The Power of Preserving Family Legacies with Heritage Films

In this conversation, filmmaker Chance McClain sits down with host Candice Bloch and shares his journey from a diverse creative background to founding Heritage Films, a company dedicated to creating personal legacy documentaries. He discusses the importance of storytelling, connecting generations, the emotional impact of capturing family histories, and the production process involved in making these films. Heritage Films has created over 800 films, and counting. Chance also highlights the role of technology, including AI, in enhancing the filmmaking experience while maintaining a focus on personal narratives. The discussion also touches on the lessons learned from various life stories and how they can inspire future projects.

To learn more about Heritage Films, visit: https://yourheritagefilm.com/

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Transcript

VO
00:10 - 00:21
Welcome to Media Makers Spotlight from Women in Film and Video in Washington, D.C. We bring you conversations with industry professionals for behind the screens, insight and inspiration. 

Candice Bloch
00:23 - 00:52
Thanks for joining us. I'm your host, Candice Block, and today I'm joined by filmmaker and founder of Heritage Films, Chance McLean. With more than 800 personal legacy documentaries crafted, Heritage Films captures the spirit of families and founders in a way that inspires and connects generations. Chance is a creative entrepreneur, proud Army veteran, and sports radio pioneer. From Broadway musicals to radio waves and film reels, Chance's passion for connection and storytelling makes him well-versed in the art of preserving legacies. Welcome to the 

Chance McLean
00:52 - 01:02
show a chance. Or you make me sound so important. I promise everything. I just bumbled and stumbled my way through it all. I promise. So about that bumbling and stumbling, we are going to talk a lot 

Candice Bloch
01:03 - 01:20
about of heritage films, but I'm curious to know a little bit more about those experiences that brought you to it by way of sports and musicals. Can you give us a little bit more of that journey through those different creative mediums? Sure. Yeah. Let's see. Well, I went to 

Chance McLean
01:20 - 03:47
the University of Texas and failed out. I actually went as a radio television film major and I got some bad advice that said there's no business in that. So change your major to business. And then I just did not fare well. Went to a different school, had no better luck, but I met a girl and I eloped and got married and went to the army, did four years in the army as a light infantry medic in between the wars. So no overseas duty. It was an amazing time though, had a good time, but I was always messing around with music and kind of the creative space. I was always a fun guy, you know, playing the piano drunk at parties and things, that type of guy. And I wrote a song about Yao Ming, the basketball player that really went viral before things went viral, turned that into a career in sports radio as a creative director. And you got to think about when this was in the early 2000s. It's when everything was converging with digital video and audio and kind of learning all that stuff. So I started playing around with cameras and doing different things. I ended up being a program director at a sports radio station. We kind of ran the station and wanted all my guys to do video, do blogs. This is that time in our history. And I got, I think I got into it more than they did. And I wrote a musical that we released online. It was a fan prequel to Dr. Horrible's sing-along blog. If you remember that Neil Patrick Harris, Joss Whedon production. I loved it. And we wrote it and ended up going to the streamies. And so had a knack for the video space. My kids were in, into theater at the time. And so, you know, if they were playing, if my son was playing football, I would have been involved in football. If my daughter was in dance, I would have been dance. Well, they were musical theater kids. So I wrote a show and submitted it to Nymph, the New York musical theater festival, and ended up getting in. And so now I found myself with an off Broadway production, which was just absolute blast. And so I kind of scratched that itch, but still doing video, still doing video, left radio in 2011 and was just basically doing anything on any screen. Somebody would give me money. I would go make it TV commercials, internet videos, whatever I could do. And then about 10 years ago, a buddy of mine asked me to film his dad. And that's kind of when I pivoted into now taking all the different video things I've done over the years, all the experiences I've had over the years and concentrating them into telling stories for families. And now I'm talking to you. 

Candice Bloch
03:49 - 04:11
Yeah, well, it sounds like you have that creative streak that runs throughout. And as screen-based media makers over here, we understand the allure of getting things on screen. So it seems like you had that the whole way through. Absolutely. It sounds like that story that your friend asked about, was that the main thing that sparked heritage films or was there like the catalyst for creating that as a company and going and staying 

Chance McLean
04:11 - 05:31
in that direction? Great question. Cause the answer is that was definitely the start. He asked me to film his dad. His dad was turning 75 and I don't know what the hell I'm doing. I said, sure, I'll set a camera down and talk to your dad. So I did that. And then, and it was fun and it went well. And then a couple, I did a couple more of those over the course of a year. And then about a year later, my stepdad, my dad, he let us know at Thanksgiving that he had stage four pancreatic cancer and that he had a year to 18 months to live. And, and I had done a couple of these films. So I said, can, can we do yours? And a long story, very short, two months later, I had, I had my buddy do the interview and he interviewed on Tuesday and he passed away on Sunday. And the real catalyst of my company was when I became a client of my own thing and realized that, oh my God, this is so much more than a gig. This is important, very important to have these, because again, it was my stepdad. So I didn't know, none of us know a lot about our parents growing up, but I certainly didn't know anything. And once I became a client, I saw it as important beyond just income. And my wife and I launched the company and now, boy, we've done a bunch of them. 

