Advice for a memorial slideshow
September 5, 2023 7:13 PM   Subscribe

I am looking for advice for putting together a slideshow of videos, photos and music for a memorial and funeral service for a young child. I’m pretty overwhelmed this week and could benefit from others helping point me towards the best resources and tips so I’m not spending hours on Google sorting out the questions I have.

Dear friends of mine lost their seven year-old daughter suddenly and tragically, and I’ve been asked to make a slideshow for the upcoming service. Their families have sent me hundreds of photos, dozens of short videos and a list of favorite songs. The service includes a visitation, funeral and a reception in a church in the midwest United States. I want to do this well, but have a bunch of questions and sifting through every resource I find online is getting overwhelming during an already overwhelming and emotional week. I also have limited time to tackle this.

I’d love to get some advice on the following:

1. I’m assuming I should make a longer looped video that can repeat during the visitation and reception. And I’m waiting to find out if they want a shorter version to play during the funeral service. But for now I’m planning to prep both. Does that sound right? Approximately how long should each of those be?

2. Is there a best practice for going chronological versus mixing up photos from different ages?

3. Is there a software you think would work well for this? A file format I should save it to? I’m planning to bring multiple flash drives to the church. Anything else I should think about from a tech perspective? (I’m calling the church tomorrow to ask about some of this as well).

4. I’m also planning to ask whether the service is planned to be more somber or celebrating her life. Are there other questions I should be posing when I call the church? I’m really trying not to ask any questions of the parents while they are grieving.

5. Any best practices for starting/ending a slideshow like this? A cover slide? A certain style of photo or video?

6. Any other advice for me?

I’m still in a bit of shock myself, but need to get working on this tomorrow, so I appreciate any advice, tips or recommendations anyone can share that will help me create a good tribute to this vivacious little girl. Thank you!
posted by JannaK to Society & Culture (8 answers total)
 
I would tend towards an endlessly looping PowerPoint with embedded (but silent) video. Music on a separate playlist that can be played on a separate device. It doesn’t really matter what order the pictures are in.

You’d be a really good egg if you could print 50 of the best, including all major relatives, and build a physical photo collage for the venue. Mount on foam core for later framing. A physical display is a good conversation piece.
posted by shock muppet at 8:47 PM on September 5, 2023 [5 favorites]


I'm sorry you're having to deal with this task. I did this late last year for my mother and, while it's emotional to have to do it, it's also a chance to reflect on a person's life and provide an avenue for others to do the same.

In terms of length, definitely speak with whoever is organising the funeral to get at least an idea of what's needed. It sounds like, for a visitation, a looping video would be best and fairly long - not only does it avoid the same thing playing over and over for visitors, but it's a chance to include a lot more photos/video than a video suitable for a service, for which I would think 3 min or so bu definitely no more than 5. I only needed one for the service and the timing was dictated by a song my Mother had specified to be played at the service.

For software/format, I used iMovie partly because the funeral chapel specified .mp4 format (nothing else was acceptable) and because it was both easy to export in this format and arrange everything as well as syncing with the song and its length. If the format hadn't been specified I probably would have used PowerPoint because it's what I'm used to - this is not the time to learn a new piece of software if you can avoid it. I would avoid needing separate devices/files if at all possible unless you are absolutely sure there is someone to get them all started and everything will work from a tech perspective. You don't want to have to apologise that the music doesn't work because you didn't know you needed a specific cable to hook it up or something. As well as bringing multiple copies on flash drives with you, ask if you can get the church to download the video beforehand using dropbox or whatever and have it already loaded on whatever is going to play it. Either way, make sure you are there early enough and test the video well before time to make sure everything is OK and ready to go.

I used a roughly chronological order for photos, but I had a fairly short time to fit them into and 80+ years of photos. For a longer video where the chronological period is short, I would mix them up rather than putting them in order and mix in some video with photos and, for a child, maybe some of her artwork? For the shorter video, chronological seems best to me. I started the slide show with a specific photo of Mum that had been hanging on her wall and ended with the same photo, leaving about 15 sec of the video with that photo showing and no music.

