Video / Audio Interviews For Your Headstone
Our Process
First, we come to record your interview.
Then, we transform it into a Volume.
Next, we send you a Stardust Pillar.
Your Stardust Pillar links to your Volume.
You share your Volume publicly or privately.
Anyone may view public Volumes.
We password-protect private Volumes.
We record audio and video interviews, which result in tangible representations of our interviewees (or their loved ones). Our goal is to honor lives and help people create personal legacies. Our interviews—called Volumes—aim to detail our subject's memories, beliefs, goals, opinions, complexities, and mannerisms. But why? The purpose of these intricate interviews is for our interviewees to have a priceless tool for end-of-life planning. Our video and audio interviews turn into everlasting, moving, and speaking portraits. Customers begin with a choice between our four services: an audio or video Autobiographical Volume, in which the subject answers questions to paint a portrait of themselves, or an audio or video Biographical Volume, in which a friend/family member answers questions to paint a portrait of their loved one (alive or departed). We store Volumes in our online library for later access. We then provide to each customer a discrete Stardust Pillar, the purpose of which is placement near their headstone. This pillar bears Luna Portra’s insignia, a unique Volume Code, and a QR Code. Viewers may use the Volume Code to locate its associated Volume within our library. If a customer chooses to share their Volume publicly, then those with its Volume Code may easily view, bookmark, and (at the customer’s discretion) comment upon/share the Volume. If the customer instead chooses to share their Volume privately, then we will prompt viewers to provide a password upon attempting to access the private Volume. Customers designate this password, and they may distribute it to friends/family. We seek to become an innovator by rethinking how we honor ourselves and our loved ones. Ideally, Luna Portra will grow to have the resources and influence necessary to leverage emerging technologies and re-imagine headstones, cemeteries, and other end-of-life preparations, all with the hope of more easily and wholly celebrating and chronicling the lives of our dearly departed.
Our Mission is to connect, embolden, and honor people—both alive and departed—through the power of personal stories.
Our Vision is to be an industry innovator that leverages emerging technologies to re-imagine end-of-life preparations, seeking first to celebrate those who have passed away and second to console those who remain.
We use our Values to drive internal behaviors and attract talent. While we value diverse perspectives, we seek candidates who embody our Values and hold them similarly close to their own hearts.
Our Values are:
Empathy: a steadfast concern for others and how our actions affect them.
Evenness: an alignment between our thoughts, words, and actions, so that we can foster the growth of trust in our valued stakeholders.
Elevation: a driving desire to learn abundantly and grow vastly while always uplifting those inside and outside our organization.
Evolution: an affinity for thinking contrarily and doing that which has not been done.
Enthusiasm: an alliance with the hopeful and optimistic; a belief that our lives—however transient—are worth exploring, retelling, celebrating, and honoring.
Our Philosophy
A central philosophy resides outside our Values, and it relates to our approach to creating Volumes. The process of making another person feel comfortable is simultaneously an art and a science. We want our Volumes to be wholly representative of the person around which they revolve. We strive to make each person we record feel so comfortable that they: 1. Share abundantly the details of their lives, 2. Feel effortlessly vulnerable, and 3. Truly represent their (or their loved one’s) essence on camera. Our philosophy is to let people express themselves from stardust to starshine. We want our customers to begin with the essentials and expound. Carl Sagan famously said, “The cosmos is within us. We are made of star stuff.” This is what we mean by "stardust"—our component parts, our elements, our foundations. To quote another brilliant mind, Walt Whitman wrote in his poem, Song of Myself, “I am large. I contain multitudes.” Indeed, we all contain multitudes, and our overarching goal is to unearth those multitudes, revealing the person beneath what the world sees. We do this, in part, by employing our Values, each of which lends itself to helping customers feel comfortable and emboldened around our team members. But there is a bit more to it.... We also use hierarchical tags on each of our interview questions. These tags enable us to categorize our interview questions in a system we call our Phase Hierarchy. Prospective customers customize their interviews prior to their desired recording date, and our system arranges the flow of their interview questions based on each question’s hierarchical tags. By expressing a genuine interest and maintaining a deep curiosity, we appeal to each customer’s thoughts and emotions in tandem, and we evoke from our customers a magnificent and thorough representation of themselves or their loved one. This philosophy results in phenomenal Volumes, wherein each person, on camera, paints a vivid portrait—one that covers every facet of the subject, from stardust to starshine.
Our Name
Luna Portra’s name is simply constructed: "Luna" is the Latin word for “moon,” and "Portra" is an abbreviated form of the word "portrait." Our founder and owner, Alex Eiseman, became enamored with the phases of the moon right around April 8th of 2024, the day when a total solar eclipse occurred and he and his family fortunately fell in the path of totality. He watched the celestial phenomenon with his wife and four kids, and he explained to his kids the mechanisms at work all the while. The moon’s symbolism stuck out to him as an excellent metaphor for life: it is cyclical, we see it through its different phases, and it always returns to its starting point, just as people do. Eiseman loved the imagery and terminology surrounding the moon and its phases, too, and so he sought to incorporate them into Luna Portra's branding. The "Portra" piece ought to be self-explanatory; what we do is help our customers tell stories and show the world who our customers or their loved ones really are—or were. In the simplest terms, we help people paint accurate, stunning portraits.
