Legacy capture is one of our favorite applications of volumetric video technology.
With legacy capture, it is our hope to preserve the wisdom of human stories for future generations. Volumetric video can immortalize the essence of a person – their speech inflections, gestural nuances, how they move through space, and all of the characteristics that build a complete picture of them. We see this technology playing a role in the protection of truth, while ensuring that un-altered, first-person narratives always remain part of human history.
Holocaust survivor Amelie Diamant Holmstrom is one of the most powerful captures we’ve worked on thus far.
Amelie was born in Vienna, Austria, in 1927. In late 1938, some months after the Nazis occupied Austria, Amelie fled Vienna for Paris in the company of her parents Dr. Rudolf Diamant and Charlotte Diamant, as well as her two triplet sisters, Evelyn and Marianne. While in France, the girls attended schools in five different cities before they obtained U.S. Immigration Visas and transit visas first to Lisbon and then on to New York in December, 1940.
Although Amelie and her sisters were separated from their parents in Lisbon, and did not know when, if ever, they would see their parents again, the family was reunited in New York in early 1941. Of Amelie’s father’s 10 siblings, only one survived the war.
The Diamants settled in Portland, Oregon where the girls attended high school, their father re-established his dental career, and their mother went to work for Janzen Knitting Mills. After high school, Amelie earned her Bachelor’s degree at the University of Oregon and her Masters degree and the University of Washington. She developed a successful career as a language teacher and as an author of language text books entitled “French, A Creative Approach,” and a series of personal growth books entitled “The Courtship of Life.” As an adult in the United States, she went on to marry James R. Holmstrom. She is a mother to two boys – Richard and Eric.
At the time of Amelie Holstrom’s capture, three generations of her family were present with us in the studio. Her son, Eric Holstrom, interviewed her and was recorded alongside her, which gave her capture an element of filial love and connection. Amelie arrived with a bouquet of orange and amber roses, her power colors, which she offered to us upon her departure from the studio.
From Amelie we learned that each person possesses the capacity to create their own existence, and that to make a difference is a lifelong challenge for everyone.
Moving forward, we hope to build on this legacy series in hopes of constructing an “archive of humanity,” similar to that which is preserved through film, photographs, records, paintings, and all other visual media that carry our history.
Whose stories would you like to preserve?