Candice Bloch
05:32 - 05:56
Yeah. Yeah. No, it is very important. I personally have created a documentary about my mom and my dad with my brother. We're media makers. So I completely understand the power and the impact and then what you can use it for as well. But you mentioned the sickness of your stepdad there. So how how many do you think of these overall tend to be created when someone 

Chance McLean
05:56 - 07:09
gets diagnosed with like a terminal illness? Yeah, I mean, I can tell you it's it's almost 10 percent of the films that we've done have been at that level of life. I told you my background, my background is insane. I'm singing at the Toyota Center. I'm doing sports radio. I'm in Broadway. I'm doing all this crazy stuff. I didn't think that I had the chops to talk to somebody that's having thoughts that perhaps we'll all be lucky enough to have one day, but I was terrified. And so almost 10% of the films are that, are me sitting down and talking to somebody that is terminal. And after the first few of fumbling and stumbling and just crying and crying and crying, now I look at them as, it's such a privilege. There are people that feel compelled to go into hospice care. That ain't me. That is not me. However, however, it is a source of pride that we get to spend these important treasured last minutes with people sharing their stories, all the while focused on their family. How can we elevate this person I'm talking to so that generations of people will be like, dude, my grandma was awesome. 

Candice Bloch
07:11 - 07:26
Yeah. Yeah, it's so great. I love what you do. But just into sort of the production side of it a little bit as well. What's your typical process from like when a client reaches out? Do you have like a core team that you work with to create all of these? 

Chance McLean
07:27 - 08:17
Sir, whenever I had this conversation with you set up, I was so excited about, I don't know, the tech side or the movie making side. Most of the people I talk to, it's all of the it's the stories from the road and the crazy things and experiences and the complexities of families. And it's all those type of questions. But I'm like, hey, I'm I'm a filmmaker. I just have I have a concentrated audience. The analogy I like to use is most times when you make a film documentary narrative, anything, it's like a megaphone. We're taking this information and we want as many people as possible to love it. Well, we turn that megaphone upside down and we try to take as much as we can from one person or a couple of people or a handful of people and distill it down to this established audience of their family, their loved ones. It allows us to get more intimate. So that's what we normally talk about. And I'm so excited to talk to somebody about. 

Candice Bloch
08:17 - 08:20
I am still a freaking filmmaker. We can talk some of that too as well. But yeah. Yeah. 

Chance McLean
08:21 - 09:40
Well, I follow kind of silver era of filmmaking rules as far as framing and what we look like. We want it to look like what you see on a Netflix or HBO documentary. As far as the equipment we're using and all that, the process starts once somebody says, I'm in, let's let's film myself or film my grandpa or whoever. They fill out some forms. So I'm going to I'm going to have the basics about we'll just go with grandpa and its birthday birthplace. what grandpa's parents did for a living, places he's lived. It's like 20 questions. It's the basics, right? It's enough for me to know about this person. I have a comprehensive process that I then braid that information into. Then the next step involves forms as well. And it's where the people that love grandpa, we send them a form to fill out. And it kind of says, hey, what do you want to know about grandpa? Or where are your curiosities? What is it from you? You're or you're the nephew, or you're the college roommate, where I get a handful of other perspectives on the gentleman I'm going to be talking to from the people that care about him. So then I kind of weave all that in. And then we do our version of a site survey or scouting is, send me some iPhone pictures of your home 

Speaker 4
09:40 - 09:41
because we go to them. 

Chance McLean
09:42 - 10:55
And we use those to help determine what is the right equipment to bring, the technical logistical side of the film. But once we show up, we're rolling in with great stuff, but I want them to forget any of that crap is there because we're going to be there for a day or more. And I want to have an open, thoughtful conversation. I tell everybody that this isn't a Barbara Walters Q&A. We're not providing the questions ahead of time so that you can prepare for it. We are having an honest conversation. We set all the lights, the cameras, mics, traditional three-point lighting. Again, all of our stuff is our technical side was established half a century ago. And then we just start chit chatting and talking. And while we're talking, we got crew in another room that's scanning and pictures, filming. I'm here talking to you now from a farm. I have another company. It's the same company, but it's marketed as another company called Farm and Ranch Films. And we're doing one of those today. And we're out on I'm on I'm on a farm right now. My guys are filming. So I have all staff. I'll use freelancers here and there, but primarily it's all staff. And I do the interviews and then my team, everybody. 

