93. Beyond the Filters: Why Real-Life Moments Matter More than Perfect with Family Film Editor Kalee Isbell

Learn the secrets of turning everyday chaos into cherished cinematic memories with Kalee Isbell, the inspiring founder of Isbell Family Films. Discover how Kalee transformed her experience with postpartum depression into a thriving career by capturing the raw beauty of family life on film. 

As a mother navigating the challenges of parenting two young children, just 20 months apart, Kalee offers an intimate look at her journey from teaching to becoming a stay-at-home mom who's embraced the art of video editing. Her story is a testament to the healing power of storytelling and the unique perspective it brings to the rollercoaster of early parenthood.

Get ready to uncover the creative process behind meaningful family videos as Kalee shares her journey from crafting heartfelt birthday videos to establishing a professional venture through social media. 

This episode highlights the importance of storytelling and intentional filming, encouraging parents to seize opportunities and capture their family's narrative. Kalee's insights reveal how everyday moments—even those that seem ordinary—can become extraordinary keepsakes, offering reassurance and joy against the backdrop of life's unpredictability.

Peek into the behind-the-scenes world of organizing your digital memories as Kalee discusses the technicalities of backing up media and the art of making personal videos. 

Learn tips on how to maintain a growing archive using tools like iCloud, and discover the emotional benefits of preserving your family's legacy. Tune in for Kalee's advice on being present in family videos and the importance of moms appearing in front of the camera, ensuring that these precious moments are celebrated and remembered for years to come.

Connect with Kalee Isbell:

Website: www.isbellfamilyfilms.com 

Instagram: https://instagram.com/isbellfamilyfilms 

📺 Watch the episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOpw5ui4uxJHx0tLFVtpnfSkpObfc4d-K

You can find Katie at:
website: burntpancakes.com
YouTube: @burnt.pancakes
Instagram: @burntpancakeswithkatie
Email: katie@burntpancakes.com

🚽 Did you know Katie is also a Certified Potty Trainer? 🚽

☎️ Schedule a 1:1 chat today: Schedule Here
💻 Digital Potty Training Course HERE
📖 Potty Training E-Book HERE
🆓 FREE potty training resources HERE
Instagram: @itspottytime
Tiktok: @itspottytime_

Transcript

00:08 - Katie Fenske (Host)
Hello, hello and welcome back to the burnt pancakes podcast. I'm your host, Katie Fenske, and each week I'm reminding you that everyone burns their first pancake. Today, I have a really special guest. Her name is Kaylee Isbell and she is the founder of Isbell Family Films, a company dedicated to helping families preserve the magic of their everyday moments through beautifully edited films. Her journey began in the midst of her postpartum depression, when she found solace in editing home videos of her young children. As a mother navigating the challenges of caring for newborns, while feeling like she was falling short for her toddler, she discovered an unexpected source of healing. That was seeing her family's stories unfold on screen. 

00:55
Kaylee is passionate about helping parents see themselves the way their children do, loving, present and enough. Through her work, she continues to bring joy and perspective to families, ensuring their most precious moments are cherished for generations to come. I loved this conversation with her because I, like probably many of you, have billions of videos and pictures on my phone and I just don't know what to do with them. Her company is there to help families create beautiful videos from those, and I think you're just going to love the tips she gives and her story of motherhood. So please enjoy my podcast with Kaylee. Kaylee, welcome to the podcast. Thank you. I'm really excited to be here. I'm excited to talk about what you're doing because I could use your help with all the millions of videos on my phone. 

01:43 - Kalee Isbell (Host)
I have so many. That's why I'm here. 

01:46 - Katie Fenske (Host)
Well, why don't you start off by just sharing where you're from and how many kids you have? 

01:51 - Kalee Isbell (Host)
Yeah, well, we live in a suburb North of Austin, texas, called Georgetown Really big growing area, and I have two kids. My son, jude, is nine and my daughter Ellie is seven, almost eight. I have two kids my son, jude, is nine and my daughter. 

02:07 - Katie Fenske (Host)
Ellie is seven, almost eight, oh, so they're off in school right now. Huh, yes, yes, the best, the glorious hours, yes, the glorious hours when they're there. Um, okay, so you had your postpartum journey. Is what sparked the creation of your company, that is, bell family films. Can you tell us a little bit about what your postpartum experience was like? 

02:25 - Kalee Isbell (Host)
I had, so my kids are 20 months apart, um which you know, if I was going to go back and redo that, I would not have chosen that. It was hard, was that planned or cause. 

02:35 - Katie Fenske (Host)
I know people who want kids close together or some it just happens. I thought. 

