Putting a new polish on precious memories

05 January 2007

A NEW Hampstead company is bridging the generation gap by offering families the opportunity to spruce up their old home movies.

That Day Events based in Willoughby Road has helped Hampstead resident Susan Dubberley breathe new life into a collection of home videotapes featuring her son, Ross, now 12.

She said: "The tapes were a bit fuzzy and jumpy from 12 years of watching. It has now been given a whole new lease of life."

The company used the footage, featuring childhood moments such as school plays, Christmas celebrations and her son's first steps, to compile a DVD, which Mrs Dubberly then sent to her 93-year-old grandmother who lives in Huddersfield.

Mrs Dubberley said: "My relatives aren't that up on video recorders and don't get down to London much. It's much easier to send them a DVD that they can just pop in."

That Day restores home movie footage from formats like 8mm and VHS-C and then edit the footage in its in-house suite before writing it to DVD. Through contacts in the production industry, staff can even process ancient formats like Cinefilm and Super 8.

Alexis Kristin set up the company with her business partner Katie Reid three months ago, keen to use the experience she had gained in media production and documentary filmmaking.

She says: "It was always frustrating. In the beginning, we had a lot of interest from family and friends who had always wanted to have their home movies transferred, but never got around to doing it."

Ms Kristin said there are big advantages to using a local company for this kind of service. "This is much safer," she says. "People don't want their memories being lost in the post."

Business is picking up and the two are keen to branch out into filming events, using specialist crews that they know from their previous work.

Mrs Dubberly was so impressed with how her old home videos turned out that she will be employing That Day to film her 40th birthday celebrations early next year.

"I'll show my friends," she says, "which should bring in a few new customers."

editorial@hamhigh.co.uk