Easier than ever to make a quick movie, and an oven mitt, for a family birthday
Bring to life your family's annual events through words, images, and sounds. It's easier than ever to assemble family favorite photos with music and words into videos, and don't forget the hotpad!
It’s our oldest granddaughter’s birthday, and my surprise present was a slideshow-style video with a license-free audio track “That Part” from YouTube Studio’s Audio Library.
She and grandpa decided on a pattern for an oven mitt she thought was fun, and grandma downloaded the pattern and together they chose the fabric. Finished just in the nick of time! She made it in her new Sewing & Creativity Center, too!
Oven mitts and clothes are one thing, and multimedia presentations are an entirely different can of worms. For one, you have to have photos and videos and access to license-free music or sound effects or both.
In the KBPS radio class we used to use Audacity for the beginning radio classes, and it is still up-to-date and an excellent tool to use for music. I used presentation software to make early slide shows. I’m even old enough to have made 8-projector slide shows with soundtracks with my photo students for an annual assembly at Roseburg Senior H.S. that was popular.
I use a Windows 10 computer, and used MovieMaker up until earlier this year when it was discontinued and replaced with the even-better Microsoft Clipchamp movie app. I use the free version.
Let’s start at the beginning—going through those boxes full of photos (if you are a person of a certain age) and choosing the best to scan or digitize with your phone, and SAVE them on a hard drive or laptop that is backed up regularly.
Divide these photos into Yes, No, and Maybe, or as we call it, the Marie Kondo “Thank you for your service” stack. You have permission to go back and grab one or two from the Maybe file if necessary.
Then you must digitize them with a scanner connected to your computer, or photograph them with your phone or digital camera—and store them all in one place.
I named mine “Highlights Reels” and as I download and sort my photos to the backup hard drive, I move the great shots into this folder.
Inside there is a folder for each person, event, holiday, or season. I have 44 folders.
As I have time, I copy each of the photos into their respective folders. Four grandkids in the picture? Four folders to drop the picture in. You get better at this as you go along.
When it’s time for a birthday or other occasion, select the photos that work for the occasion and upload or drag them into an ap such as Clipchamp.
With copyright-free music from studio.youtube.com, all you have to do is arrange photos in order, drop in the music and sound effects, and keep it under 2 minutes if it is a video card!
Then you do what every writer does and spend the next two hours making the opening and ending titles, photos, and musics look cool. The advice I always gave to my students? A strong, surprising opening, and a strong solid ending. You want the audience to know when it is starting, so get their attention, and you want to end with a bang so they to know when it’s over. Unless, of course, they have told you they want to talk over the whole thing. Then, not so important, and saves some time!
Keep it under 2 minutes if it is a video card!
Our family said they wanted the photos on the screen longer to remember the family moments in the video and talk about it. Talk to your family and decide what you want to do and when. That’s why it is almost 6 minutes.
If you are interested in getting started shooting motion pictures, read Elements of Film. John Golden, a Portland Public Schools teacher who pioneered teaching the literacy of film through, taught an inservice class for Portland teachers. He is the author of Reading in the Dark: Using Film as a Tool in the English Classroom (NCTE, 2001) and Reading in the Reel World: Teaching Documentaries and Other Nonfiction Texts (NCTE, 2006).
It’s also a good idea to share these folders with family so they also have copies of these photos. That’s the easy part.
The kids and grandkids loved these video. I’ve been taking photos and grabbing screenshots of everyone since they were babies.
Then you download or upload your video, and connect it to YouTube.com or any of your other social media channels you prefer, and share it. Make sure it is kid-friendly if the whole family is going to see it.
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