Wednesday, September 16, 2009

He Lives In You

This video is an example of how you can take a group of pictures and turn them into a more powerful medium by grouping them together and putting them to music. For example, they may have a similar theme or be about the same person. You then place them into a certain order based on the story you're trying to tell. Maybe you're just showing someone's life from a chronological point of view. You could be trying to tell a story based on the lyrics in the music or just trying to put more powerful photos to more powerful movements of the music.

Before you put together your story though, you want to look at all your pictures and utilize picture editing applications like Picasa (free on the web) or Microsoft Picture It, or Photoshop to make sure that all your pictures are ready. I love Picasa and Picture It best myself. They're just more user friendly. You can crop out any unnecessary background (or people), light up dark pictures, improve contrast, fix errors, noise and dust, etc.

After that than the fun begins, you can choose the music that helps you to tell your story and start putting the pictures in order. Again there are a lot of applications that will help you to put together a musical slide show. They're all pretty much the same. As you're putting the pictures in order, you also have to start playing with any transitions your going to utilize in your show because they take up time also. With the pictures and the transitions between the pictures, you will want to establish a general rhythm that goes with the music and the mood you're trying to set with this specific slide show.

If you want to actually choreograph the pictures, so that they appear at the very moment specific lyrics are being sung or at a time when the music is more dramatic, then you will have to play with the specific timing of each picture to get it just right. This might require that you listen to the music over and over again, so make sure you really like the song.

Once you get your timing and order, you can then zoom in, pull out, or pan across pictures. This gives them an additional sense of motion that makes the viewer feel like the still photographs are almost moving. In addition, you can add a video clip, or groups of clips to music to achieve the memories or feelings as you do with still photographs.

This sounds like a lot of work and I don't want to minimize it, but you get better at it and faster the more your do. These videos can then be burned to DVD to be played on any television with a DVD player attached. The slide shows can become meaningful, even powerful memories, for those who knew the people in the pictures, are the people in the pictures, or participated in the events and/or locations displayed in the pictures. They can invoke feelings of love, respect, or even humor.

They are becoming more and more popular as people are using them to entertain at weddings, eulogize and honor at funerals or wakes, and give as gifts for birthdays or holidays.


If you don't have the time, patience or desire to produce your own slideshow but would like to enjoy your memories in that type of format, you can contact me at vixpixandvids@gmail.com to receive pricing information. You can view other examples of this type of slide show at www.youtube.com/vicniesp.
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1 comment:

  1. Steven and KimberlySeptember 21, 2009 at 8:20 PM

    I love your work and how you bring all our memories to life. thanks for all you do, and I'd love to help you with your project in anyway. We are down one car right now, but I'll try to make it over soon to see you and grandma!

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