Candice Bloch
10:56 - 10:57
How big is your team? 

Chance McLean
10:57 - 10:59
There's 10 of us all in. 

Candice Bloch
10:59 - 10:59
Okay. 

Chance McLean
11:00 - 11:08
Yes, ma'am. All out of the, you know, Hollywood, Houston. That's not a thing. I'm out of Texas. 

Candice Bloch
11:09 - 11:28
Yeah. Well, filmmaking can be done anywhere. And, and I mean, and also basically because of what you do, you're going to places and to homes, I would imagine to have the comfort and, and also the, that's part of their story too, you know, where, where they make their home. But yeah, so you have a guess. I can touch on that a little bit. 

Chance McLean
11:28 - 12:43
When I first started the company, again, I'm coming off of, you know, we did the, we did the big YouTube movie. I'd worked on other big projects just as a freelancer and I wanted the Hollywood man. I'm that, that's my jam. I like it all. And so my first few films, I would I would rent a soundstage in Houston. And then, you know, we'd bring in some 75 year old guy and his wife to talk over the course of a day and a half. And I hit the first break, you know, so grandma can go use the bathroom. And I'm sitting there looking at grandpa and I realized that this is so awkward. They felt off. I like this crap. I like the grid. I like the cyclorama, the fake living room. They felt uncomfortable. So we switch it to exclusively going to their homes, not just so that they feel more comfortable because they're more apt to open up if they're in their own backyard and their own living room, but also they're surrounded by their life and their memories and they'll reflect upon things that are right by them. Or they're telling me a picture about them. You know, on my 16th birthday, I thought I was getting a Mustang and I ended up getting a 48 Chevrolet, just piece of crap car. And I'm like, oh, my God, do you have a picture of that car? 

Candice Bloch
12:44 - 12:45
Yes, it's in that. 

Chance McLean
12:46 - 12:47
So it works out cool. 

Candice Bloch
12:48 - 13:07
Yeah, well, and you mentioned the audience for this is their families and their families would have memories associated with those spaces and items as well. So, yeah, that's that makes sense. But and it's cool that you have it streamlined in a way that you can have your small crew come in and fit into situations because it's not a massive production. 

Chance McLean
13:08 - 14:38
Right. You know, so, oh, I got it. There's something funny. Oh, go ahead. It's funny if you're in if you're in this business. So even when I started going to their homes, we would stroll in with five or six people, guys behind each camera. And the swarm would come into grandma's house. Right. Again, the volume of films that we've done, we've just gotten better and better and better for the client and for the production. And so we've reduced that down to tiny little crews. And thank God for the technology and the fantastic autofocus. So now when we set up, I'll be sitting there with two or three cameras, depending on who I'm talking to, with monitors that I have touch access to so that if he leans forward and gets out of autofocus, I can actually pull focus on him myself. But we've got it down to where when I'm talking to dad, it's me and dad in the room. That allows for more intimacy. And then my insane background of everything from the army to Broadway to I left off a stage where I had a bunch of different sales jobs and oil and gas and the uniform business. I'm going to find some, you know, you remember Dale Carnegie, how to win friends and influence people. He's like, find something in common. You got common ground. Now ask short questions with long answers. dude, that's my whole company. So that's what I do. I find some common ground and we can establish some intimacy. And I know enough about them from the forms and stuff that I'm being like, oh, I can't wait. Your grandma wants to know about all your boyfriends in high school. So we'll get there in a little bit. 

Candice Bloch
14:38 - 15:04
It just allows for connection. Yeah, it's good. You've got that person. You're very personable and it helps. And then, you know, equipment getting smaller and smaller also helps over time. I would imagine you're not having this huge camera staring down at people that you can't ignore in your peripheral. Yeah. So, I mean, whether it's even photography, I know from some background in that as well. It's like, if you take it out, people change. They know that they're being seen or documented. And you're like, 