02:40 - Kalee Isbell (Host)
I did, but I was young and naive and, uh, it was hard. Yeah, no, Now you know, being a little bit older and having older kids, I definitely would have done that differently, but yes, it was. 

02:52 - Katie Fenske (Host)
Are they so? Are they one grade apart or two? 

02:55 - Kalee Isbell (Host)
Yeah, so my son is the oldest in his grade and my daughter is the youngest in her grade. So they they are going to be bumping up right back to back from each other. 

03:04 - Katie Fenske (Host)
Okay, but that was a lot when they were little Cause, how old would? 

03:11 - Kalee Isbell (Host)
your son have been. Your son was how old when your daughter was born? So he was, he was 20, he was 20 months. So he's born in September and she was born in May. I could be wrong at this point yes, I just I picture being pregnant with such a little one Like yes, yes, and yeah, and he's very active and loves to run around and do lots of things, yeah, so he was uh very busy and we were, you know, trying to try to do all that. 

03:35 - Katie Fenske (Host)
But oh, my goodness Okay. 

03:37 - Kalee Isbell (Host)
It was. It was quite a lot, but so they're, they're really close. And, um, at that same time, when I was pregnant and I was all I was in like my third trimester, I was almost due Um, my husband decided to change jobs so he went through a career change, so that was its own level of stress. And then I had a baby and, um, my daughter, God love her. Uh, she was the worst newborn on planet earth. It was just terrible. And she, from the moment she came out, cried every hour on the hour, like just she had really bad reflux, like she needed to be held. You know, upright all the time. I don't think. I think in my in those first three months or so, I maybe got two hours together of uninterrupted sleep all day long. Oh my gosh. 

04:26
So then I thought you know it'll make you crazy, Like. I didn't understand the meaning of like sleep, and my son was a great newborn, so I think that's also why I had them close, cause I was like, oh, this is great, boom, there's your daughter. Right, that's how it always goes, right? Yes, so she never slept and never napped, and he started to not nap as well, and so I was just going zombie. Yeah, I was going insane. 

04:54
And he also, at the same time, started to develop a lot of difficult behaviors that were hard to manage, and it turns out we found out later, when he was four, that he's autistic and so, but I didn't know that at the time, and so we really just I was, I was just drowning, absolutely drowning, and you know it was just really hard. We didn't live near family and I was working and we were trying to like figure out how to make all this work, and so it was just super, super hard, and everyone's saying like, oh, just wait, just wait until she's six months, just wait until she's seven months, it'll get better, it'll get here now. 

05:30 - Katie Fenske (Host)
Yeah, right, and it did get better Right. 

05:33 - Kalee Isbell (Host)
And that's always why you know in hindsight, when you have older kids you're like, oh man, those six months were so fast. 

05:37
but when you're in them it's like oh, you know like it goes so, so slow and so, um, yeah, so we made it out and but, yeah, I spent that whole time, you know, those six months, seven months or so just was really depressed. I didn't I, I knew it but didn't know it and um, and so I was having such a hard time. I felt like, how did I have this baby? I ruined my son's life, like I can't even be with him because I'm holding her all the time and taking care of her all the time, and um, yeah, you know, that just puts you in a really hard, hard place. 

06:14 - Katie Fenske (Host)
Um, and you're already so vulnerable anyway, because then you feel guilty for thinking those things and feeling right yeah exactly Right. 

06:22 - Kalee Isbell (Host)
It's just like that push and pull of motherhood where it's. You know, did you ever, um, bring this up to a doctor? Or like, yes, and I was. And so with my son I had a little bit of postpartum depression, so I went on anxiety medication. Uh, you know, after postpartum with him was great, was fine, and so with her we like prepped it. With the beginning, like towards birth, it was like, okay, I'm going to go on this and be ready, Um, but you know, at the six week appointment, right when they're like, oh, how are you feeling? I'm like good, I'm, I'm okay, Like I can survive, but then it was like got worse and worse and worse, and then you just get kind of stuck where as much as I could. But you know, looking back, there's always, always more when you're, when you're of same mind and sleep. 

07:10 - Katie Fenske (Host)
Someone said like one of the torture um strategies you know when people are torturing people is to not let them sleep. And I'm like, right, yes, absolutely. 

07:20 - Kalee Isbell (Host)
Like loud music. Baby screaming and not sleeping. 

07:26 - Katie Fenske (Host)
Recipe for disaster right there. Yes, right, oh gosh, yeah. Looking back, yeah, I like feel all of that. It's like you go through that and you get through it, but you're like, oh yeah, it still sticks with me. Um, so yeah, how did that spark your interest in film and did you have a background in film? What? 

