My brother and sisters danced on the front lawn and I set up my camera on a tripod, framed them up, pressed down the button, and asked them not to step beyond the frame line. To this day I am making movies and videos, and they are slightly more sophisticated versions of these early home movies. Home movies are egotistical and haphazard. They show life from a certain viewpoint, and make no pretence of objectivity. They rarely synthesize drama - they simply proudly completely present.
Home movies present a strong sense of place.
That place may be a home, that place may be an exotic place captured during a vacation, but you can't fake the place, even if the place is a fake. It is simply unthinkable to film your home movie of your New York City trip in Toronto, Canada. I make home movies out of my great respect and interest in the power of place, in the specific power of specific places. Friends and family do the acting in home movies. The acting isn't necessarily good or bad, it simply is.