Funeral slideshow guide
How to collect photos from the family for a funeral slideshow
Give everyone one place to put them, and one person the final say. The photographs of a long life are in several houses, and the job is getting them into one.
Why this is the hard part
Making a slideshow takes an evening. Collecting the photographs takes the days before it. They arrive by text, by email and in person, in different sizes, some of them twice, and the best ones are usually in an album belonging to somebody who has not answered yet. One person ends up doing all of it, in the week they can least afford to.
Three ways families do it
- Texts and email. It works for a handful of pictures. Past that you are saving attachments one at a time, and photographs sent through messaging apps often arrive smaller than the originals.
- A shared folder. Better, if everyone in the family already uses the same service and knows how to add to it. The people with the oldest photographs are often the ones who do not.
- One link anyone can open. Nobody needs an account or an app. This is how Videmory works: each relative opens the link on their own phone or computer, types their name and adds what they have.
What to ask relatives for
- The original photograph, not a screenshot of it or a photo of a screen.
- A few from each part of the life they knew, not forty from one holiday.
- The year, or a guess at it, for anything old.
- Short video clips, if they have them. A voice or a laugh is worth a great deal.
- A few words on camera, 30 to 45 seconds, if they would like to say something.
Old prints
A print can be photographed with a phone in daylight, flat and square-on, or scanned. Either way the file will carry the date it was copied, not the date it was taken, so put the year in the file name as you go: 1985 - Nan’s kitchen.jpg. Videmory offers you that year and that caption to accept, and you can add a whole folder at once from a computer.
If you use Videmory
- Each person sees only what they added. You see everything, and you choose what stays in the film.
- Each person confirms they have permission to share what they add.
- Identical copies of the same file are left out for you.
- Ask relatives to open the link in Chrome or Safari. A link opened inside Messenger or Instagram can fail to upload.
- The link keeps admitting new people for 90 days, or until you turn it off.
Set a cut-off
Tell the family a time, a day or two before you need the film, after which you will make it with what you have. Somebody will always find one more album. Until you buy the film you can add a late photograph and preview it again, so the cut-off is for your sake, not the software’s. Then work out how many photographs the time allows.
Short answers
Quick questions.
Do relatives need an account or an app to add photos?
Not with Videmory. They open the family’s link, type their name and add their photographs and video. Nothing is installed.
What if someone only has printed photographs?
They can photograph each print with a phone, flat and in daylight, or scan it, and add the copy. Name the file with the year and a few words, “1985 Nan’s kitchen.jpg”, and Videmory offers that date and that caption to accept.
How do we stop photos arriving after the film is finished?
Give the family a cut-off time, and turn the link off when you reach it. Until you buy the film you can still add a late photograph yourself and build another preview.
Videmory Tribute
A funeral slideshow everyone who knew them helps make.
Send one private link. Family and friends add their photographs and video from their own phones, and Videmory puts a life in order and builds the film. AU$199 for the finished film, after you have watched it in full.
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