07:50 - Kalee Isbell (Host)
No, I have. No, I have no background in film or video editing. It's all self-taught, self-learned. Um, I so I've. I. 

07:58
I consider myself a creative person. I always had some kind of creative outlet. I have my degree in education. I was a teacher, oh nice, yes. So I taught elementary school for a year, hated it, and then I moved and taught junior high and I loved that. So I feel like it's, you know, you're one or the other, but I was doing all of that. But I always had like some kind of creative outlet that I was trying to like spend my time doing or whatever. And so when my son was a baby, we decided I had this idea like, oh, I'll make a first year birthday video for him to play at his birthday party, right, and so I would just take some videos here and there. And then, about two months before he would turn one, my husband and I sat down and he had to teach me how, because he was making videos for his job. So he had to teach me how to like do it and start it, or whatever. 

08:45
And so um so that. But then I loved that video so much Like I'd watch that video all the time and makes you, you know, feel all the things and you know you feel so good and um. 

08:56
So about the like sixth or seventh month mark with my daughter, where things were kind of slowing down and I started to feel a little bit more like myself again, I was starting to put together videos for her for her first birthday, and I had all of these videos of my son that were so good and cute and I was like why do I have to wait for his second birthday to make this video? Like, why don't I just put these together and make a video of the last couple of months, like I'll just put, you know, 50 videos or so and download an illegal song from iTunes and put it in there and edit it and see what happens? And so I did that during nap time one day and I watched it and I just like just lost it. I was just so emotional. 

09:40
And then my son woke up and I showed it to him and he was like like that child would not sit still and he just sat there and he watched it and was like, again, I played it again and played it again and um and so then I would just make them, you know, month by month, by month, and I started to realize that all of those feelings that I was having where I was, like I'm this terrible mom and I'm depriving my son, and all of those feelings that I was having where I was, like I'm this terrible mom and I'm depriving my son, and all of this, when I got to watch what was actually happening in my life and not when I was stuck in my mud, you know yeah exactly. 

10:14
I was like, wow, this, like I'm actually like this is okay, like he's okay and I'm okay, and like I'm not ruining him or my children, you know, and um, and so then I started doing it every like religiously, like every two months, every two months, I'd edit a new one, edit a new one. And um, so we, in all of that job change, we ended up moving down here where we live now, and I had to leave my job that I love so much, and, um, moved in the middle of the school year and I couldn't find a job. And so we were like, let's just have you stay at home. And I was like, oh God, you know, I bless all the stay at home moms, but I have a really hard. I need something to do, Like I need to, you know, work and do that. 

10:52
And so, um, I just happenstance was scrolling on Instagram and had an influencer who was asking questions about what do people do with their videos, and I was like, wow, I'm going to message her. I had, I had nothing, I had no idea what I was doing. I have no background in business. So I said I'll edit your videos for you and she was like, really will you? 

11:15
And I said, sure, send them to me. So she sent them to me this vacation, edited it for us and to back, and she was like, this is the best thing. This is in 2019, too, by the way. 

11:24 - Katie Fenske (Host)
So this is before all of that stuff. 

11:27 - Kalee Isbell (Host)
And, um, she was like this is the best thing I've ever seen. Do you have a business? And I was like, yeah, and I pulled it out of my you know whatever, and and, and, and that's why it's my name, because I was like I don't know what to call this. So I was like, oh my gosh, family films and I made an Instagram and then she shared my video and shared about my business and then that was it. It just exploded. I had probably 50 clients in the first, you know oh my, gosh like oh my gosh, yeah, it was was nuts and so I was just chasing this rolling ball. 

12:01
Um, but I think it's just really impactful when you, when you have something to do with your, with your videos and with your memories, right, people were looking for that and meeting that and just happened to be there, you know, in the right time. 

12:15 - Katie Fenske (Host)
Oh my gosh, I love the story of that. It's been great, awesome, yes, because I I look at my boys, like to go back and look at old films, but it's literally just going through my camera roll like back five years and we just go video, video. I don't know why I've never thought to just take all those videos and put them into a year, cause I do as a scrapbook every. Well right, I just throw them all into Shutter. I'm like make my book, but at least we have the pictures and I'm like that's such a good thing to have. They love looking at that. Why don't I do that with video. 

12:45 - Kalee Isbell (Host)
I mean, we love them, but they're egotistical little things like they love to look. I used to when I was a kid. 

12:51 - Katie Fenske (Host)
I used to look at my scrapbooks and like right me as the mom going back like, oh my god, you were so, you were so cute. Oh my gosh, I remember this. It's so fun to look back instead of losing them on your phone. 

