep in touch with, well, everybody.
Need to work from home? No worries. Zoom. Need to communicate with clients virtually? Not a problem. Zoom. Don’t feel well, but don’t feel safe enough to go see your doctor? You get the point.
The entertainment industry and a ton of small production companies hit the brakes on nearly every project in production this year. Makeup artists were out of a job. Hair stylists were out of a job. Cameraman, out of a job. Set builders, out of a job.
But doesn’t every tunnel have a light at the end of it? Well, 2020 does.
A few months of using Zoom to hold together nearly every aspect of our social, educational, and occupational lives, me and a friend had an idea. What if we use Zoom to create family legacy videos?
First, everybody’s doing it. And second, what better way to take advantage of this dumpster fire of a year, than to capture stories? My grandmother is a survivor of the Mexican Revolution, and there’s not a day that passes that I wish I had her stories on video.
One of my Norwegian great grandfathers worked with Thomas Edison “hanging incandescent lights on poles.” How cool would it be if the technology to capture stories from one generation could be passed on to the next, and the next, and the next?
