I'm David Hoffman, filmmaker, and I've been making films for 57 years, and there's something I've learned that I want to share with you That's super important.

Okay, the subject is legacy is what to leave your kids, your grandkids, all the members of your family that you care about.

That really matters.

Now take a look at this.

I've been filming people since I was 20 so that there are films I've made, where the films are now being shown by grand parents to the grandchildren and the kids just love it.

Woman love it.

They get something special out of it.

Like Oprah once said, If you don't know your roots, if you don't know where you came from, your less ableto understand yourself.

I really believe that.

And there's been some recent scientific research that shows that genetically we carry memory from previous generations, particularly trauma, but other things as well.

So we end up having these anxieties or other feelings that we can't really understand, especially when we're teenagers, early young adults, and we're trying to figure out that actually come from people before us.

It's really interesting.

So I have some experiences that lead me to share with you that you've got to record the legacy of your loved ones and your own.

His an example.

I was filming the parents of a guy who hired me to record the parents, and the parents are going around the house and they're in their eighties and they're talking about the furniture like this thing, like when I get it like, Why do I have it if not one of the Children being left with when you were the loved one, you're filming passes on money, money?

What does money mean?

Well, I mean, what's the value of money?

What's the meaning of it?

To the people who made it, things is a thing.

Two generations later, it doesn't mean anything.

You know, I was on eBay recently, and I noticed families selling the family album, the photo albums from Grandma visiting Yosemite in the 19 fifties.

I write them.

I say, why I use selling these albums.

This is your family history because our grandkids, because our kids, because we don't know anything about it, says Grandma visits Yosemite.

There's no story there.

Story is what this is about.

Leaving legacy of values, leaving legacy of ethics, living legacy off Why you or the person you're interviewing did something meaningful that might mean something to 2345 generations down the road.

I'm going to tell you in this video a bit about how to do it, because I think it's so important.

Well, before I share that, let me just say The Alzheimer's Association says that when people have early stage Alzheimer's, these memories kind of spur their mind and they share things and they feel better.

In fact, in general, I find people feel better when they share memories.

That may mean something to somebody else.

So here is some techniques to consider.

First of all, have a kid with you have somebody who's 18 or younger alongside you.

When you're talking to the person like I'm talking to you that you put the camera up on and bring that young person.

I'll tell you why he's an example.

I was recently doing an interview, and the person says, Well, when we were kids, we went to the soda fountain.

My son says Solo fun.

What's the soda fountain?

I'll give you a really good one.

They say 5 to 10 years from now will people know what the cell phone is?

What is the cell phone?

That's interesting.

These technologies go So you gotta cannot ignore those details or ask about them and deal with the big issues.

When you were young and you fell in love is that hard?

How did that feel?

Did you fall in love more than once when you were making all this money?

That that you're gonna leave to the people after you?

Did you have values?

Didn't matter to you.

Did you really care about the money?

Would you do with the money?

What do you think about money?

Is another one when you were young, Tell me about the mistakes you made.

Because what I find is generations later somebody's listening to this who made the same mistakes.

And I have a really good one in that respect.

My grandfather ran a hospital in Providence when he was out of the military.

And I'm looking at this book printed at the 100th anniversary of this hospital.

And I see 23 pages on my grandfather, whom I didn't know and I'm reading it and it's me.

I'm seeing things about how we fought the establishment when he became head of the hospital, how he fought the board of directors, issues the Ford about them.

Say, Wow, those of the same issues I care about.

So what I'm talking to you about is about issues, values, good things and bad things.

Why is that a good thing to do?

Because it may be embarrassing to the person, and sometimes it's embarrassing to the family.

Family wants to paint these kind of George Washington cut down the tree, and he had couldn't tell a lie, so he had to tell the truth.

Now, when I heard that story when I was a kid, I knew this story was not riel because nobody's like that.

Everybody makes mistakes.

Everybody does things wrong, and that's a part of the story.

