Ryan Rosoff wishes he had something of his grandfather’s.
Not anything physical, but maybe videos or recordings of the man who died 20 years ago. Having none of that is a real loss, he said.
“(My grandfather) was a pretty remarkable dude,” he said. “He was a surgeon at LA County Hospital for, like, 50 years. He moved from Minnesota to Los Angeles to Compton in 1926 so almost 100 years ago and he was a very huge personality. … He had so many stories, practicing medicine at LA County from 1935 to 1985.
“I try to describe him to my kids, who never got to meet him because he was gone, and also my grandmother, to my kids. There’s no way. It just doesn’t work.”
Rosoff co-founded LivingLens Memoirs with business partner Arielle Alelunas. Using microphones, cameras and lighting, the partners will record a person for posterity. It’s a service for anyone who wants to preserve a memory, a story or, in a way, a life.
Rosoff was his own first client. For his mother’s 80th birthday he and his children recorded her on video and even he was surprised by how freely she talked.
“My mom just unloaded for 90 minutes,” he said. “It was amazing. I learned so much about my mom at age 80, … and you could see it was cathartic for her, too. She was delving pretty deeply.”
For the service, Rosoff consults with clients and ascertains what direction the video will go. Once Rosoff learns his clients’ desires, he devises questions for an interview, but they are really just a jumping off point. If clients don’t like the questions, they can suggest other subjects. Nobody is forced to talk of off-limit subjects.
Here’s an example of one of the questions Rosoff always asks.
“I like to talk about passions,” he said. “That’s one of the first questions. ‘What are you really passionate about? Besides your family and your pets, what really moves you?’”
After the consult comes the actual taping and Rosoff said to bring the family along.
“Ideally, everybody shows up to the same place at the same time,” he said. “Sometimes the kiddos want to interview their mom and that makes it really neat, too, because you’re getting two people in the memoir.”
Extra people in the video come at no extra cost.
A professional videographer, Alelunas knows lighting, camera angles and what best flatters a person.
“We will definitely make you look your best,” she said. “We have multiple points of light to make sure you’re lit in the most flattering way possible.”
She also appreciates what a LivingLens Memoir video can mean to the family.
“I feel like it’s such a beautiful gift for families,” Alelunas said. “Just doing interviews for other types of work I just thought how (wonderful) it would be to capture these types of videos for families.”
She said also creates videos of a client’s special skill, such as a grandmother making her favorite recipe to share with grandchildren.
Rosoff’s specialty is sound, so the final product will be free of ambient and distracting sounds.
“For me sound is important because … you don’t notice it when it’s good but, boy, when it’s bad, you notice,” he said. “It diminishes the entire quality of everything.”
Alelunas and Rosoff will go to any location within reason to be videoed, and if they cannot, they have contractors who can and will step in. They suggest locations like Tucson Botanical Gardens, LivingLens’ studio or a client’s living room.
They will travel east to Willcox, for example, and as far as North Phoenix and Scottsdale, but can stop anywhere in between.
The interview is then edited into a 45-minute, smooth looking and sounding video. Music may or may not be added. Photos may be edited in. It’s really what a client is looking for.
“Everything is malleable, based on what the client wants,” Rosoff said. “A client could come and say, ‘We want no background music, no photos, no extra video. We want a straight, hour-long, one-camera shoot.’ We can do that, but our preference is to make these pieces of art.”
Then there’s the final product. Rosoff has several ways to get it in front of clients’ eyes.
“They’re pretty big files at the end of it,” Rosoff said. “There are a few things we can do. We can (upload) it to the cloud and provide a link. We can make it private, just for them. We can make it sharable so that anybody they send it to can open it up. … YouTube is an option.”
Rosoff said they take great pains to make sure everyone knows how to keep it private on the internet. He sees this as an important service because most people simply do not know how to do it.
“I think particularly with my mom’s generation, because they’re not so savvy about technology, they may have thought about just recording themselves with a cellphone or maybe their kids have thought about recording them and preserving something,” Rosoff said.
“But the vast majority of people my mom’s age and even my age (52) have never done it.”
Packages start at $950 and the duo is attentive. There’s the initial consult with Rosoff, the questions, a consult with Alelunas about lighting and camera. A lot goes into the video. The partners take all the time that’s needed because this is important.
“This is such a personal thing; it’s the most personal thing,” Rosoff said. “It’s literally your life.”
LivingLens Memoirs
520-261-7661
info@livinglensmemoirs.com
