Things You'll Need:
- Family Photos "old and new"
- Song Titles that have Meaning
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Step 1
Last year I was put in charge of planning our annual family reunion, so I had to come up with something unusual to get people to show up. My idea was to ask each family to send me 10 photos, past or present and 2 song titles that had special meaning to them. They were to send them via email or regular mail. If they sent them regular mail, I labeled them for safe return.
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Step 2
I bought a software program that makes this type of dvd, and downloaded it to my computer. I scanned in all the photos and placed them in my pictures file. I downloaded all the songs from a downloading website or from cds I already had. Now I was ready to start making the movie.
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Step 3
The photos were added in random order, so there was some old and some new, it was a surprise when the next picture came up, no one knew who it would be. This was a great way to get everyone in the dvd without trying to organize from past to present. I also added members of the family that had past on, as a tribute to the early years of our family.
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Step 4
Next step was to add songs to the video, which were old songs, new songs and even some family members singing songs. This was a special part of the movie, and at times, very emotional. The last thing I did was to have a beginning title before any pictures were shown, and an ending of a template of our reunion t-shirt.
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Step 5
I had to use alot of my own photos to get at least one picture of each family member, which was quite a task for our large family. I ended up with just under 1000 photos, which had to be made into 2 dvds. This took several weeks to get the pictures scanned to the computer. I added the pictures one by one, in no specific order to the movie program. After all the pictures were placed, I added the songs to the dvd.
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Step 6
There is a counter on the program that lets you know how much time you have left on the video, and if the songs are going to be long enough, if not, simply add more music. I made extra copies of the dvd and gave to the elder members of our family. This was a treat for them. The best part of the reunion was showing the movie on a huge pull down screen that was already set up in the building that we used. Everyone was able to see and hear very well.