So you put up this camera and you pushed a button and you sit behind the camera and you talk to the person and just talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk hours, as we used to say, videos cheap.

Now it's free.

Just roll the cell phone or the camera.

Whatever you've got, you know when I was on the third hour off my mother's interview that was done 40 years ago, 45 years ago, she died of cancer and I was recording legacy because I knew that someday I'd have more Children and that those Children will want to know their grandma.

So what about our to my mother starts asking me questions.

Why you saying that?

Well, David, how come you think that?

So the interaction between my mother and me behind the camera and in front of the camera is really powerful.

And my Children, who never knew their grandmother, have gotten so much out of that.

In fact, it's the most priceless thing my family has.

You know the story when you leave the house.

In the case of a fire, what do you take?

Well, everybody's gonna take that DVD and the USB and their computer because that's got this memory on it.

What I tell everybody is, Are you nervous people in front of the camera?

Be nervous.

It's good to be nervous.

This is important.

Nothing wrong with nervousness.

Do you hear a chicken?

If you were a chicken, it's my chickens on that side of the house giving me eggs.

Thank you.

Chickens.

But they do interfere with the audio.

Sorry.

Also tell people that talking to the future this is not the present.

I call it a future boxes.

Some of you may know you're talking to the future.

You want people to think about 50 years from now, 60 years from now.

What do they want their descendants to think?

To feel toe, Understand?

That's what to be asking about asking about the future.

Put everything in the context of the future.

Why are you telling me this?

Your first house.

Did you fix it up?

What mattered to you?

What rooms did you fix up and why?

Don't worry about mistakes.

People make mistakes.

Tell the person in front of the camera.

Don't worry about mistakes, mistakes?

A great.

Let me say that again.

I didn't say that right.

Oh, there's something else I should add.

All fine.

The purpose of this is not to make perfect little television commercials, but lengthy interactions feeling for people.

Some people are good in the morning because they fade in the afternoon And some people are better in the evening because they slow down some people improve with alcohol or any other substance, and that's always a good thing to think about coffee.

Some people are really good late at night.

Really tired light.

Sit down and you're just talking.

This is so important when you say I'm going to do it, but I'm gonna put it off.

Everybody always says, I'm gonna put it off and then the person dies and you at the funeral home and everybody's saying, Oh, we should have recorded him saying those things.

I say Do it now and do it more than once.

Do it for yourself.

If you're over the age 20 30 I don't really know.

I started recording myself in about 25.

I've got this long kind of edit.

I haven't done it yet.

Off stuff I've said all along, the way to my Children, to the future, to my wife, to myself, it's just a wonderful way to make meaningful legacy.

It's not in the 10,000 photographs that Iran your computer hard drive.

In my case, Number 605 to 4 or the date Maybe so what?

Or the location.

Santa Cruz, California 1985.

It doesn't tell you anything you need emotion, you need soul.

You need values.

You need personality.

I was reading a quote recently that said, In the digital age, It's crazy Toe on Lee.

Leave a headstone point.

Oh, I believe that we're in the recording age.

Everything's being recorded.

People film their ski trip or their vacation on a boat or they're camping, but they never say anything.

So it looks like those old photographs from me being when people are now selling their family, uh, trip in photographs because they just don't mean it ain't got no soul.

Soul is in the sound.

Soul is in the values.

Soul is in the personal stuff that people have dealt with in their lives.

So I've made this video because I care.

I care about legacy.

I care about you, my subscribers and others who wanna know What's David happened doing at 78 years old?

And what does he care about?

Well, I care about this.

If you have any questions, subscribe.

Put yourself on patri on and give me a gift that I usedto keep on doing this.

Please set your notifications so that if you're a subscriber, you can see my next post, which may be on legacy like subjects, because I'm going to be showing some very old films in the near future.

In any case, I hope that this helped you when I thank you for giving me the time and letting me share this with you.