The Record

Service
Personal Documentary Services
Studio
The Record
Based
New York
Scroll ↓
The Record creates masterfully crafted personal documentary films that preserve the stories, memories and histories of individuals, families, businesses, and communities.
We're an Emmy-nominated, award-winning studio.
The RecordFor every occasion

Everyone has a story.

We offer personal documentary services for all occasions, providing a lens for any type of moment worth preserving.
Occasions 01 — 07
Weddings01
Births02
End of Life03
Retirement04
Celebrations05
Discovery of Personal Archive06
You Name It07

One of our oldest human instincts is to share our stories.

This is because every day contains a million memories and images and every life overflows with material worth recording.

We can all feel when something is worth capturing and yearn for the sense of continuity and meaning that stories provide. But sometimes we need help framing it up—or putting our memories in the right order.

That’s the service the Record provides. Drawing from over a decade of documentary experience, we apply a simple, personalized process to draw out the heart of any story, helping to find the best style, words, and images to bring each one of a kind piece to life.

You will never interact with any machine or robot. Our services are one on one, human, and artistic above all else—as personalized and hand-crafted as each person is unique.

Services / Commissions01 — 03

Services / Commissions

Every story is different. Every project is commissioned individually according to the story, scope and production involved. The figures below are starting points.
StillsThoughtful portrait and documentary photography designed to capture people, families and important moments with a natural, cinematic approach. These can be provided in artful, curated book form, or as raw materials.From $2,500
VideoShort-form moving-image work for personal events, families and special occasions, filmed with an intimate and cinematic sensibility. Left raw for you to mold or preserve how you wish, or curated into small short-form stories.From $6,500
DocumentarySlightly longer, more in-depth films catered to the individual story. These fully produced personal documentaries can draw from interviews, archival material, photographs, home movies and original cinematography, shaping a more layered and enduring portrait around the people and histories at their center.From $15,000
RetainerIf you have ongoing needs and see a story unfolding over time, a retainer lets us keep documenting as life, work or a larger project develops. We build a continuing visual archive through regular filming, photography and story gathering, with the flexibility to shape that material into finished pieces as needed.From $7,500/mo
3-month minimum

Weddings, multi-day projects, travel, archival work and larger documentary projects are quoted individually. We’ll shape the approach—and the investment—around what you want to preserve.

Tell us what you have in mind →
Selected WorkThe Record
The RecordAbout the studio

For The Record

The Record is a documentary studio founded by award winning documentary filmmaker Daniel Newell Kaufman. It's meant to harness the style and expertise honed during years of work as a music video and commercial director with Anonymous Content. There, he's worked with artists ranging from Dua Lipa and the Decemberists to Jay Z and Alicia Keys, while commercially he's crafted cinematic pieces for Google, Adidas, Squarespace, Jaguar, and the World Wildlife Fund. Independently his work has been nominated for two Emmys and featured at Sheffield Doc Fest, SXSW, Tribeca, and Cannes Film Festival. His latest film “Stone Mountain,” won the grand Jury Prize at 2024 Doc NYC and was called "an evocative Faulkner-esque portrait that establishes Kaufman’s distinct and assured cinematic voice." He currently splits his time between New York City and the Catskill Mountains. The Record aims to remove the gate-keeping of traditional media and bring this honest, cinematic vision into the realm of personal documentation.
Contact
The Record Instagram @therecordfilms ↗

Please reach out.

Tell us who or what you want to remember. We'd love to hear the story and provide a free consultation and custom quote.

Your message will be sent directly through this website.