Funeral Slideshows: 10 Unusual Things to Include
When a loved one dies, many people decide to create a funeral slideshow to remember and honor them. There is usually not much time, and often the most that can be accomplished is to collect the available photographs and have them included in a sort of semi-automatically generated funeral slideshow. And that’s fine. After all, it’s about the person, not the slideshow.
But what if you want to do a little better? What if you have the time and know a little about video editing and can handle iMovie or Windows Movie Maker? How do you improve upon the tried and tested (but a little tired) traditional funeral slideshow? as you think memorable Tributes to loved ones that, more than being displayed at the funeral, will be treasured for years to come. How do you create a funeral slideshow that becomes a family heirloom?
Well, don’t say goodbye to those photographs. The basis for any funeral slideshow will still be images. Although, a little care in restoring photos with Photoshop, and a little thought about how you go through them and where the virtual camera lands, will pay off many times over in audience appreciation. And don’t forget the subtitles. Haven’t we all attended funerals and sat in front of endless images wondering who we’re looking at? Us carewe are there after all, but who are all these people? Is that the granddaughter; Is that the son John she never visited? you ask yourself. But without subtitles, there are no answers. So the first thing to include in your knockout slideshow is subtitles.
1. Captions
When you collect the photos, get information about them. Find out the time, place, people and occasion of the photos. And when you do, include it as a title. If you’re not sure, look in the back! There is often a description, and some photo processing labs from the 1960s onwards usefully printed the processing date on the back of the image.
You can copy photos with a digital camera, but it’s better to scan them.
Exploration? You Will you need to scan to get images in your editing program. And there’s a bit of “black art” in the scanner settings with all that confusing nonsense about dots or pixels per square inch (dpi or ppi). Luckily it’s not that complicated: printing requires 300 dpi/ppi to reproduce the original at the same size. Video and digital displays are usually happy with 72 dpi/ppi. So you should scan at 72dpi right? (We’re talking about a funeral slideshow to be projected, probably from a video DVD.) “and larger. If the original image is smaller than 4″x6”, scan at 600 dpi/ppi. And if you’re scanning a small photograph negative or slide, 1200 dpi/ppi or even 2400 dpi/ppi is your number) .
2. Handwriting
In the past, people had what we called a “hand” – they could actually write! If you’re lucky enough to find the person’s handwriting on the back of one of those photos you’re scanning, be sure to scan it and include it (possibly with a split screen). You should always try to include samples of the person’s handwriting. It may be from the description of that photo, but it could just be an old shopping list (possibly the last one), or it could be a letter written a long time ago or even recently. It can be a signature on a driver’s license or passport.
WELL. But what else can you include in the montage besides photos and captions? Well, the trick to going from ho-hum to oh-my is to collect as much and as varied material as you can. The goal is to capture and preserve the uniqueness of your subject.
3.Stories
A death is almost always the occasion for families to reunite: children fly in (often from the other side of the country, or even further) and thoughts of family and friends turn to the good times and all the happy memories. . Some people will be composing and presenting eulogies. Therefore, you should take advantage of these unscheduled gatherings and record brief memories on the subject of those friends and family members. You should find time to do this informally before the funeral.
Some people may not fly in or be unable to attend the funeral for whatever reason. But your funeral slideshow can still feature them or their stories. When you can’t record the person directly, record them via webcam. No webcam? Record your voice over the phone (Skype can help with this). Once you’ve assembled your slideshow, you can play the voice over an image of the person telling that story.
What other thing?
4. Poems and sayings:
Death, despite all its pain, is a stimulus to consider the great issues of life. And a collection of sayings or homilies that the person lived through or that express their hopes and beliefs helps us focus our thoughts. Sometimes a person was known for his Good words or his mood. Surely the examples should be included as simple text screens or as text “trails”.
5. Old video footage
Almost inevitably, there will be video footage of the deceased somewhere in a closet of one or another family member. You just have to ask around. Maybe a birthday or just a family cookout. Nothing brings a person back to our memories better than video, ideally also with audio.
You may need to convert old 8mm, 16mm, or super 8 film into a digital format so you can add a clip from that to your funeral slideshow. But here’s a hint: don’t just stick with the cheapest. Some converters don’t even look at what they’re doing with your precious old film and the end result can be too dark or too light, or have hideous jagged black edges.
6. Cards and letters
I mentioned handwriting above, so now let’s focus on the cards and the letters.
Grandparents, in particular, avidly collect cards and artwork from their grandchildren. Have you ever known a grandparent who throws away a single photo or letter from a grandson or daughter? Well, these items can also be included in the funeral slideshow to show how loved and honored the person was in life.
7.Voice-over
Depending on the length and complexity of life, it may be helpful to tell the story through narration.
Now, a family member is often designated to present an overview of the person’s life at the funeral. That same person is often well placed to provide the narration or voiceover for the visuals of the funeral slideshow. Sometimes it is enough for the person to review the pictures and other visual material, and then say a few words about some of them. (Any modern computer allows you to plug in some kind of microphone to get an internal voice.)
8. Cutouts and memories
What, are we following the president here? Actually, most people at the end of a long life have a scrapbook somewhere with some now yellowed and brittle news clippings about themselves. It could be a recipe they sent in, an engagement announcement, attendance at a benefit dance or similar event, or it could be high school sports. Or, you may have someone truly famous on your hands with an entire scrapbook.
Other people keep memorabilia like track, soccer, swimming, or golf trophies. Or they have traveled or led a busy business life and the home or office is full of gossip. You can film or photograph these things and add them to the funeral slideshow.
9. The lid of a DVD case:
OK. Home stretch. After putting together an impressive funeral slideshow, you should burn it to a DVD and place it in a box so that it is properly identifiable and records the important milestones in the person’s life. You add the best portrait of the deceased you can find, perhaps in a collage with some images of his youth. You can also include maps right there in the box (you should also include them in the slideshow, of course).
Family and friends will probably want their own copy of your funeral slideshow, so it pays to make the project attractive and recognizable.
10. Web publishing
Why not? With the wide variety of free online web hosting available, many people decide to post their funeral slideshow online so that it is available anywhere at any time from any computer to any friend or family member.