13:03 - Kalee Isbell (Host)
Right, and you forget about them and you don't know where they are. They get caught in between screenshots and it's just. You know like. 

13:08 - Katie Fenske (Host)
Oh my. 

13:08 - Kalee Isbell (Host)
God, I screenshotted yesterday, Right and in between the videos, and, and, yeah, and then it makes it easier to take them Right, like I bet. I bet you take way more photos than videos because you know you're going to make this scrapbook at the end of the year, but it's really easy. 

13:21
Like I'll take a picture of you and your Halloween costume, but I would never think to take a video of you like saying happy Halloween, because what are you going to do with that video? But it's right when you have a purpose, right, when you know your videos are going to go somewhere, then you are more likely to record and think about how, what kind of things I want to record. Like, the one of my favorite videos is my daughter, like trying to, is tying her shoes before school one day and then. But then, like the year prior, I had a video of her just pulling on her slip-on shoes Like, and it's. You know, it's so fun to watch the way that they grow, because it you don't see it when you're in your day-to-day the same thing, right where I was feeling like I was a bad mom, but now it's, I don't notice how big they're getting. I haven't noticed how much I've grown in, or you know, until I watched the video back and it's like from January to January, I mean that girl's lost like 10 teeth since then. 

14:19 - Katie Fenske (Host)
She's like yeah. 

14:21 - Kalee Isbell (Host)
And you just don't. You don't see that when you're not looking at it. 

14:24 - Katie Fenske (Host)
Right, Right, Okay. Now I have a ton of questions. Okay, First thing that came to mind was most of your clients when they um hire you do they already know ahead of time that they are wanting a video from you? 

14:40
Or are they like, like that person, I have a bunch of videos I want to put together, cause I'm thinking like I would take videos now differently, knowing I'm going to make them into video like a full video, as opposed to just like randomly baseball, randomly baseball. So like, what do you get? Do you get a little bit of both? 

14:55 - Kalee Isbell (Host)
or I do and I think what I, what I noticed is people discover us and they learn that we provide this service and they're like oh my gosh, okay, and they dump now right, and so they dump it, we edit it and they're like now they're super motivated and excited and so then now they're intentionally taking video in order to get something back. 

15:14
I think the other times when people are really intentional is when they go on a vacation or when they do like a baseball season, Like we do that all the time we're going. Oh my God, those are really really. 

15:25 - Katie Fenske (Host)
I'm already thinking like coaches gift, like team gifts. That's such a good idea. 

15:29 - Kalee Isbell (Host)
Yeah, it's really fun to do that and and we return everything on um, on a cloud system so you can use it however you want. So it makes it really easy to gift. So we get a little bit, a little bit of both. And I still get those clients who don't intentionally take video and they just dump what they have, and I love that too, like, okay, great, let's do this. You know, and I think we pride and I say we cause I have a team of people that I've worked- just going to ask do you do it? 

15:53 - Katie Fenske (Host)
Okay? 

15:59 - Kalee Isbell (Host)
And I've trained and worked with it and and and, so we love those, those people too, because it's a challenge to like take that video. I love it when people email me back and say I didn't think there was anything worth saving in here. 

16:06
We were able to find all those great moments and and put them together for me. And this is just the best. Like those are. I love those emails. Those are hard. Those are hard videos to make when you're like working really hard to find a great little piece. And those are hard. Those are hard videos to make when you're like working really hard to find a great little piece and because you know, a lot of times when we don't have a purpose for a video, we're just kind of like taking a two minute long video and we're trying to find something good in that moment. But when you have more purpose to it, you know what you're going to do. The video shorter, it's more intentional and also you can get back to what you're doing. Right, it's like, oh, I'm going to take this video and now I'm going to get back to watching the baseball game. I'm going to take this video and now I'm going to watch the school performance, because I know this little five second snippet in my video and I'm done yeah. 

16:45 - Katie Fenske (Host)
Right, well, I I have this superstition now that every time I film my kids at bat, they strike out. So now I'm like forget it, I'm not filming anything, I'll do the walk-up, maybe next time. 

16:56 - Kalee Isbell (Host)
Yeah, my son plays baseball too and I'm like oh game. I don't know if your team does the game changer where they record the game. I'm like it's game changer. Fine, I'll just do that. 

17:04 - Katie Fenske (Host)
I know my son got his first home run and all I was able to get cause my phone was in my bag. I was able to get him just after he crossed home plate. Like everyone's cheering I was like, okay, I had that one on video but I can't watch, you know. Totally, totally Okay, Couple other questions, vertical or horizontal, Cause we all have our phones out. What is better to film? Which way? 