Chance McLean
15:04 - 15:43
please just relax. Please get used to this being here. Yeah. What we do, Candice, we make them a part of setting up whatever room we're going to film in, me and the subject will just sit down. I've got all this information. We just start chit-chat, just girl talk. We just have coffee talk, have coffee, BS, hang out while the crew is sitting there. And they're like, oh my gosh, what is that? Oh, that's an aperture 600. It's a super bright light. It'll blind you in a little bit. You'll see. And we laugh. That is all intentional. That is all making them forget this crap is there so that we can just talk and knock on if there's wood in here it works 

Candice Bloch
15:45 - 15:56
yeah so you said that you have members of your team that are you know scanning things and gathering other things for for b-roll do you do any like photo restoration and things like that 

Chance McLean
15:56 - 16:39
for when uh when you put it in oh 100 we do again trial and error we we do you take an old picture an old daguerreotype or 20s, 30s and whatever, and they're all janky. We like to show the picture as it is in the album. So if a picture is going to be on screen for say 11 seconds, because it's got multiple faces in it, we will start, we'll often start the picture with as it is in the book with tears and rips. And then over the first three seconds, as we're pushing in on it, Ken Burns style, we're pushing in slowly. The picture fixes itself on the screen and makes it so that you can see as close to an approximation of what was really there. 

Candice Bloch
16:39 - 16:41
All the AI tools. 

Chance McLean
16:41 - 16:49
For somebody that lives in the past and talking exclusively about the past, boy, we've leaned into the future a lot as well. 

Candice Bloch
16:50 - 17:23
Yeah, that's awesome. There's such great advances there. For a while, I really loved doing hand detail work for all that stuff. Yeah, it's really fun. When I was doing that documentary for my father's life, I was totally geeking out on just restoring a couple really amazing photos and, you know, you just put on music and lean into it. It's just, it's so fascinating. And yes, you know, I guess we could talk about it now a little bit. You lean into the tech of stuff. I've heard you use AI in some of your stuff. How do you incorporate that into your production process? 

Chance McLean
17:24 - 20:34
Sure. So I don't know how sophisticated everybody is. I would imagine pretty much now they're listening to your podcast. They probably know a little bit. So we'll use Gen AI for certain things, but not the photographs. Like one of the ways that we'll use it, if we have to do a significant reframe of the subject, we will fill in a little of their living room if we have to reframe that much. Because, man, these aren't actors. These are dads. These are moms. These are plumbers. These are attorneys. They're doing their own thing. And so we'll actually, we can move the frame further than normal and we can use some Gen AI there. But within the photos and stuff, very light, very light on that. However, the tools out there for like, gosh, the Topaz Labs suite of stuff for video and images upscaling is fantastic. The natural suite within the Adobe Creative Cloud is just remarkable. In 11 Labs, my gosh, what's changed over the last year? You know, grandma may say, I may ask a question about her father and she just says, he was a farmer. He was a good guy. He was a lot of fun, yada, yada, yada. Well, with 11 Labs, I can get a voice clone of her and have it say, my dad was a good guy. And we just put a picture on top so the lips don't match. And now just short little phrases and words, you can really get by with a lot. But it's always, always, always to serve the stories that are being told and to elevate grandma. It's also good for cutting out pics and things, things that people that are natural. We want them to always look natural. But if you've got some B-roll on top of it, you can have the grace of cleaning it up some. And there are tools within the audio AI space that we use there. And then on pre-programming, I'm telling you, I could talk about this forever. pre-production they fill out all the forms and we can use notebook lm to put all the forms into something that i can interact with so as i'm creating my producer guide it's not this long handwritten thing i still go through the same process but i have that aid that that tool there to help me i can get a lot deeper i think ai is allowing us to have more thorough conversations in in pre-production so i'm more ready of course the hallucinations suck when you ask them about their dog Flippy that didn't exist, that type of things has happened. But when I'm wrong, when I'm the producer and I'm wrong, it's totally okay. Because when, when mom corrects me, her correction usually looks like exactly what you want to see in a documentary film. So much so that I'll even stretch that and say things that I know kind of are partially true. Like I'll say, so you were the youngest of three and they'll say, no, I was, I have a younger brother. I was the third of four. Well, them correcting me, take that no off. And now it looks like this person that's passionately saying where they are in their birth order, which opens up a ton of doors about, oh, you had a brother that was 18 months younger. You almost have fought like cats 

Candice Bloch
20:34 - 21:33
and dogs. Yeah, that's great. I mean, AI is definitely a tool. I love when I see people that are using it as a tool, but not completely relying on it, you know, because if you do that, then yes, it's exactly. And so I just love hearing perfect examples of how to use it, where either you're checking something that you're already also doing, maybe getting some new ideas or inspirations from it, having it help with certain things, but not doing things for you. So I think that that's great. So you also mentioned with like the intake and those questions that you come with notes and stuff to the conversations and you're just chatting. Two questions about that. One, how do you balance to create a bit of a narrative arc for the final product? And also, are there any particular questions that you like to always ask everybody in these? Because this is about legacy in life. And I'd imagine there's certain things about like advice, wisdom, regrets, things like that, that you might ask everyone. 