You could ask the organiser about the 'mood' question, but I would default to showing her life in as happy and positive a way as possible. This is perhaps not the best approach for a child, I'm not sure. If you don't get an answer that helps, default to happy, I think.

Other advice? This is going to be rewarding for you to do, but it will also be emotional. It took me much longer than I would have expected because it's hard to edit video through tears. Look after yourself.
posted by dg at 9:13 PM on September 5, 2023 [1 favorite]


First off, I am *so* sorry for this loss, and you are a good friend to be doing this for them. I'm hoping I can help with some answers, though some depend on the same things you're waiting to hear back about as well.

1. I think a longer looped video sounds like a good bet overall, especially if they want you to actually use all of the photos and videos. I would allow about five seconds per video, with a short fade between them. I am much more adept with video than a slide program like PowerPoint or Google Slides, so my thinking goes in that direction. But this is totally dependent on what the church wants you to give them. I can give much more specific advice once you have that information.

2. My vote is to go chronologically, including the videos if possible.

3. Is there a software you think would work well for this? As a video person, I would use Adobe Premiere, but a program like imovie or another very similar, simple program works too. A file format I should save it to? It totally depends on what the church specifies. I would imagine they have a system in place for this kind of thing. I'm hoping they have a way to project the video/slides as well?

4. I’m also planning to ask whether the service is planned to be more somber or celebrating her life. I think that is a good thing to ask the church. But you can also take a cue from the songs the parents gave you, and if they want more music, you could consider supplementing those songs with others as well.

5. Any best practices for starting/ending a slideshow like this? A cover slide? A certain style of photo or video? I would start with one of the best photos of her, maybe with her family, and have it up with her name as well. So if the other photos are five seconds long, the beginning and end could be ten seconds. Maybe the text could say something like: {child's name] Forever in our Hearts. And then you could end it the same way.

6. Any other advice for me? Get as much technical info as you can from the church in terms of what they need, which will inform some of your other questions. As if they have an audio-video person you can talk to; I'm not much of a church person but as I understand it, many churches have someone in this role, at least part-time, to help things like this go smoothly. I wish you so much luck on this project.
posted by Molasses808 at 9:45 PM on September 5, 2023


DaVinci Resolve is a free video editing software that is super powerful. A quick search on YouTube shows many tutorials for “DaVinci resolve slideshow”, most of which are 10 minutes or less.

If you can afford an hour to watch a few tutorials and test out the software, you’ll have a pretty good idea whether that direction is feasible for you.
posted by itesser at 11:26 PM on September 5, 2023


Best answer: Hi - What a good friend you are to do this. This will be something the family cherishes long after the funeral.

I'm a funeral celebrant and have helped many people and other celebrants think about funeral elements like these. You've gotten great advice above, and I'll just lend some professional thoughts and hopefully tips to make this as easy as possible for you.

1. Uses and Length. Yes, prepping both sounds smart. My advice would be to work first on the short one for the funeral itself. If they want one, this will be a key and difficult part of the service, so I think spending time on it to make sure it's ready would be a smart use of time. As mentioned above, 3-5 minutes max is usually right. Even 5 minutes might feel long, so personally I advise people to keep it concise. If it's tied to a song, you can match the length of the song. If it's a really long song, it's ok to fade in and out to nothing more than 5 minutes. (All these recommendations are barring any specific directions you get from the family or the church.)

The slideshows for the visitation/reception can be the same and can be fairly long. It often ends up being something people can do to rest their emotions or from interacting with people. Having a lot of images lets people drift back to it again as an excuse (if needed) to take a step back from interactions or difficult thoughts. I don't think there needs to be an order or narrative to this group of photos. Run through it once to make sure there aren't any weird juxtapositions (e.g. images of them fighting with siblings, or throwing "I don't want my picture taken" faces all bunched together)

2. Chronological or not. Based on my experience, I would not recommend chronological order of photos for a child's funeral. If you start with baby images and work toward, and end with, images from their last days, it can leave people feeling like the message is hammered home: this is the end, there will be no more photos. For an older person with a full life, I think chronological is great. So I would mix up the photos.