17:30 - Kalee Isbell (Host)
I'm going to tell you, it's your preference. 

17:32 - Katie Fenske (Host)
I'm going to say it. 

17:33 - Kalee Isbell (Host)
Whatever's going to make you record more video, cause my, my goal is I want people to take video of their life, um, but if you are, if aesthetics is important to you, it's important to me the way things look. I always say to record horizontal because you want to watch this on your TV and our TVs are not oriented like our phones are, um it, if all you want to do is share it on social media and you just want it to be on a real, then vertical works too. 

18:00 - Katie Fenske (Host)
But um, they were the same. I can't stand that, like, why couldn't Instagram just the same way? So that everything cause I? I started a YouTube channel and that's the first time I learned oh, you can turn your phone sideways and you're supposed to film that way. Oh, okay, but then turning it into like a reel for Instagram, I was like this is such a pain. Why can't they all just be the same? 

18:24 - Kalee Isbell (Host)
I know it's the word, it is the. It drives me crazy. Yeah, but yeah, it's the worst. 

18:29 - Katie Fenske (Host)
The other video can you do both Like when? You edit it it'll just be like the shorter, like the right. So when? 

18:37 - Kalee Isbell (Host)
we do it. We will put the vertical. Well, we like vertical video too, because sometimes we'll do multiple videos on a screen. So if you had like three baseball videos, we'd put them all side by side to watch them all once. Um, we already blur the sides, so we don't need like black or anything like that and fill up the screen as much as we possibly can. 

18:54 - Katie Fenske (Host)
Okay, Um, another question. Lighting like this is stuff I don't even think about when I'm filming. Is it bad? What's the best way to film, like in terms of lighting? 

19:05 - Kalee Isbell (Host)
So if you're trying to be intentional about your lighting, then you want to have the light behind you, so the light is on your subject's face. Okay, that's the best way to do it, the best at the most as much natural light as you possibly can Like. 

19:20
If I take videos inside my house and I'm really trying to take something intentional, then I open up all my blinds and I'm like turning everything on and getting as much light as I possibly can and our phones just stink at low light video Like it's not really great but yeah so um, I shared something about this, too, on Instagram a couple of months ago, where I, like, had a video of my kids at the beach, and I took a video from them from behind, where I wasn't in the ocean and the sun was facing me and they were super dark and you couldn't really see them, even though it was in Texas in July and it's, you know, yeah, it's so sunny. 

19:56
It didn't look like it, and so then I went in the ocean, with my back to the sun and light on them, and it looked like a completely different day, like it makes a huge, huge difference where the light is Okay. 

20:05 - Katie Fenske (Host)
I need to keep keep my eye on that. Think about that. Um smartphones, or do you get a lot of people who actually have nice cameras when they um? 

20:17 - Kalee Isbell (Host)
no, mostly just smartphones, and our phones are great. I mean, our phones are powerful devices, right, like they're awesome. We get a lot of GoPro, which is great, like I tell people, if it's recorded in digital format, we can edit it for you. We get um old home videos from people where they've digitized their videos, you know, and um edit those. But, yeah, our phones are. Our phones are awesome. 

20:40 - Katie Fenske (Host)
Um and you can edit the settings. Yeah, I know, my uncle had one of those like on the shoulder camcorder you know and you were like Whoa, that's so cool. I remember they always had videos of themselves as kids. And I'm like man, I wish we had had one, but it was like such a rare thing. Now I'm like everyone everyone has videos of themselves as kids. And I'm like man, I wish we had had one, but it was like such a rare thing. Now I'm like everyone everyone has videos of everyone has it. 

21:03 - Kalee Isbell (Host)
It's just, it's just right there. You just pick it up and turn it on. I think it's. I think I'm in the camp of I think this is great, I think you should have your phone out. I I push back on that um mentality of if you have your phone out and you're taking a video or photo, you're not present. Because, in my opinion, if I'm taking a video of something it's important to me and I want to remember it and I'm actually more in my moment wanting to remember that than not Now, if I'm scrolling Instagram while I'm watching my son's baseball game, of course I'm not there, but if I'm there recording it because I know he's going to, you know, make a great play, then I'm. I'm there and I think we should take advantage of of that. 

21:41 - Katie Fenske (Host)
It's a privilege really. Yeah, yeah, um. I know one thing, I think on your Instagram, I think you were giving examples of um, just everyday video, or videos that you should capture on certain events, like how you were talking about tying your daughter's shoe, like that's just like an everyday thing. So what are some things we should think about taking, like you know, on a vacation or just every day? What are some like things to look out for to film? 

