Ready for your close-up?

Stashed away in most of our homes are video stockpiles of recorded moments that are as precious as they’re unwatchable. But if you cringe at the thought of sitting through the six hours of blurry camcorder coverage that Cousin Len shot of your wedding, rest assured that help is at hand. For prices beginning at a couple of thousand dollars, you can now document your life’s most pivotal events with the help of a professional videographer. The right video artist can produce a documentary-style DVD of your baby’s first months that you might be tempted to submit to a film festival, or a biography of your aged mother that mixes interviews and film clips just like an A&E retrospective of a celebrity’s life. And Cousin Len’s precious footage? A skilled videographer can take even that unpromising material and edit it into a tight, tasteful production.

Note that word “tasteful.” Engaged couples will be delighted to discover that a wedding video no longer has to be cheesier than an Emmenthal fondue. Many videography studios stress their “documentary” or “photojournalistic” approach to covering the event. What that means in practice is no more Godfather-based skits acted out by the groomsmen or freeze frames overlaid with graphics of hearts and doves. “We keep special effects to a minimum and we will not do skits,” says Jamieson Dean, production manager at Markham, Ont.-based Xero Digital, an upscale studio in the Greater Toronto Area.

The studio’s stylish, understated approach was just what Roderick and Anna Oandasan of Toronto had in mind for their wedding last August. The deluxe photography/videography package that the Oandasans chose to document their 250-person nuptials cost about $6,000 and they consider it money well spent. “Your wedding day is so busy and it goes by so quickly,” says Roderick Oandasan, an account manager with a pharmaceutical company. Set to songs by the Dixie Chicks, Usher and other favorite artists of the bride and groom, the Oandasans’ DVD clocks in at three hours and 20 minutes and looks as professional as a rock video.

Although Xero Digital and many of its competitors are shooting a growing number of weddings in the cutting-edge clarity of high-defi nition video, one hot young Toronto studio favors a decidedly retro approach. Nazar Melconian of mimmo+naz prefers to work in Super 8, the medium of home movies half a century ago. Often working with both color and black-and-white stock, Melconian digitally transfers the film after shooting it and then begins editing. The finished product is a DVD 20 to 45 minutes long. “Film is softer — it looks more the way your mind remembers an event than video does,” Melconian maintains. He and his partner, photographer Mimmo Galati, steer clear of what they call “manufactured moments.” Prices for a 30-minute DVD, shot in Super 8 and covering everything from getting ready for the ceremony to the first dance and the cake cutting, start at just under $4,000.

It was the Super 8 option that convinced mimmo+naz clients Carmen Volpe and Travis Kelly of Toronto to have their wedding day filmed. “We wanted something timeless, something we’d be able to watch 20 years from now and still love, and we’re very thankful that we did it,” says Volpe, an occupational therapist. One of the fleeting moments that she is especially happy to have on DVD is the expression on her father’s face when he sees her in her wedding dress for the first time.

Some clients keep the film rolling long after the wedding day. If you want to do some Super 8 shooting of your own — on your honeymoon, for instance — mimmo+naz will rent you a camera, process and digitally transfer your footage, and turn it into a professionally edited DVD, for prices starting at $600.

And the movie version of your life doesn’t have to end there. Susan Dickey MacArthur is a former TV producer for CBS and CNN who now specializes in editing and producing baby videos and email birth announcements. She founded her Manhattan-based company, First Year Films, after becoming a parent herself and realizing that there were never enough hours in the day to assemble lovingly crafted videos starring her offspring. Her company now offers a wide range of services to new parents who find themselves similarly timechallenged.

For $1,575 (U.S.), First Year Films will take video footage that the client has already shot, transfer it onto DVD and edit it into “a seamless montage of your family’s most memorable moments.” New Yorkers preferring to have professionals take charge of the memory-capturing from the get-go can hire a First Year Films crew to spend a day filming their family. The result: a 15- to 30-minute DVD, priced at about $4,000 (U.S.). For $10,000 to $15,000 (U.S.), the crew will film on multiple occasions to produce a documentary charting the child’s transformation from newborn to toddler.

You can honor older memories of your family with the star treatment, too. Jim Cooper of Socratic Productions in Barrington, N.H., specializes in Ken Burns-style personal history videos that combine live interviews with old photos and film clips. Costs range from $2,500 to $6,000 (U.S.), plus travel expenses. Diane Hollands of Life Story Videos in Vancouver produces everything from 50-minute biographies, priced at $4,000, to a budget offering called Fifteen Minutes of Fame — for $100, you can have a DVD of yourself holding forth on a subject of your choice for a quarter of an hour.

Whatever your goal, you should talk to several videographers before making a choice. Look for someone who shares both your esthetic tastes and your instincts about what to keep and what to cut. Roderick and Anna Oandasan are pleased that their wedding DVD preserves not only the big moments of their big day but also little intimate asides, such as the groom murmuring “I love you” to the bride just after the ceremony. But some of what was recorded was a little too personal: killing time while the bridal party was dressing, the groom’s attendants mooned the camera. Xero Digital edited out the backside nudity, and a grateful Roderick Oandasan approved the director’s cut. “That’s one part of the day I only needed to see once,” he says.