Voice Portraits Versus Video Portraits?

A Voice Portrait is a broadcast quality digital audio recording of a person—yourself or a close family member or friend— somewhat akin to a radio documentary interview. Unlike radio however, the conversation would be of a more personal nature, intended for the private audience of only those with whom you choose to share it. Almost certainly auto-biographical or biographical in nature, a Voice Portrait then sets out to capture the essence or character of that subject.

A Voice Portrait will most likely be recorded in the comfort of your favourite chair in your own home with minimal technical invasion of your space, using small professional lapel microphones allowing the portrait subject to more easily shed their self-consciousness and lose themselves in a conversation that is being recorded.

Like a painted or photographic portrait, a Voice Portrait nonetheless aims higher than mere biography, striving to capture not only the facts of their chronology, but also its “colour”, as conveyed in rich and detailed stories in their own voice through our interpretation.

For more details, please go to Voice Portrait Packages.

Although we live in the time of a ubiquitous i-Celebrity culture with TV and YouTube, not everyone wants to be a movie star. Indeed, many people do not feel comfortable or natural in front of a camera. For those who aren’t, that extra layer of technology—lighting, large and possibly multiple cameras, plus crew—can feel distracting and even intimidating, and as such may pose a crucial impediment to recording any sort of oral history of that person in the first place.

Because, relatively speaking, a Voice Portrait is both less technically involved and time intensive, it tends to be more affordable than a Video Portrait. In our view, however, A Voice Portrait is none the lesser for this.

Indeed, not only people from a radio background, but even some filmmakers and film editors would argue that beyond affordability and being a solution to camera shyness, audio is the more emotionally transmissive medium. Considering our prehistoric ancestors, voicing tales of the day’s events over a communal fire, clearly we remain hard-wired to the voice, just as our ears continue to alert us to dangers beyond the reach of our eyes. Moreover, Voice Portraits can avail themselves of what is often referred to as ‘the magic of radio’, engaging the imagination and memory of the listener to fill in visual gaps with images from our own minds.

For more details, please go to Voice Portrait Packages.

Similar to a television biography (though intended for a private audience of close family and/or friends or supporters) a Video Portrait is a High Definition (HD) digital video memoir of yourself, an elder, or—for that matter—any family member reaching a milestone, that is professionally produced for you from beginning to end.

Like a painted or photographic portrait, a Video Portrait doesn’t necessarily aspire to capture every detail of person’s history but rather Peter’s interpretation of their spirit in the signature stories of their lives, in their own voice.

Weaving professionally lit and video-recorded guided conversations together with footage, photographs and memorabilia supplied by the client or subject, the possibilities of what Peter can craft into a compelling story are nearly endless. Whole well-researched histories may be edited together with titles, text, clippings, chapters, music tracks, narration and contemporary documentary footage and interviews about the protagonist, all for the purpose of capturing his or her essence as an enduring legacy.

For more details, please go to: Video Portrait Packages

Today many people want or expect to see themselves on the screen, and indeed are quite accustomed to this already. Whereas some of the more comprehensive packages of Voice Portraits may include the use of still images combined with audio as slide-shows within a motion timeline, Video Portraits capture motion images of the protagonist being interviewed, at the very least, and possibly also engaging with his or her regular life and special events. More comprehensive Video Portrait packages may also include extensive interviews with many subjects approaching the scope of a full television biography.

Those who are comfortable with and desiring video should be aware that in terms of relative cost, because of substantially additional demands on time and resources required for video production and post-production — set-ups with professional lighting, the capturing, storing, and management of high volumes of digital data, the inevitable selection, inclusion and animation of archival still images, and a more complex process of editing and finishing — Video Portraits must start at a higher price than Voice Portraits. That said the latitude for these projects to evolve in scope, potentially including multiple complex multi-camera set-ups, creation of sound tracks including the auditioning or commissioning of musical scores and sound effects, colour grading and styling make this the most plastic medium to tell stories. But it needs to be noted that this can easily go into the high thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars in cost because of the massive amounts of post-production time required.

At Legacy Productions, however, we do not necessarily believe that more, or more complexity, is necessarily better. For indeed trapping and telling those precious great stories in the subject’s own voice remains our highest priority. If complexity of production is getting in the way of trapping precious stories, we are happy to keep it simple. This is why we anticipate our base packages, with simpler set-ups and minimal technical intervention to be the most popular, to allow subjects experience to remain as comfortable and efficient as possible.

For more details, please go to: Video Portrait Packages