22:08 - Kalee Isbell (Host)
Yeah, I. Um, my number one tip for people is if you're going to take a photo, just take a video too. So, if it's important enough for you to snap a photo, just take, just turn it real quick and take a video. You can also take a photo while you're taking a video, which is I usually do. Um, there's like a little white button in the corner and just tap it and it takes a screenshot. Um, but I think I love to do. I mean, I'll use myself as an example of, like my must-haves, like, I take a video of my kids every year saying how old they are, like I'm turning, you know, I'm nine years old, seven years old. I do a first day of school video every single year. Last day of school video every single year. When my kids were little and they said something funny, I would make them say it for me, even if they didn't want to. Like, I don't care, just take this video for me real quick and make you know. Like, just like that again. 

22:56 - Katie Fenske (Host)
Right, exactly. 

22:57 - Kalee Isbell (Host)
And I actually always tell our editors this, like when we're listening and watching everyone's videos. If you ever hear mom say, can you say that again for me? You know that's important because she wants to remember it, right, cause we all do that, right, I say, can you please say that again for me? Um, uh, let's see. I think, um, yeah, those everyday things that we forget when our kids are babies, like I talk about, like their um dimples on their hands, when their hands are so fat, right, and they're little toddlers, or um their features as a baby, or their hair, or like there's, why not take it if we want to remember? 

23:33
it um, vacations. I. So, when I I like vacation videos to tell a story, so when I edit for myself or I edit for other people, or they ask me that question, I always say, like, if you were making this in, like if you were writing this down right, like you were going step by step and writing this as a, as a book, that so could you record yourself? Or could you record, like, the sign at Disneyland as you walk in, so that you know where you're going? Right, you're wanting to like introduce this story, cause, I mean, that's what, not to get too sappy, but you know, like that's what our lives are, right, we have stories worth telling and we are living lives that are, you know, good, and we want to share those things. And so, if you're going on a great vacation that you want to remember, tell it in a story. 

24:24
Have an opener, have a closer. Have you know, if we use Disneyland, for an example, like you know, take a video of of every ride that you're going to go on, right? Or there's something called B roll, which I love to encourage people to take, which is like all that filler video, um, that doesn't have your subject in it, but it kind of helps establish where you are, what you're doing. Um, if you're at the beach, maybe it's just a video of the beach and that's what you can use as, like, your opening um image of your video, or or something like that. 

24:55 - Katie Fenske (Host)
That's such a great idea. I would never thought like, oh, let's just film the Disney sign, like there's no person in that, or whatever. 

25:02 - Kalee Isbell (Host)
There's, no, no reason to if you're not doing anything with it, right, it just takes up space. That's why it's so great when you have a reason to do those things and it allows you to tell your story better, okay. 

25:11 - Katie Fenske (Host)
I. It made me think of the when you're talking about like everyday things, about your babies. I did remember filming each of my babies. I just loved in the morning when you go to get them up and they're like kind of drowsy and then they like see your face and smile and do like that big stretch. I remember thinking I don't want to forget what that looks like and I have a video of each of them which everyone else is probably like. This was a random video, there's just but I love where they're just like sleepy and then they see your face. 

25:38
They're like mom, they're just like sleepy and then they see your face, they're like mom, they're so happy, yeah they could be screaming bloody murder in their crib. And then they see you and they're like oh my gosh, I love that. Um, how many people do you have working for you? 

25:53 - Kalee Isbell (Host)
Um, I have uh, eight, eight, um, yeah, from all over a business mom. 

26:00 - Katie Fenske (Host)
This is so impressive, like I just love the story of like how you just took something you enjoyed doing and created something that is so cool. 

26:09 - Kalee Isbell (Host)
I'm I feel really lucky, like it just all fell in place and I was able to kind of, you know, take it and and run with it. But yeah, it's, it's awesome and I love providing a um uh job opportunity for other moms and all the editors are moms Like there's. How else could you edit for moms If you're not a mom yourself? You have to understand what that experience is like for people. 

26:29 - Katie Fenske (Host)
So do you see a lot, though, that in these videos mom is not in them. Like I don't think I have any videos of myself. 

26:37 - Kalee Isbell (Host)
I can't even talk. I'm the worst. I can't even talk about it, but yeah. 

26:44 - Katie Fenske (Host)
You had a great childhood. I documented it. 

26:48 - Kalee Isbell (Host)
I was here. Yeah, no, I it is, and I have a lot of families who do an awesome, awesome job with it, and I have some families where I've edited for them for years and I've never actually even seen mom. 

