Advantages of Technology

I spent several hours with a friend yesterday, working on a memorial video for his ex, who recently died in an accident while living out of state. He lives with ex's family, and as a result, is heavily involved in the memorial service planning.

The video involved hundreds of pictures set to music. Years ago, that would have involved someone trying to make a slide show, and then tape recording the proper songs. For us, it was me converting audio files into the proper format, then sorting the pictures into early, teen, young adult, and adult years, then moving those folders into iMovie. Once there, pictures got tweaked, so that the focus wasn't on knees and feet, or they zoomed in on the right person. In one case, a requested song was 'Drink a Beer' and in the queue pretty soon afterwards was a picture of that person with the recently deceased, with both holding beers. It was a small matter of tweaking times of the preceding pictures to make it so that the first time the line "Drink a Beer" comes up, that picture comes up perfectly. There was a time when I'd do that with a splicing block and miles of tape. To do so now with one piece of software is pretty darn incredible.

Then to render it would take two hours, and we'd been at it for almost 8 already. I sent my friend home, and I planned to upload it to the flash drive that contained all the pictures. Instead, there are two quicker options, Dropbox and YouTube.

File has been uploaded to Dropbox and is being viewed. Once we get the word from a family member, it will also go on YouTube, because we need to see if she'd prefer unlisted or private on there. Unlisted means that the link can be shared freely, but you won't find it in a search. Private means you can only view if the owner of the video has emailed you an invitation.

It is kind of nice that in a time like this, when a family is grieving, a nice memento can be made-and shared, with minimal fuss.

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