Memory land Mother-daughter duo creates keepsakes on DVD's

BY LINDA BLASER

STAFF WRITER

Making moms happy is what Valene Staggs of Lake Forest and her daugher, Dina Jaske of Round Lake Beach, tried to do for several moms this Mother's Day.

Owners of Looking Back Producitons, the mother-daughter duo took a friend's suggeston and offered their DVD production services to families that want to make a lasting, personalized gift for their moms for Mother's Day.

The four-to-nine-minute DVD's feature pictures and other mementos the family wants included set artfully to music.

The work, which the mother-daughter duo say they both love, started with an 85th birthday tribute to Stagg's mother and Jaske's grandmother.

"When I did her little montage, she had a book of the prettiest little Valentines from the '40's," Stagg said.  They used about 50 pictures with the Valentines, which they manipulated with software to create the DVD, which her mom watches again and again.

"It all kind of moves," Stagg said. "We enhance and edit the pictures.  Finding the right music really makes a difference."

Each photo remains on screen for four seconds as music plays.  Stagg and Jaske will pan each photo, zeroing in on the mother's face and gradually enlarging to include the rest of the group.

From the video for her mom, Stagg and Jaske started doing DVD memorials for funeral homes.

"We got such tremendous feedback from it," Stagg said.  "One daughter called and said you did a tribute video for my grandmother, could you do one for my mom for Mother's day? It kind of snowballed from there."

On some video's, Jim Stagg, Valene's husband and Dina's dad, has helped out using his reporting skills as a former Chicago radio disc jockey to interview people on screen.

"It's a keepsake for families," Jim Stagg said about how important it is for families to document their own history this way. "Some stories the kids will never hear unless they're preserved."

"We try to make them as absolutely personal as possible," said Jaske, adding that the 3-D effect of the DVD's they produce are not a static slideshow.  The charge for customers ranges from $250 to $375.

After nearly a year of working together to help preserve others' family memories, the mother-daughter duo are gratified by their work.

"Its something I truly find rewarding." said Val Stagg.

"There's not one negative to this job," said Jaske.  "It's fun dealing with people."

(Reprinted from "Lake Forester" Newspaper  March 2006)