Chance McLean
21:35 - 23:48
So there's a couple of my own little pet things that I like to ask. And I'll answer the other question after if I remember it. I always ask if they're of the right age. I ask about JFK because that was one of the seminal moments in American history where they all have memories. If they're military people or have military families, I always ask about the military adjacencies that our country's been through. Since, well, we're done with the World War I people. I've done 27 World War II vets. So a lot of World War II talk, Vietnam, Korea, Persian Gulf, all of those things are kind of staple if there's a military adjacency. And of course, I always ask for their progeny, kind of what are the secrets to happiness, to life, to marriage? How do you get through hardships? All those questions. And what was interesting is the first 50 people, I'm making up that number, the first year or so, I was kind of guessing I was trying to do it to help grand, grandson and future generation. But as I started hearing things, I started applying to me. What are these people that have happy families? And I started applying to my life. It's made me a better son, a better husband, a better father, a better friend, better drinking buddy, all of those things. It's really improved from a very selfish perspective. It's improved my life tremendously. These, these amazing people. So that's some staples that I always go through. Gosh, there's so many more. There's things. Some of the things I do are actually they're tangents that are meant to pull out more stories. Things about your attire in your teen years. We remember that stuff. You know, I grew up in the 80s. You could ask me, you know, it's ridiculous what we wore. Little poodle skirts were ridiculous. And go-go boots were ridiculous. And disco shorts were ridiculous. They're all ridiculous, but they're special to them. And oftentimes you'll ask somebody about the attire that they're wearing and it'll it'll be an unlock for other experiences they had. Or if they were private school kids, did you wear a uniform? Asking about the uniform, just, oh, God, I hated those skirts or I hated that we had to wear these goofy polo. And now you're seeing character while they're sharing stories. 

Candice Bloch
23:48 - 23:48
Yeah. 

Chance McLean
23:49 - 23:50
What was the first question? I'm so sorry. 

Candice Bloch
23:51 - 24:07
Then when you have all that stuff, how do you craft it into a narrative for the final project so that it's not just a string of random questions? You know what I mean? Like that it has it's still even the Netflix documentaries and things that you see, there's like a whole narrative arc, you know? 

Chance McLean
24:08 - 26:42
Absolutely. And we were first of all, I'm a I'm addicted to stories from Joseph Campbell to Robert McKee to all save the cat. Oh, I've read all the books. And I and I really, really love the story. My favorite book on story is called Invisible Inc. by Brian McDonald. And it's the best book on story that I've ever read. It's very dead simple. I highly recommend it to whatever form of story your audience is into. It's a book that I buy 20 copies of and I give it out. Everybody that works with me, I make them read it. And so we care very deeply about story. But just like what I've learned from other documentarians, there's three movies you're making. There's a movie you plan. And my planning is reading all those forms and start building. Oh, cool. Here's this. Here's this arc. Here it is. Then there's the one you make, the one we shoot. We sit down and we find out, oh, my God, there are so many other things that are going on here. And now I think it's this. I write all my producer notes out because I'm the one that's doing it. And there's something magical that happens in the space itself that now gets turned into a PDF for my edit team. And then there's the edit that happens because they see things from the camera that I didn't see because I was in the room. And somehow between those three things, this merger of the story we planned, the story we shot, the story we edited, all these different brains on it, the thoughts of everybody filling out their forms. Me, Jason pulling strings and don't go anywhere and circling all this crap that goes through. And then the editor grinding through the CPA years for some guy. And what comes out of it is authentic. It's a representation of who they are. And because of our attempted adherence to traditional storytelling, we started this way. We went through this. We learned this. We became this. And we changed like this. And then because it's for the family, we have that other chapter of, and because of all this, here's what I believe. Here's my values that I hope you, my audience, will take away from it. We can be more literal about it. Like in a good movie, you don't want to come out there and be so on the nose. Well, when you're watching your grandfather, your great-grandfather talk, you don't mind on the nose of him saying, be a man of your word, do what you say, even if you suffer. To see your grandfather say that, it sticks with you. And when you end up in a situation in your own life where you're about to make a call, you'll go back and picture that old man saying that, and hopefully you'll make the more honest call in that case. 

