Fascination Film Studio

09/09/2025

I don’t get to take any credit for this, I just think it’s great.

I spoke to the Eastern Iowa Honor Flights board tonight, and right beforehand, presented them with a check for over $40,000. 💰 🎈✈️

They raised it by having cashiers ask customers if they’d donate a couple bucks for a paper airplane - and now a plane full of veterans is going to be able to fly to D.C. on an honor flight.

And maybe - I’ll film it.

The way I came into this group was one of those “this can’t be a coincidence” things. I was in my kayak, their photographer was out snapping photos, we struck up a conversation over a snake chasing a bass. (The snake won, it was amazing.)

He asked, “do you ever do volunteer work?”

And the truth is that I do too much of it - having a camera is a lot like having a pickup truck - so I said no.

But my dad was a veteran. His dad was too.

A lot of my clients are senior citizens - people who I love.

So I softened. Opened myself up to a conversation. Which led me here, to talking to this group about going to DC with them, and a plane full of vets.

So I get to take no credit for that great big check tonight, but if we make a film, I bet it will help them get more of those checks.

That’s kind of what happens when you have a documentary about you and what you do.

09/07/2025

It’s Grandparent’s Day!

Here’s to the grandmas and grandpas.

The ones who have gone before.

The ones who made a way. Who set a standard. Who loved us like only a grandma or grandpa can.

The ones who sacrificed. Who endured and overcame.

Who did the best they could.

Here’s to honoring them, remembering them, loving them back.

❤️

09/05/2025

I've never done a sale or special offer, but if ever there was a time, Grandparents Day seems like a great one.

A Heritage & Legacy film captures the stories, lessons, memories, and heart of a person while they're full of life and joy. You'll have a treasured film to share forever.

These are not like home movies or clips shot on a cell phone (although we might use those!)

A Heritage & Legacy film is a professional documentary that looks and feels like something you'd see on television or in a theater.

For this discount package:

One day shoot - must be within 90 minutes of Cedar Rapids, IA.
Includes up to:

- Five 8MM film reel to digital conversions
- Five VHS to digital conversions
- 100 still photo to digital conversions

You'll end up with:

- One 20 - 40 minute documentary about your family
- One shorter version like a "teaser" or "trailer"
- Unedited / raw interviews
- Framed Scannable QR Code to easily watch via streaming
- Thumb Drive with finished videos

Most of our productions are $10,000 - $50,000 although we do Heritage & Legacy work starting at $3,500.

We will only take on three of these discount projects, but we'd love to talk to you about doing one for you!

Must reach out (DM, email) by Friday, Sept 12 to set a consultation meeting - mention "Grandparents Day Deal."

Filming can take place between Oct 2025 and June 2026.

Let's discuss how we can make a beautiful legacy film together! It starts with a discovery conversation, and there's no charge for that.

From further away? No problem - we can still chat, but additional travel costs will apply.

There's a fascinating story behind every door.
For this Grandparent's Day, let's tell yours.

09/02/2025

Advertising and marketing sure has changed in interesting ways.

Working on this film with Otis Lee Author, I came upon this old commercial from Harris Bank.

Otis holds a unique place in Harris Bank history - and I guess, so does Hubert.

Did you ever happen to have a Hubert Doll?

08/30/2025

This is a part of why we do what we do at Fascination Film Studio.

A Heritage & Legacy Film can be healing for families, and it helps preserve family stories; in many ways it can help adult children and their parents shape the narrative together.

The greatest beneficiaries are the grandkids, who need to hear the stories of what their families have overcome - it tells them that they can too.

By Joshua Coleman

08/29/2025

What breaks my heart is that people push back and look away when I say this one true thing.

Your life matters.

I tell stories about people and the ways their lives mattered - and everyone leans in and listens.

In fact, they do what is so rare - they don’t look at their phones.

They look right at me. They give me their full attention.

Then I say something else, “Every day, someone says to me ‘This thing you do, this film thing, recording people’s stories - you have NO IDEA how much I wish we had done this for my mom.”

And everyone in the room nods. They are with me. They agree.

Then I say, “Maybe your mom is gone, but you’re still here - this same thing is true for you, too. You are THAT to your kids and grandkids and so many people.”

And that’s where I lose 'em.

Do I lose you there too?

Why is it so hard to believe that OUR lives matter? That YOUR life matters? That your story is worth telling?

That the lessons and gains made in your life are going to shape the lives of the next generation.

Or: is it not so much that we don’t believe it - it’s that the challenge of all that feels too big?

There is so much wisdom gained by living through the things of life, and we need parents and grandparents and people in our lives sharing how they made it through.

What we are so often substituting instead is the momentary; the dopamine machine of the next flick of our finger and whatever our feed has to say.

So let me say this, since your finger flicked to here.

Your legacy doesn’t start when you die, you’re creating it today.

It’s made up in part by the other people who have made you, you.

(That’s heritage.)

(You’re part of some people's heritage.)

(They’re part of your legacy.)

So: your life matters, and you're already living a documentary-worthy life, the only question is whether it's gonna be a great story or a sad one, and who's gonna tell the story.

I think you should.

I'm willing to help.

And we should make sure it's a really great story.