26:59
And it's like and you know I don't, I don't ever like to to um, take the like, guilt trip stance of like you have to be in this. Like I understand there's lots of reasons why maybe mom doesn't want to be in there, but, um, my husband's pretty good at taking video of me If there's a moment that he he knows would be. But I've seen a lot of people where they'll set up their phone just off in the corner on a stack of books or something, and then mom comes in the frame and is playing and they're doing what they were going to do anyway, and then she leaves it and turns it off and like there's people that are really creative with the ways that they figure it out. Or asking someone to take a video for you on your brain. 

27:37
I'm not that brave, but um you know like someone at the park, or I have lots of families who are so, so awesome and creative and they set their phone up on a time-lapse, while their family is like having a water balloon fight or swimming in the pool and then everybody's in it, right, it's not very often that everybody gets to be. 

28:06 - Katie Fenske (Host)
Everybody gets to eat it. So that's nice, neat, um, why? Okay? So you have a quote or a a topic that says why real life moments matter more than perfect, perfect moments. Can you talk a little bit about that Cause that's so, bird pancakes. You know, we don't have to be perfect. I always think like I've got to get the perfect shot, or I have to look okay before I'm in the picture, or the house shouldn't be a mess when I'm filming. 

28:26 - Kalee Isbell (Host)
This might be too harsh, but I think we live in such a manufactured world where it's so easy to see everyone else's perfection. Um, but in reality, if I wanted that video where my daughter was doing something cute and my house was a mess, I just shoved it all into the office and that was it. 

28:59
And then it looks like my house is clean but it's not clean. And I think that when we record our real stuff and when we share it because I love to see when my clients share their videos or when my friends share their videos or whatever and we see that everyone else's life is just like our life, it just relieves all of that burden and pressure that my life has to look like this content creator who is getting paid to have her house look this clean and she probably is not cleaning it Right, like probably has someone I like when my housekeeper comes a couple of times a year. 

29:36
But I, you know, let's be honest, like my, you don't want to see this right now. Like you know, my counters are a mess and um, you know, and I just think that when we start, when we we're going to remember what we recorded, and whenever I see those shots that I manufactured a little bit, I always kind of remember like, oh, I manufactured this, like this wasn't totally real and maybe not everyone's that way, but I kind of always just feel that little bit of extra, like, oh, I shouldn't have done that kind of thing. Um, but I just think it's just important to the real stuff is the good stuff, like the, the real. The one of my favorite videos is my kids on a vacation and they're we're just finished a four mile hike in New Mexico to get to this. Um, uh, what is what is? It was like a train track and I really hope we were friends and I really hope the friend is gonna listen to this podcast and remember this moment, because she was there and we were all so just disappointed by this train track and we were like god and they were so hot 

30:35
and tired, but I wanted to take a picture or a video of them at the end and my daughter's super lovey and she's like grabbing on to him and he goes get off me and jumps her away, but in the moment it was annoying, but now it's hilarious, like that was just them in that moment. We were so tired and now I'm remembering like what that experience was actually like and you can look back later and you can have that 300 foot view and be like, yeah, you know that kind of was uncomfortable in that moment but that's the way it is and I can appreciate that. That's. You know who my kids are in that perfect lovey hike that everyone's like. 

31:16
Oh, I love you so much I'm so tired, can you carry? Me. Why did you take me? I think that was my son was like why did we even do this? 

31:25 - Katie Fenske (Host)
I'm going to show you this. In 20 years, this is going to be right. Oh my gosh, how fun. 

31:31 - Kalee Isbell (Host)
How often? 

31:32 - Katie Fenske (Host)
do you go through your phone and clean and clean up your camera roll Cause I don't feel like I do that enough. And then I feel overwhelmed by how much is on there, right. 

31:42 - Kalee Isbell (Host)
I don't clean it up, I just back it up. 

31:44 - Katie Fenske (Host)
So I just I thought you would be like each month I make a video and then I get that cleaned and I'm all I do do that. 

31:52 - Kalee Isbell (Host)
So I do. I don't. I don't ever clear off my camera at all. I pay pay for iCloud so I can have it backed up. And you know, the thing is is when we were kids and our moms were developing all the rules of film, they were paying monthly for that too. So why not? Why wouldn't I pay $10 a month to back all this up? I've got all of it backed up on iCloud and then every month I download it all and I put it on an. I edit a video and then I put it on an external. So I've got an external hard drive. I have my phone because when my a couple of years ago, I lost like six months worth of and so and I was bad. I'm bad about my photos, but I'm great about my videos. So I have all my videos, but I don't have any of my photos which is still really sad. 