Candice Bloch
26:43 - 26:48
Yeah. So what's your turnaround time like? So when basically from, 

Speaker 4
26:49 - 26:51
I know you have different packages and tiers as well, obviously, 

Candice Bloch
26:52 - 27:06
but generally what is your turnaround? Because it sounds like you're making a lot of these all the time. I would imagine, you know, parts of the process are overlapping constantly. So typically what do you tell people for what they can expect for when you're filming to when they can get this product? 

Chance McLean
27:06 - 28:55
Well, I lean on my army side here. I am an army guy. And very, very heavily, there's a company the first number of years where we were figuring it out. And then there's once we realized that a system, a process is what's going to make a better movie. So now 80% of our films are our traditional heritage films, either one day or two days, depending on one person or two. And we have a process and it's a six week process from dumping footage, backing up, all that good stuff. We have a pre-story edit. We have a story edit. We have what we call a VFX edit. And so think of it as graduated tiers of editors that have different specialty skills. By the end of the edit, it's a super nerdy guy with thicker glasses than mine that is doing the nuanced granular editing to make sure their eyes aren't closed on a cut, little things like that, to add your graphics, to add your intro, your credits. But at the beginning, you don't want this dude editing your YouTube video, but he'll know that they know the story. They know how to call out that story from there. So six weeks for those. And then our signature films, which are, man, they're the same thing at the root of it. It is, I want to do this and I love this person. But they've got the resources to not just interview dad, but perhaps interview dad and his college roommate. and his three brothers and the kids, and we go all over the country making a very similar project. And those, once we determine what's going to go into the film, okay, it's a six-day shoot. We're talking to seven different people. We've got two days dedicated to just B-roll. We actually have an Excel sheet. Sorry. I know there's probably a better tool than that. Don't worry. I know, right? If it ain't broke, right? 

Candice Bloch
28:55 - 28:57
Like if you're good at it, it still works, yeah. 

Chance McLean
28:58 - 29:12
Yes, ma'am. We have an Excel sheet that'll tell us, yeah, this is a 16-week edit. And then once I tell them that, we may be working some weekends, but we're going to stick to our word, which is rare in our business. I remember the days of being late and all that good stuff. 

Candice Bloch
29:13 - 29:58
Yeah, so that is a good part of the Army background to know how to stay on time, to deliver exactly when you say you're going to deliver. There are the nuggets of wisdom, I'm sure, that you get asked all the time that you've collected from sitting down with all these people. So since, I mean, everyone should be talking to older generations in their life all the time anyway, and learning from the wisdom of older generations. But you have this sort of gift of being able to have these conversations with literally like hundreds of people who have done that. Obviously, there's some specific ones that are pretty common that most people would suspect that run throughout. Are there any particularly like unique or memorable ones that stand out to you from those that you've carried through for your life moving forward? 

Chance McLean
29:59 - 30:09
Absolutely. Absolutely. There's one, there's one that stands out above all. And believe it or not, I told you I'm at a farm right now. I'm at the farm of the guy where this came from. 

Candice Bloch
30:10 - 30:11
Oh, okay. 

Chance McLean
30:11 - 32:50
Yeah. So about, if I cry, I'm going to be so pissed at you. So about seven years ago, I get a call from this young dude named Garrett that my football has cancer. It's in August and he's not going to see Christmas and we need to get a film made of him right now. he's a farmer i said okay so we go we get it all worked out and we go out and jacko jacko garrett is the man's name and i i do my regular heritage film process with mr garrett and we got along really really really well and at one point in the film i wasn't rolling he was telling a story again mind you he's a farmer big farm but he's a farmer big farm little farm farmers are farmers okay there's a little nugget for you you know he always gets him at five in the morning and goes and does farmer's stuff. And his wife is a farmer's wife. She gets up at five and goes and does farmer's wife farmer stuff. Well, she was going through a really bad health period. And so now from this period of Jacko's life, he's getting up at three, three in the morning. And he's just on his iPhone farting around. And I said, and he's like, yeah, I do. He just, I said, man, Jacko, three o'clock in the morning, that's when people are still out. You're up. That must've been hard. And he's on his phone and he's like, What does horror have to do with anything? Later in the conversation, a very similar type story. And he said, he asked me how I was doing. And I said, man, I'm just busy as a one-legged man in an asking contest using some busy. And he's like, busy? What is busy? Why are you telling me you own your own business? You're telling me you're busy? You're complaining about that? And then the other one was something about the same type of story. And I said, you must have been tired. And when I told him tired, he's like, listen, Chance, busy, tired, things being hard. Those are complaints. You need to get complaints out of your mouth. You got a wife. That's the person you're allowed to complain to, somebody that you're very close with. You shouldn't be telling other people. You shouldn't be complaining to them. You're not helping their lives. So what's hard got to do with it is something that became a mantra to me. And you don't want to work with me because I struggle with it. I probably said something was hard on this call with you. It is a challenge to eliminate that from your life. But just think about this old farmer that lived a life. He passed away two years ago this week. He lived his whole life, and the life of a farmer is a hard life. He lived his whole life really, really, really authentically, not wanting to sell other people's lives 

Candice Bloch
32:51 - 32:53
where they're worried about him having some micro complaint. 