Maybe too much for a Friday on Facebook, but I’m standing behind this message, and standing next to you, believing in you. Betting on you, too.

----

In addition to producing films, I offer a keynote, "Living a Documentary-Worthy Life, Lessons from a Documentary Film Producer." If you have an event that calls for a speaker (or know someone who does), let's connect!

- Teeg Stouffer

08/27/2025

This project is a lot of fun. It’s monumental in scope. Six cities and 30 hours of footage. But it’s going to be one heck of a legacy film.

Harris Bank in Chicago took the plunge with me - hired me after law school. That's where it all started for me: Harris Bank in Chicago.

Beautiful. It's still a beautiful building.

Most people think the money at the bank is made on the first floor, where the tellers are, where the safe deposit boxes are. But the real money is upstairs. The trusts, the corporate trusts, the individual trusts, the stocks - that's where those are managed.

I was up there. The first black man to work in the trust department at Harris Bank.

08/25/2025

I love going back to key places with people to shoot scenes.

Being back in City Hall is a nostalgic experience.

These ornate buildings and courtrooms ... so much took place here. I had so many experiences.

This is where I learned to practice law, in these courtrooms, before these judges. And the Philadelphia judges were very intimidating. And without a mentor, I just had to learn by doing.

But ... that was my path.

08/20/2025

Up // Watching someone build steps in their generational staircase is amazing.

Getting to help them do it is such an unbelievable honor.

In this film we are documenting a turnaround story that I hope catalyzes a turnaround for thousands of other people. Maybe tens of thousands.

(And you know what? I think it will.)

Today I shot from behind the scenes as Kyle was the guest on a talkshow on CTN. It went great.

It’s part of a documentary called Killing Kyle Orth which is so different from everything else I am working on - in some ways.

But in others, it’s the same.

So many of these films are about saying, “We don’t want to repeat the mistakes of the past, but we want to hold onto the gains of the past.”

It’s about taking the lessons learned in your lifetime and very intentionally passing them on - so that each successive generation has more likelihood of doing better, in all the ways that matter.

What makes Kyle’s story so interesting is that he’s not just nailing a few boards onto a long generational staircase; he’s building a ladder that is climbing out of a mine shaft.

His heritage is pain. It is dark. It isn’t a staircase that climbs, it’s one that falls, going down, one generation after the other, into the pit.

But that all turns around in his life. His generation.

It wasn’t always that way. The first chapters of his life were about repeating cycles of chaos, darkness, destruction.

But then: everything in his life changed. Radically. Night and day. 180 degrees. Not the same person.

And as a result, his daughter will have a completely different launch pad for life. Totally, unrecognizably different childhood from his.

So what will that mean for her kids, and later her grandkids? It means the momentum - the energy through the generations - is headed in a positive, upward direction.

His heritage may have been bad, but his legacy is shaping up to be very, very good.

Creating a generational staircase that goes UP.

——

We make documentary films, including micro-docs, mini-docs and short films for families, companies and communities.

Maybe we should make one for you?

08/18/2025

They say you can never go home. But what if you do?

08/18/2025

For a guy who feels feelings, I couldn’t describe the one that met me as I stood here.

This is it: my first apartment after college.

660 South Jefferson, Apt 15, Springfield, MO.

An efficiency with a Murphy’s Bed. I think it was $500 / month.

My opening salary at the radio station was $17,500 plus remote fees ($30 per remote, I did about one a week).

Amy remembered the address because she wrote me letters. SHE WROTE ME LETTERS. Imagine that!

The first thing I noticed when I walked up to the building is that it still smells the same. They say smell is the sense most connected to memory.

Have you ever been back to visit milestone places from your past? How do you name that weird swirl of thoughts and feelings?

I make legacy films that help other people hold onto these moments, and pass on the lessons learned in them. But sometimes it’s fun to re-live my own.

By the way - a $17,500 in 1998 would be like a $34,700 salary today. Willing to share what your starting salary was, and what you were doing?

08/03/2025

I saw miracles here. So what then should I do?

I’m writing from a plane via WiFi 20,000 feet over earth, about a place that doesn’t have running water or electricity.

There are two worlds.

Just as there are two worlds - this postmodern world of digital interconnectivity, AI and climate control and things like cinema cameras and documentary filmmakers; there is a world where people are still struggling for survival in much the same way that their people have done for generations.

Just as my eyes have seen those two worlds in the span of a day, I saw so clearly that there are also two very certain realities: a material, physical existence that can be explained by scientific understanding and an unseen world that defies it.

I have not made it a secret that I have a faith in God and that I believe miracles are possible.

Believing and seeing are so different that I still don’t have words for it, but as I find them I will share them with you.

I can say this: under that red roof that covers a cinder block building high in the rural Andes, just a few clicks off the Equator, I witnessed the restoration of sight. I saw a physical therapist sob when she felt a broken shoulder be healed under her hand - not by her professional training, but her prayers answered in the moment by Jesus. A man who came in dragging a limp leg, but who walked out, beaming through tears.

It is inexplicable in one way and perfectly explicable in another. This modern world as one reality, the timeless one as another.

One reality is superior to the other, that is clear.

I’ll have a film to show you, because having seen what I have seen, what now shall I do?