Somebody has asked you to make a video for the service, or you volunteered before you understood what you were volunteering for. You have maybe four days, a phone full of photographs, and no idea how long it should be.
Here is the whole thing in one line: sixty photographs, five minutes, two songs, one last picture that stays on screen. Everything below is detail on that. And you are allowed not to do this. A funeral with no video is a complete funeral.
Six questions for the funeral director, before you build anything
- What shape is the screen, wide or square?
- What file do you need, and how do you want it (a USB stick, a link, an email)?
- When do you need it by?
- Will there be sound through the room's speakers?
- Is the service being livestreamed or recorded, and if so, where?
- Who will press play, and can we test it before people come in?
The music, and the trap in it
Playing a song in the room is usually covered by the venue's own licence. But if the service is livestreamed or the video is posted afterwards, platforms mute or block copyrighted music automatically, and they do it even when the funeral home holds a valid streaming licence. Families find out when they watch the recording back and the middle of it is silent. Ask what they stream through, and think about a second, quieter version for the internet copy. The room gets the real song.
The shape
- The opening: their name, the years, one photograph you love. About ten seconds
- The beginning: childhood, parents, the place they are from. About a minute
- The middle: work, home, the thing they were known for. About ninety seconds
- The people: partner, children, friends, the dog, the kitchen table. About ninety seconds
- Lately: the last years, at whatever size feels true. About forty-five seconds
- The last picture: one photograph, held still, longer than feels comfortable
You decide whether the illness is in this video. Photographs from a hospital are the truth, and they are also not the only truth, and there is no rule that a memorial has to include the ending. Some families need those pictures in. Others need the last image to be them on a beach in 2019. Both are honest.
The timing rules that make it feel made
- Five seconds a photograph. Four for a simple portrait, six or seven for a group photo where people will look for themselves
- Sixty photographs is about five minutes. If you have a hundred and forty, cut to sixty
- Blurry and present beats sharp and absent. The out-of-focus one where they are mid laugh is worth three studio portraits
- Do not caption every slide. Two or three, where it helps somebody know who they are looking at
- One transition, a soft fade, used every time. Not six
The decisions that are not technical
- The ex, especially where there are children in the photographs. Ask somebody first
- The estranged: whether a person appears at all is a family decision, not the video maker's
- The baby born after, the partner who arrived late. Usually in, and usually a relief when somebody asks
- Whose photographs got used. If one person sent forty and two made the cut, tell them before they watch it in a room full of people
- Show any child what they are in, beforehand, in private
Before you hand it over
- Name the file plainly. It will be one of eleven on somebody's desktop
- Send it the way they asked, and bring a USB stick as well. Twice is not paranoid here
- Test it on the room's screen and speakers if you possibly can
- Watch it alone, all the way through, at least once. You will cry, and it is better to do that on your sofa than in the third row
There is a builder for this in the app: add the photographs, drag them into the order you want, and play it full screen on the day or save a file. The photographs stay on your device, and it keeps your place so you can close it and come back.
And if you would rather not make it at all, say so now rather than in three days: "I do not think I can be the one to make this. Can we ask someone else, or pay someone?" Photographs on a table by the door have been doing this job for a hundred years, and they never crash.