Chance McLean
32:53 - 32:55
And I thought that was just so powerful. 

Candice Bloch
32:55 - 33:19
Yeah, I mean, there's that fine line between, you know, the finding that common ground of being in struggle together is also a common ground type thing. But yeah, it's also like, is that is that going to change the situation, though? Or are you still going to get stuff done? Yeah, it's yeah, it's it's good advice. And his legacy is continuing on through this as well. Right. So look at that. That advice that you passed on. Jacko lives through this, too. 

Chance McLean
33:20 - 34:38
He does. Yeah. Is there any better sign that what you're doing is working than referrals are great? Multiple projects with one family, it just tells you we really, really, really obsess on two things. Quality. By the way, everything I'm telling you is what I think other people should do. Now, this is I'm not bragging. I'm a spaz. I'm going to get we're going to get it right. But quality of the production, we're movie makers. We want badass movies, of course, but also of experience. Walt Disney is my absolute hero. And he I learned this from one of the books I read on him about it's not just a production, it's the experience of the audience and of the people that you're involved with. So we try to have a lot of fun. And when we're on set, I want to Hollywood it up. I want to use a slate. I want to provide this moment. I want the ladies that I film, if they've dolled themselves up, some people are just going to be in their nightgown. This is me. That's fine. But if they've gone through and they look beautiful, I want to feel the elegance that they're wanting to project. And I want to play that up. I want that to be, and I mean authentically, I legitimately want them 

Candice Bloch
34:38 - 35:06
to love the experience. I really, really do. That's awesome. Yeah. I mean, it's the journey and the destination, right? Those are both part of it. So one thing that I was curious about is you've met all these people and you see that everyone has these amazing stories that you wouldn't necessarily know just by looking at them. So has this changed how you sort of interact with your fellow neighbors and citizens, just understanding that everyone could have this 

Chance McLean
35:06 - 36:55
amazing hidden story? Oh, you are good at this. I'm going to call you. My hardest, my biggest pinch point for growth is finding somebody that I would put in the home. I love these people and I'm not just going to invite anybody into their home. You would be good at this, dude. That is such a great question. Well, it is something I've done and I like to do as well. So kindred spirits here, I guess. Yes. Yes. It a hundred percent has. It's given me a grace of people. God, even in my home, when I first moved to my home, I had this neighbor that was just a piece of neighbor. I no longer think that. Like in my bones, I don't think that because of what you just said. I know there are complexities. I know life can be hard. It's very, very few people are just turns there there are complicating factors for everybody for every person so yeah when i started this my biggest fear was like they're old people what the heck what do i have i don't know what they got different sense of hue they're old and now when i'm on travel shoots it's uh go down to the hotel bar and go find somebody with with white hair like mine yeah and be like hey, what do you do for a living? It allows me to just have conversations without cameras rolling. What a genius question. That question made me think and has it. I hope it has. I feel like it has. But I sure hope it does because I'm a big believer in what you just said. Times are crazy. We film every type of human being there is out there and I have nothing, nothing but love. Nothing but absolute love no matter what. 

Candice Bloch
36:56 - 37:40
Yeah, I mean, and also all of the stories that we see, even within like the crazy sci-fi and fantasy and whatever, human stories are based on human stories. So like usually someone lived that crazy romance or adventure or whatever, and that's what they're building a story that we watch on. So, you know, I always I always find that fascinating to know that, you know, there's all these crazy hidden stories and wonderful stories and everybody that one of my final questions. is you're sticking with documentary and doing this for a while, it sounds like. But are any of these stories inspired you to maybe take one of their stories or part of one of their stories and turn it into a different style of filmmaking or like a different type of, yeah. You're nodding already, so. 

Chance McLean
37:41 - 37:42
Hundreds. 

Candice Bloch
37:43 - 37:43
Yeah. 

