OT: my Mom's 60th birthday video

[Buffalo SpaceShip]

I've been sorta AWOL here lately... somewhat because my bus is still buried in snow and I haven't been able to see it, much less work on it. But I've also been trying to close on our old home and deal with real estate stuff. But mostly, it's because I've been playing around with building up a blog site for family, friends, etc.

Anyways, a major addition to that site is the 60th video I made to honor my mom for her surprise 60th birthday party. We took the bus down to Texas November '06... if you remember, I had tire trouble, electrical gremlins, Jake break issues, had to replace the starter and batts, had a wheel seal blow (that's still not fixed) and almost got crushed by my bus!

But it was all worth it in the end to see the look on my Mom's face when she watched this. I had a whole room of family and friends barely able to contain themselves.

http://www.brownland.org/blog/videos/moms-60th-birthday-video/

In the few months since, she's also played it to siblings, cousins, etc. and it's opened a few doors of reconciliation, healing, and discussion for some familial stuff she was dealing with. Soooo.... never underestimate the power of video/film!

Enjoy,
Brian Brown

[Nick Badame Refrig/ACC]

Boy Brian,

Your Parents are very lucky to have you two to do things like this for them....

I enjoyed all the videos   Man... Willie, John Mellencamp, Jimmie Durante, The Judds, and of course, Darlene Brown...

God Blessed Your family!

Nick-

[FloridaCliff]

Brian,

Great Job on the video's.

Very moving!


Cliff

[edvanland]

Brian:
What a great tribute to your folks.  That took a lot of thought and work and most of all love.  Thanks for sharing it with us.
ED
MCI 7

[Dreamscape]

Brian,

Very cool thing you did. You are a very talented individual.

Thanks for sharing with your Bus Nut Family.

Happy Trails,

Paul

Dreamscape

[Paso One]

Wow Brian  Great job  I look forward to all your videos and Pictures. Keep them Coming Paul

[RJ]

Brian -

Nice job - understand the motivation, my mom turns 90 at the end of this month, need to do something similar before she's gone!

OK, want to elaborate a little on the techie stuff?  Software used, etc.  Might help us neophytes. . .

[Buffalo SpaceShip]

Thanks for the kind words, all. I appreciate it.

Russ, the software I used is fairly high-end, called Adobe After Effects. Also, a little Photoshop, and a few other apps. You can get about 90% of the "look" that I used, the panning and zooming of still images, sometimes called "the Ken Burns effect" (after the documentary filmmaker) with software like Adobe Premiere Elements. It's about $100 or so. Ulead and others make similar "consumer-oriented" software for about the same $. The most important thing to look for is multiple video tracks to do the compositing.

Feel free to email me for more info, questions, etc.

Brian B.

[Buffalo SpaceShip]

Russ, I forgot about another piece of software I used years ago, called Memories on TV. I just checked, and they're still making an updated version of it. I remember it was extremely easy to use... drag-and-drop your images in, set your "windows" of pan and zoom, play with transitions, overlay your music... then render to DVD. So easy! Cheap, too. For the newbie, learning multi-track editing with keyframes and timelines can be maddening, and this software avoids all that.

http://www.codejam.com/slideshow/index.htm

Whatever you do, forgo those cheesy transitions (checkerboard or twirly wipes come to mind). A simple dissolve or "dip to white" is all you need. Or a nice blur... if they have effects like that.

HTH,
Brian