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Personal Historian Cory Bretz with Val Tutte showing off her new storybook
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Publishing Your Book
Step by step
"I am delighted! I love my book."That's what Val Tutte said when I delivered her box of storybooks. It's called "The Story of MWO Kenneth Gordon Tutte." It's an adventure tale that tracks the exploits of her late husband and his military regiment, the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry. It starts in the Depression when Ken enlists in the Canadian Army. World War II took him to the mountains of Italy and then he served in the jungles and hills of Korea. And back in Canada, he was an instructor teaching soldiers how to defend democracy during the Cold War. Click here to see Val's book onlineThe process of any personal history project, whether a book or a film, is to - Gather the story with interviews and research
- Digitize the old photos, films, newspaper clippings and visuals
- Organize the information
- Write the narrative
- Design an appealing treatment, either for print or video, or both
- Get it printed or mass duplicated and uploaded to the web
- Give everyone in your family the most amazing gift ever!
You can either do-it-yourself with our easy to use online interface or you can hire an experienced personal historian to produce your book for you. Val showed me her vast collection of photos, articles, and mementos. We did a series of interviews and I also did some research. In a single day, we scanned an entire room of photos using our high speed scanner. After I wrote the narrative and had it approved by Val, I designed the book layout and sent it to press. Val's book was printed in full colour on acid-free paper and properly bound inside a hard cover with a layer of matte lamination to protect it from coffee cups and fingerprints forever. She's giving a copy of the book to each of her children and grandchildren. The book has been designed in short chapters that can be read one at a time as bedtime stories for her great grandchildren. Does your family have a book or video about your history and people?
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Arrange Your Free In-Home Assessment
Always There For You Home Support Services recognizes that you are trying to balance the care of your loved ones with career, family and other commitments. Whether it's because they are aging or because of disability or they simply need a helping hand with those everyday things, Always There for You provides you and your family members with exceptional care services.
Arrange a free in-home assessment with our qualified Assessment Managers. With some simple questions we'll develop a complete picture of your home support needs. We assess existing family support, medical conditions, interior household safety, client mobility, and personal requirements. We'll create a Custom Care Plan with the highest quality of care, for any budget. Then we'll match you with our reliable well trained care staff.
Click here find out more about Always There For You Home Support Services and to arrange your Free In-Home Assessment.
Or phone 604-271-4427.
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The Big Reveal
 | | Cory Bretz |
The Act of Sharing a Story
"Ladies and Gentlemen, thank you for attending our family's special event".
Once your personal history film or storybook is completed, then what?
Some of my clients have decided to share their hard work and joy with some sort of event to show it off.
Imagine filling a banquet room with all your family members and dearest friends. They all arrive in formal attire and they are excited to finally see this thing you've been working on so passionately. For months they've heard you recalling your family stories and contacting the relatives in distant lands to get the details. They helped you haul the dusty boxes from the basement and sort through hundreds of old photos and films and mementos. They agonized with you when you decided in advance what you were going to say in front of the video camera to each and every one of your children and grandchildren. They listened to you fret while you waited patiently for your personal historian to complete the editing and production work.
Some of them don't understand what all the fuss is about. Others are living through you vicariously, imagining what their own film or storybook would be like.
Finally, the Big Day is here and the people you care about most are in rows of chairs, listening intently, laughing at your humour, crying tears of joy as they too remember your ancestors, and having their hearts filled with the beauty that you have harvested from your life - as a gift to them.
Too soon the showing ends , and they applaud heartily and dab their faces. They hug you and kiss you and shake your hand, over and over. They know you have somehow elevated all of them to the stature of "people who have been published or been seen on the Silver Screen". They know that a higher standard of cherishing each other and our lives has been declared by you in the simple pages of your storybook and by the flickering light of your film.
You look into their eyes when you hand each a gift-wrapped package. There is shock and amazement, wonderment and joy. For you to give them each their own storybook or film means something special, something that will be remembered for always.
Recently, after an intimate family Film Screening, a grandchild came forward and asked my client a question, "Grandma, can I show our movie to my friends? It's so cool".
Heirloom Films and Storybooks has packages for Film Screening Parties and Book Launch Parties.
When's yours?
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Cory Bretz is a personal historian producing video and storybooks to pass on your life story, family history, wisdom, blessings and old photos to the next generation.
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