Commission a Private Legacy Film
A commission begins long before anything is filmed, and it ends with something meant to outlast everyone involved in making it. This page describes how it works: what happens, in what order, what is asked of the family, and what it costs. If the category itself is new to you, start with what a private legacy film is.
Most commissions are initiated by the subject's family. An adult son or daughter ahead of a milestone birthday. A spouse ahead of an anniversary. A family sensing that the window for the older generation's own telling will not stay open indefinitely. Some are initiated by the subject: a founder at a succession or an exit, choosing to preserve the reasoning behind decades of decisions. Whoever initiates, the commission can remain a surprise to the subject until the moment the family chooses to reveal it, and many are.
The Conversation
Every film begins with a private conversation. Unhurried, confidential, and with no cameras present. We learn the world of the family: the people, the places, the marriage, the enterprise, the things that go unsaid. Nothing is decided in this conversation except whether the story and the studio belong together.
If they do, the commission opens with story development. Research, interviews off camera, and a review of the family archive: photographs, letters, film, objects. This work produces a written treatment, the film's shape on paper before a single frame is shot. Story development is a defined, separately agreed phase, and it is where the film is truly authored. Families sometimes pause here, with the treatment in hand, before committing to production. That is a legitimate outcome.
The Capture
Production is a small, dedicated crew: director, cinematographer, sound. Assembled for this film, bound by confidentiality, and embedded with the family over multiple days in the places that matter. The house. The first workshop. The table where everything was decided.
The crew's discipline is invisibility. Interviews are conversations, not interrogations. Days are built around the family's rhythm, not a call sheet. The goal is presence without performance: life as it is, held by people who know how to film it.
The Craft
Then the editorial months. Structure, sound design, color, pacing, music. The archive is restored where needed and woven into the narrative. This is where a life becomes a film: chapters, not chronology.
The family's voice is part of the process. Some clients want to sit close to every editorial decision. Others prefer to see nothing until the premiere. Both are honored, and in every case the family's approval of the finished film is final.
The Premiere
The commission culminates in a private screening for the family and inner circle, arranged as an evening, not a delivery. The first time the story meets the screen is designed to be the emotional high point of the entire commission, and it consistently is.
What remains
After the premiere, preservation. The film and its source materials are archived and delivered in formats meant to outlast the technology they were made on, alongside the restored family archive gathered during the work. What the family receives is not a file. It is a holding: the film, its materials, and the confidence that both will remain private for as long as the family wishes. Our confidentiality standard is published here.
Time and investment
Most commissions complete within four to six months. Some unfold over a year or more, following seasons, locations, or generations. The timeline follows the story.
Commissions begin in the high five figures. Scope is shaped in the first conversation and fixed in writing before production. IKONA accepts a limited number of private commissions each year.