Tom Engdahl Video Productions

As of June 1, 2023, I am retiring from professional videography after 38 years. I began video recording as a schoolteacher at Libby Middle School in 1978. I created classroom projects like newscasts with my students. I basically taught myself as a teacher and in 1985 decided to go into the video business for myself and registered my website family-movie-maker.com.

It has been a wonderful, blessed career working from a home studio. I have seen the world of video evolve from my first reel to reel Sony recorder to ¾-inch tape, then BETA and VHS, 8mm, Hi8 and digital 8, Mini DV and digital DV, DVD and now external memory thumb drives, scan disks and hard drives. That’s like going from a horse and buggy to a jet.

My first location video shoot was Mt. St. Helen’s erupting in April of 1980. Yes, that was just five weeks before the big blast of May 18th. I have recorded around 350 weddings, 60 bar and bat mitzvahs, 530 GSL football games, numerous anniversaries, birthdays and graduations, produced over 100 memorial videos and digitized tens of thousands of videotapes, photos, slides and negatives for families. I started converting old 8mm film to video with my grandfather’s collection. It was pretty funny seeing a three-year-old Tommy running around with a football under his arm. Since then I have converted hundreds of thousands of feet of film.

I have shot and edited dozens of training and maintenance films, high school sports highlight videos that have helped earn scholarships for kids, production promotions (I’ll never forget the Chewculator, a calculator embedded into a can of s***f), high school reunions and school productions like plays and concerts.

I used to go to COSTCO and buy videotapes by the cart full. Editing and copies were tape to tape with a generation loss. Now everything is digital with no quality loss and videotapes have gone the way of the Dodo bird.

For ten years I was the Seattle Mariners and Oakland A’s Fantasy Camp videographer. I got to meet and play with some of the Mariner greats like Jay Buhner and the A’s Dave Stewart.

Videography has been a very rewarding career. Capturing, preserving and sharing family memories for my clients was always gratifying. I have met so many wonderful people and made so many friends through my work over the years. Thank you all for your support and referrals that made my business successful.

It is now time to work on the Bucket List. Travel, reading, writing (I have two children’s books stashed away that need my attention), researching my family tree, finding a rewarding charity to volunteer with and maybe take that sculpture class I’ve wanted to for the past 40 years.

Thank you all again. You will be able to find me on a beautiful summer night at the Spokane Indians ballpark cheering on the next generation . . .

Tom Engdahl

Sunsets from Sugar Beach, Maui:

I have been video recording a series of training sessions for the operation of the new Shadle Park Library. This beautiful new building should be open in November.