Chance McLean
37:43 - 39:49
Hundreds, hundreds. I'm not both BS, hundreds. I did a film for a guy where, I'm going to tell short stories. Long story short, he was working for Tentico, a gas company. One of their engineers out on a rig in Colombia got taken hostage. And he had to parachute in with a backpack bowl of cash into Colombia to go pay off the kidnappers. And he's telling me this story. This is an 80-year-old dude. And I'm telling you, the whole time he's talking, I'm like, oh, my God, this is incredible. This is gripping. I thought he was lying. I thought okay this is a he caught the big fish huh thought he was full of crap so after that we're going we're going through his pictures and he goes oh yeah yeah here's me with that uh the backpack and he's got goggles on and he's got a backpack and he is and then we get back in our part of our post-production process is to research so that we could augment the films with other accessible elements and there was a whole freaking New York Times story about his thing in 1981 or whatever real. And it made me wish I had gone deeper into the story. That means his life needs to be a story. It was insane. There are lots and lots and lots of films like that. I told you about Farm and Ranch. We do, we're launching this year. They're all heritage films, but honors division dedicated to the military people. There's a handful of spokes that we're, that we're leaning into, but one of the spokes per your question, it's called Heritage Selects, which is I truly love what I do. And I want to get to the point where I can just hear about somebody or all the people that contact me with these ridiculous stories, but they can't afford it. Or there's reasons they don't hire us, but I'm like, oh my God, I would love to go talk to that guy. And so we're, we're going to launch heritage selects, which are me chasing my own fancy, where I think there's a story where the audience, it's going to be, I'm going to go back to the megaphone and I'm going to do a version of what we do, but that's accessible to a larger audience. I can't wait for that. I think I answered your question. I don't know. 

Candice Bloch
39:50 - 40:00
Yeah, yeah. No, it sounds like there's exciting things in the works. You are based in Texas, but you do work with and travel around the country. I hear even did a little international recently. 

Chance McLean
40:01 - 40:20
Coming up. Coming up. Oh, coming up. It's not yet. Okay. Yeah. Last week of October, we're going for 21 days to Mumbai and Dubai and London, which I've never done before. So we'll see how it goes. I'm the root of it. The guy that hired us loves dad and dad's kin lived there. So we're going to Mumbai. 

Candice Bloch
40:20 - 40:37
Yeah, that's awesome. So you work everywhere. I know we're based in the Mid-Atlantic, but we also have listeners all over the world and all over the country as well. So it's not specific to where you are, which is which is great. So if people want to learn more about heritage films, can you just tell them where online they can go? 

Chance McLean
40:40 - 40:43
Yourheritagefilm.com. I need a jingle. Yourheritagefilm.com. 

Candice Bloch
40:44 - 40:45
We have that musical background. 

Chance McLean
40:46 - 40:47
So, you know, it never goes away. 

Candice Bloch
40:47 - 41:10
That should be on your to do list. Yeah. So anyway, we're running a little long, so I'm sure we can chat a little after we stop recording, too. But for the episode, thank you so much for chatting with us about this. This is really a wonderful company that you have and a great concept. And I know you would encourage as well as I would encourage people to to try to do these 

Chance McLean
41:10 - 41:11
things for your own life. 

Candice Bloch
41:12 - 41:12
Do it on your own. 

Chance McLean
41:13 - 41:43
Again, I'm the worst businessman. I'm a good filmmaker. Guys, go film your... You don't have to use me. At the end of the day, you want this lore. You want these anecdotes. You want the stories. You may not know it now. You may be 22 and be caught up in your own crap. I promise you, I promise you, you will get to a point in your life where you'll say, God, I had that iPhone 11 mini. I could have used that thing and talk to Papa. 

Candice Bloch
41:44 - 41:52
Go do it. Yeah. And then maybe down the line, they can use that footage to stitch into a larger project from a heritage film thing down the line. 

Chance McLean
41:53 - 41:53
We'll be here. 

Candice Bloch
41:54 - 41:59
Yeah. Anyway, thank you so much. Wonderful. Great advice. And all the best to you in Heritage Films. 

Chance McLean
42:00 - 42:03
Thank you so much. Wonderful. You're great at every year. Dude, you're good. 

VO
42:03 - 42:41
Thank you. Thanks for listening to Media Maker Spotlight from Women in Film and Video. To learn more about WIF, visit wif.frankv.org. This podcast is created by Sandra Abrams, Candice Block, Brandon Ferry, Tara Jabari, and Jerry Reinhardt. And edited by Michelle Kim and Inez Perez. With audio production and mix by Steve Lack Audio. Subscribe to continue learning from more amazing media makers. Please visit MediaMakerSpotlight.com for more information.