As I mentioned in my last blog, for Christmas gifts this year for Grandparents, I made a home video of my kids through the years. In case you are thinking of tackling this type of project, here is a quick review of what I did (and what I learned along the way)!
1. I got organized!
- I transferred all of my home video tapes to computer. This required the right cable for high speed transfer (I got a Firewire compatible cable from Amazon) and storage space (I got a terabyte drive from Amazon.)
- I organized my pictures by year and event.
- I scanned or took photographs of my children’s favorite artwork.
- I ripped music from my CDs onto my terabyte drive.
2. I picked a movie software to use: there are some free options, but I wanted something with more options, so I chose the Sony Vegas Movie Studio Platinum 9.0. It was a steep learning curve, and there are a few things I would improve about the software, but ultimately, I am happy with my choice.
3. I identified the goals/scope of my video project: I wanted to capture the major highlights of my kids’ lives, starting at birth:
- Births (nothing messy!)
- Birthdays
- Major holidays and trips
- A sprinkling of cute moments from everyday videos
4. I began reviewing the videos from the beginning working forward.
- I determined it was faster and easier to review the videos in a viewer outside of my movie making software and then write down the number of the clips that I wanted to bring into my project in batches.
- If I brought too many clips into the software, it got bogged down, and I had to wade through tons of clips that I did not want in my video.
- The viewer allowed me to jump around the clip faster than the movie software.
5. I supplemented the video clips with photographs.
- Photos have more clarity than video, so I added some photographs of the same event at the beginning and/or end of the video clips to bring it into better focus.
- If I did not have a video for a major event, then I strung together a series of photographs with music.
- I created pseudo-cartoons from series of similar photographs by transitioning one photo to the other without a pause in between, and then pausing only at the beginning and/or end of a series.
- I added images of some of the kids’ best artwork through the ages.
- I also had a fun transition idea: I transitioned from a family photograph to one of my kids drawings of the family or from a picture of themselves to a self portrait they had drawn.
6. I added music.
- I added music to the picture portions and into some of the background of the video for effects. (Example: I played ‘In My Daughter’s Eyes’ by Martina McBride for my daughter’s birth pictures.)
7. I added captions and audio accents.
- I sprinkled in some of my favorite kids’ quotes and sayings – both in writing and sound.
- Some of the kids’ cute sayings, songs and quotes I had as sound bytes, which I ran with some of their photographs.
- I separated the cute audio potions of video where the kids were saying something fun, but the lighting, jiggling or other factors made it visually unappealing. I then used just the audio of their sweet voices as I scrolled through their photos or artwork.
8. I made homemade DVD cases.
- I shrunk down the kid’s artwo
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