Telling the Story of Those You Love

None of us enjoys the feeling of being trapped, especially when trying to express ourselves.  Our loved ones afflicted by the onset of dementia most definitely experience this wall sooner or later.

Today it is my privilege to introduce creative storytellers Eric Borja and Chris Ordal, co-founders of a new media company dedicated to helping loved ones tell their stories in a most unique way.   At this time I’m going to have Eric speak directly about his passion.  He begins with this quote:

  “There is no greater burden than carrying an untold story.”

                                                       -Maya Angelou

“That is a quote I live by every day.

Storytelling has always been a passion in my personal life, and now it is the guiding force in my professional life as well.

I recently co-founded a new media company with my business partner Chris Ordal, because we wanted to tell stories of everyday people in a compelling and timeless way.  We saw there was a lack of quality storytelling and filmmaking in the legacy video market and the heritage industry, so we wanted to provide that service.  Most legacy or memory videos are told in chronological order and are more of a personal history video interspersed with family photos and movies.

While those kinds of videos fit a specific niche need, as working filmmakers we are trained and educated to turn a life into a story.  Your life story isn’t just a collection of facts or your social media identity.  Your life story is full of ups and downs, twists and turns, accomplishments and failures and life-altering decisions.

So if you’re going to tell your story to someone, why not tell those moments to a filmmaker and have them craft them into a universal, relateable and timeless movie so people beyond your family can learn and relate, and so your great, great, great grandchildren can appreciate your virtues.

To achieve this lofty and important goal, Chris and I created .REC by CADRE.

.REC, which stands for Revealing Extraordinary Character, is your life story in a 30-minute movie.

CADRE is a collection of established, working filmmakers including directors, cinematographers and editors that will make your .REC.

As we’ve tried to spread awareness of our cause and company, we’ve only been emboldened by the positive response to our idea.  Beyond our own self-interest we want to communicate to as many people as possible the importance of getting their loved ones on video before it’s too late.  Whether people are inspired to have .REC by Cadre help them tell a story, or if .REC by Cadre is what inspires people to do so themselves, we feel what we have created is extremely important to our culture and serves the greater good of future generations to come. As baby boomer parents are getting older, it’s imperative the boomer generation set an example for the younger generation of the importance of getting your parents to share and save their life story.

I was reading Pat’s blog recently and read her post about the Living Legacy Project, another company that is dedicated to preserving living history.  And I was encouraged to find another person and company as dedicated to this cause as we are. As a society, we tend to memorialize people’s lives after it’s too late. But as Pat or anyone who has a loved one suffering from Alzheimer’s or dementia understands, there has to be an urgency and a need to get their loved one’s story told in any way possible, because you never know what life has in store for those close to you.

See for yourself at www.recbycadre.com. “

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