3. Software and file type For software, I recommend Canva. It's got an easy learning curve. Basically choose a template, click to customize, upload your photos and videos, and drag and drop them into the template. You can choose transitions in the menu if you need to speed up or slow down to meet a specific duration. Here are a couple of templates that would be easy to start from:
- Beautiful Memories (template shows a romantic couple, but you can drag and drop images over those and it will fill to the same space as the template images)
- White-Beige Classic Funeral Slideshow - again, just click customize and you can add your images and videos to whatever pages you choose. Delete any text or pages you don't want.
- White-Rose Gold Funeral Slideshow - ditto
- For a more photo dense template, something like the Dark Green Cursive Professional Wedding template could easily work.

A few of those templates are available for "pro" users. It's $15 for a month. For all of the templates, click "Customize this Template" then *very important* rename the template in the top bar. Then just edit the text on each page or delete it, copy template pages you want more of, delete pages you don't want. You can add music from the left hand menu, and adjust how long or which slides you want it playing under. Then just click Share (*Stop: make sure you have renamed the file to something appropriate*) > Download > Choose file type (here's where you'll have the option for MP4). Then you can email the file or save it to USB or whatever the venue can work with.

Super advice above about checking with whomever is running the slideshows technically. They will be able to give you a clear and simple answer. MP4, as mentioned a couple of times above, seems to be the most flexible and useful in my experience.

4. Tone of the service. Yes, that would be good to ask. It might not change the slideshows a whole lot, but just by changing the background color, typeface, or order of photos, you can easily match the tone.

5. First & Last Photos For a child, especially a child of this age with enough images to show a range of emotions and experience, I think starting and ending with recent, happy photos is a good default. Someone above mentioned photos the child with family - that's wonderful. And if you have photos of the child with extended family and friends, those are great to sprinkle in. You might end with a solo photo and you might edit it to be black and white. That would be a formal approach (more in line with a somber service as you ask above). I would probably default to happy, family filled photos for the first and last, and have a solemn one ready to put as the last slide if you hear otherwise.

6. Other advice. Don't be responsible for the technology if you can help it. Make sure someone else is actually running the computer, monitor, or lowering the screen. Usually this a funeral home or church employee, does this, but confirm that you're not also the person responsible for providing or running tech.

If you can finish the slideshows in enough time to share them with the church and any other venues ahead of time, definitely ask them to test the files and make sure they work. This will give you peace of mind, and lets you turn your attention to mourning and supporting your friends on the day.

Good luck, and yes, treat yourself gently because this can be a very emotional act of service.
posted by cocoagirl at 3:48 AM on September 6, 2023 [8 favorites]


I'm so sorry for your loss, and echo everyone else in cheering you on for taking on this task.

I just came in to make one of the points that I see cocoagirl has also made - that in this case I think chronological would be just too much, because it would really emphasise the untimely, unexpected cutting short at the end. I'd go for mixing up ages throughout to give more of an overall impression of seven years of her awesomeness, without the sense of it heading towards what you now know to be a finale. Best of luck.
posted by penguin pie at 4:21 AM on September 6, 2023


Response by poster: Thank you all, this is incredibly helpful advice, and between you Mefites and some amazing church staff, I'm feeling much calmer and more prepared to work on this. I forgot that I have Canva through work, so that's been a quick tool to set up and use, and I'm combing through photos and videos now and have a time set up to test AV with the church staff on Friday. You all are wonderfully helpful, as always.
posted by JannaK at 2:11 PM on September 6, 2023


Best answer: Everyone above has great advice for you. One more idea on #3 (software). Apple Photos (built-in software on all Macs) has all you need to automatically make slideshows and export them to video format. In my opinion, using dedicated video software or Powerpoint takes more effort because there is the concept of the "page" or "screen" that you have to fill. No need to mess with timelines at all which can get really fussy. With Apple Photos, you just import all the photos into an album and Create New Slideshow from that album. There are some global settings like soundtrack, timing, and themes, and the ability to easily export to video. I recommend using a Ken Burns effect for the transitions, with each photo lasting 8-10 seconds. This ends up looking subtly dynamic and professional.
posted by oxisos at 2:59 PM on September 6, 2023


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