32:33
We'll do the books and all of that too. So, but yeah, so that's what I do every month and you know, if it becomes, if you can make it a habit, it makes it easier to just do it. Just sit down and pay that you know, a hundred dollars for that hard drive and pull it over and you're done Right, and then it's there. 

32:51 - Katie Fenske (Host)
Yeah, do you ever do videos and photos? Do some people like send you photos to add to? 

32:57 - Kalee Isbell (Host)
the videos. Yeah, I have a lot of families who like that and they'll they'll forget to take a video at something important, and so they'll put the photo in or whatever. But um, but yeah, I have a lot of families that do that do photos too. 

33:08 - Katie Fenske (Host)
Oh my gosh, what a fun job. I did read somewhere recently that it said using the creative side of your brain helps with, like anxiety, and it's like this just seems like such a cool way of using the creative side of your brain. Yeah it is. 

33:24 - Kalee Isbell (Host)
It's great. I feel lucky. It is just the. It's the best job and I get to witness so many beautiful moments in people's lives, like the births of their babies. And there's I mean there's families who whose babies were born when I started my company and now they're like going off to kindergarten or first grade. 

33:43 - Katie Fenske (Host)
What a great gift to either like for a new mom or like a first birthday. Yeah, that's such a good gift yeah. 

33:50 - Kalee Isbell (Host)
It's a great parents yeah. 

33:52 - Katie Fenske (Host)
Yeah, Gosh, Okay. So tell me a little bit about how um the company runs. Like if I, where do we find you? And then how do you go about like submitting all your stuff and getting a video? 

34:06 - Kalee Isbell (Host)
So, social media wise, we're on Instagram. It's just at Isbell family films, um, and a website is the same thing is bell family filmscom, and that's where you can order and find all the different packages that we offer. We offer our. Our packages aren't split up based on what type of video, so it's not like we have like a birthday video, a yearly video. It's based on how long you want your video and how much you're going to submit. So all of them have like a cap of you can submit this many videos for this length, and none of them are. 

34:38
We don't ever include everything, so I have. But I have some families that are like, hey, I want everything included, this is how much I have. Like I'm always available for consultation. Like I love it when people leave on me and say this is what I want, this is what I have, what do I do with it, and then I can advise and give suggestions there. So we do that. 

34:57
And after you purchase, we send you lots of emails that help you understand how you can share. Uh, if you share, if you back up on cloud-based systems Google, amazon, dropbox, icloud you can share links through there. If you don't back up that way, then we have a secure online portal that works like a Google drive it's not Google drive, but it works like that where you can submit your photos or videos and then that's also how we return it. So you have access to that. Nobody has any access to it other than me and you, um, and so then, when you're done, I return, or when I'm done, I give you the video back and um, and then you can download it, put it on YouTube, facebook, instagram. We only use legal licensed music, but it's good music, it's none of that elevator crap Like it's up, and so we use legally licensed music so you can share it. It's never going to get taken down or flagged or anything like that, which is also really helpful. 

35:52
We also have a Spotify, which I think sometimes people really like that. I curate a lot of our music so we use so many different libraries. We have, like gosh, probably 10,000, 20,000 songs that we could use, but I've curated it down into like our favorite favorites. But our Spotify is the same as Bell Family Films, so you can listen to music on there too. Oh cool, I didn't even think you would set up on Spotify. 

36:15 - Katie Fenske (Host)
That's really cool, awesome. Well, thank you so much for coming on. I, yeah, awesome. Well, thank you so much for coming on. I feel like I now need to be more intentional about the videos I take Cause I just haven't really thought about them, but I loved it. 

36:26 - Kalee Isbell (Host)
I always like talking about it. 

36:27 - Katie Fenske (Host)
Yeah, Well, thank you so much. I hope everyone goes out and finds your um, your website and your company Cause this is, we'll be here. 

36:33 - Kalee Isbell (Host)
I'm looking forward to it. 

36:42 - Katie Fenske (Host)
Awesome, thank you, thank you. Okay, moms, let's get our phones out, let's start taking those horizontal videos and getting in front of the camera. Um, I think now I have a really good idea of things that I could take videos of that I just never really thought of before, and I'm kind of determined to put together maybe a yearly video for my family. So I love that Kaylee inspired this conversation and I love just chatting with her about how her mother, her journey, inspired this, this phase in her life. I think it's so, so cool. If you enjoyed this podcast, I would love it if you shared it with a friend, if you left me a review and kept listening. So I look forward to seeing you and talking to you next week, and I want to remind you that everyone burns their first pancake, so just keep flipping.