WOT: The Good and Bad of Video Editing

ADinelt wrote on 2/16/2004, 10:45 AM
This is way off topic, but wanted to relay a recent experience.

Short story long...

My Dad passed away in August 2000 and my Mom in January 2001. Dad had an on and off battle with cancer over the course of 20 years. I like to think my Dad beat the cancer and not the other way around. Just after my Dad passed away, my Mom was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer and she passed away shortly after that.

Sometime in 2003, I finally got around to scanning in all of Mom and Dads photographs. The main reason was to preserve them on CD, and the other is that with four sisters, the pictures would eventually be split up and the chance of getting them all back would be poor at best.

Since scanning the pictures in, I got into video editing. Over the past couple of weeks, I organized the images and put them into a slide show along with music, added transitions, pan/zooms and burned them to DVD. There were around 500 pictures in total, grouped by Wedding, Anniversaries, Children, Family Friends, etc. and put into chronological order. I added sub titles so that relatives and friends names would not be lost as the DVD gets handed down to my son and so on.

This is the good part of video editing.

The bad part, if you can call it that (for me anyway), was to see my Dad progress from winning the Most Beautiful Baby in Toronto, to second place Body Builder as a young man (again, in Toronto), to a not so old man withered away by cancer, all in the span of 10-12 minutes. I didn't notice the transition in him until I viewed the video of him as a whole.

When I showed the final video to my wife, it brought tears to her eyes, as she experienced the same emotions that I did.

Anyway, don't want to depress anyone. In the end, this is has been a very worthwhile project. So much so, that we are going to do the same with my wife's family pictures.

In some way, I think this has been good therapy for me in helping me deal with their deaths.

Thanks for listening...
Al

Comments

djcc wrote on 2/16/2004, 11:30 AM
Al - thanks for sharing your story. The nature of the format allows us to speed through years and entire lifetimes in a matter of minutes. Viewing such images in a compressed timeframe definitely triggers emotions - good and bad. However, your project sounds like more of a celebration of life - and documenting it as you have done will ensure that future generations have the opportunity to celebrate a life through your eyes.

=Don=
Electromen wrote on 2/16/2004, 2:28 PM
I think it is a normal to bring tears to family members watching the video. My wife and I have the same reactiion. Don't forget to inject some humor here & there to lighten the movie. A good Hollywood production will make you cry and laugh out loud.

Greg
cbrillow wrote on 2/16/2004, 2:29 PM
Hi Al,

Very touching story, and quite a bittersweet experience for you. I'm sure you are all the better for it, and will be very happy that you saw it through to completion.

And I'm equally certain that your parents would consider themselves fortunate to be honored and remembered in the wonderful way you have.

Always keep them alive in your heart.

Best regards,
Chuck
ADinelt wrote on 2/16/2004, 3:44 PM
Thank you everyone for your great support and thoughts.

There are indeed some very humorous moments in the video. Like at my parent's 35th anniversary party, my brother-in-law and I mooned everyone with 'Happy Anniversary' written on his butt and 'Mom and Dad' written on mine. It should be noted the party took place in their basement with around 50 friends and relatives in attendance. The shot in the video starts with an extreme close-up between our two butts, them zooms out so you can read the message. The next couple of shots show everyone's reactions (laughing uncontrollably kind of sums it up).

For the most part, the video is great to watch, with a lot of nostalgic photos. It just kind of hit me watching time pass so quickly for my parents.

Thanks again...
Al
desertman wrote on 2/17/2004, 7:52 AM
My father turned 90 years old last spring. He has always had a garden. Due to illness this was the first year that he could not do the planting and care taking himself.

I took pictures of him and my step mother together with who ever came to the house over the course of the summer. I then made a video of it set to "Home Grown Tomatoes". My step-mother had a stroke in October and passed away in December. My father enjoys watching the video and seeing his wife. I also got an excellent picture of them together.

Yes, the videos can be bitter sweet. They do bring back the happy parts of life. To me, it helps ease the pain more than increase it.

Randy
JReed wrote on 2/18/2004, 3:43 AM
The "Good" part of video editing is this...last Thanksgiving my wife's family was in town. During the day we were at our brother-in-laws house and I spent most of the day capturing all the activities on tape. There were about 30-35 folks there...aunts, uncles, cousins, neices, nephews, etc...Friday morning I got up and spent about 2 hours loading then editing a little minute and a half piece...then I burned it onto a dvd. That night everyone was at our house for dinner and we played the video...needless to say the crowd went nuts...since then I have made multiple copies of it for folks in the family...a modern day photo album preserved on dvd.
JohnnyRoy wrote on 2/20/2004, 10:56 AM
Al,

The good and the bad news is that you’re not alone. My Dad lost his battle with cancer in November, 2001. It seems that everyone knew he was dieing except me. I always thought it would go back into remission as it had done before. When I finally went back and looked at the photographs I had taken just a week before his death, I can see now what the cancer had done to him in just the last few months of his life. I don’t know why I couldn’t see it then. Perhaps I just didn’t want to see it?

It took me two years before I could bring myself to view the footage, but I finally made a DVD of my Dad for my three sisters this past Christmas so they could have some videos of him too (all they had were still photographs). As an opening to the video, I added a simple title that said, “You have no idea how hard it is to edit video with tears in your eyes ...but you’re about to find out”. My sister called me to tell me that her son was riveted to the TV watching his grandfather and hanging on his every move. There were some classic and very funny moments in that video. (my Dad was always the life of the party) It was the toughest project I have ever done.

The good part is that we have the ability to share the memories of our loved ones in a medium that our family before us didn’t have. The faded photographs can be restored and persevered for future generations; and through video and music we can tell the story that may have otherwise been lost. That’s a good gift to be able to give. Thanks for sharing.

~jr
cbrillow wrote on 2/22/2004, 8:29 AM
Whew --- this is one tough thread to read! <sniff>
starfish98034 wrote on 2/23/2004, 11:26 AM
This is a nice community of great folks and this story exemplifies it.

I am grateful that even though they are not great quality I have video of my son when they were 4 and 7, now 28 and 31. The video was taken on an old VHS cam that had to be connected to my VCR with a long cord with the VCR attached to the TV because of no viewfinder. Obviously the cam could not get from the TV set but at least I have those grown men captured as little boys fighting and loving each other.

I also have video of my in-laws, now deceased and my own parents prior to age and sickness taking away their vitality and my grandfather, long deceased in his Santa suit telling the night before Christmas to my little boys.

The technology has certainly changed since 1980 but the memories can not be taken away. Editing has gotten me to dust off all that old stuff, get into a form more easily viewable and helped remove lots of shots of my feet and the sky.

Al, Thanks for starting this thread.

Paul
ADinelt wrote on 2/24/2004, 9:21 PM
Paul is definitely right about this being a nice community of great folks.

My heart truly goes out to those who have also lost loved ones. I looked at your website JohnnyRoy and it sounds like you had a very special bond with your Dad.

If there is one thing that I will take with me from this thread, is that I need to celebrate the lives of Mom and Dad and cherish the memories of the times we had as a family. For this, I will be forever grateful.

Thanks to all of you once again...
Al