Funerals - Slide shows

Any of you specialize in funerals, talking about slide shows. I'm not talking about taking them there, but in preparing them. I did 2 recently (my family not pay), where I took all of the families photo's, and made a moving slide show. This seemed to really help the family a lot, lasted about 15 min, played near the end of the service. This is not something I wish to pusue, but seems like something for a good business model.

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A number of people including a church official have suggested this to me. So far it has not happened.

My biggest problem is how to advertise this service - what wording to use. With weddings and baptisms, the wording is easy.

Anyone have a good set of words they would like to share?

Allan

"A Tribute in Pictures"
We can create a tribute in pictures of your loved one.

The tribute would take the form of a slide show using pictures taken during their lifetime and on the day of the funeral service, including pictures of any places which were particularly special to them.
The DVD show would be accompanied by appropriate music.
Any good?
Tom

http://www.northerneye.org
http://www.pbase.com/tomstorey

...and you could record a narration by family members. I haven't been to funeral lately where a family member hasn't stood up and given some sort of recapping eulogy. It strikes me that it would be easier in some ways for them to contribute to the slide show.
--
Jon Stewart

I know several photographers that are currently doing this and making good money from it. One of those photographers I taught how to make slideshows and he's tried to share some of that business with me (he actually gets that many projects) but it's just something I'm not interested in doing.

But you are correct that it is something that will definitely keep your lights on.

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3rdEye said:

I know several photographers that are currently doing this and
making good money from it. One of those photographers I taught how
to make slideshows and he's tried to share some of that business
with me (he actually gets that many projects) but it's just
something I'm not interested in doing.

But you are correct that it is something that will definitely keep
your lights on.

--

Click to expand...

Before, during or after the funeral service?
BTW...The number of Humanist funeral services are growing.
Tom

A lot of Dignity Memorial funeral homes offer this service. I'd never seen it before until my wife's grandmother, but they are getting more and more common.

Visit mem.com and you'll see several on there. Usually the old photos are online as well -- great for genealogy!

My niece just passed and my brother did one for her that was well done. Ran in a room off the viewing area.

I think 15 mins is a bit long. 3-5 mins would be the normal max for a normal funeral. I had a lady at my church ask me to help her put one together. Normally, affiliating with a funeral home would be the best bet as they would have to offer the service, set their price and then contract you for preparation. Which smaller funeral homes might do, but larger ones would probably just train a staff person.

Turnaround would have to be fast as you'd only have a day or two (assuming most funerals are about 3 days from death, the family would have to gather photos which would take a day or so.

LarryPhoto said:

Any of you specialize in funerals, talking about slide shows. I'm
not talking about taking them there, but in preparing them. I did
2 recently (my family not pay), where I took all of the families
photo's, and made a moving slide show. This seemed to really help
the family a lot, lasted about 15 min, played near the end of the
service. This is not something I wish to pusue, but seems like
something for a good business model.

--

Click to expand...

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World in Pictures Day III - 07/07/07
http://www.photographyvoice.com/pv/features/wpd/

Now a days, I do a lot of funerals called Celebration of Life. Many families, even the deceased, requests casual attire and NO formalities.

I am most often asked if I can have certain music played while the slide show is running. Here's what I do. I ask what type of music the deceased enjoyed. Then I do my planning. I usually open the show with a sunrise at the beach to signify new or a new birth. From there I like to chronicle the life the person. I try to incorporate the deceased parents into the show, their siblings, their spouse, children and grandkids. Then I show them with their friends.

Most of my clients told me this actually helped them in their bereavement and believe it or not, the slide Show DVD sells exceptionally well.

On a different note, I do a lot of US war veterans funerals too. World War II vets from the Pacific and European theatre like seeing old military photos so I use my father's war pictures in some of the slide shows. I incorporate waving US flags and their war medals in every show. At the end, I place the deceased miltary photo with the birth and death dates.

For Vietnam War veterans, I include music from that era BUT none of the anti-war songs unless the family requests it. It seems to me songs from Peter, Paul & Mary; Rolling Stones; Joni Mitchell, Beatles, Joan Baez and Bob Dylan are most popular.

I tried pitching this idea to our local funeral home, but here's the rub: They use a service out of the northwest that does a show for $60. The F.H. uploads images to them, they put it together and download it a few hours later.

I have tried to advertise our business, "Living Images on DVD," through post cards, community markets, etc. So far, not one sale.

I find at most calling hours people just tack a few family photos to a poster board.

The shows the F.H. gets from the company follow a common format: Picture of a flower, picture of the deceased, picture of a sunset, picture of the deceased. Not very personal.

My product is called "Living Obituary." We take the obituary text and interweave it with illustrations from the person's life: "Joe B. Gone, born June 12, 1900." Image of baby. "To May and Joe B. Gone Sr." Picture of parents."

you get the idea. It's not just for funerals, however. We encourage it be done afterwards as a gift to all family members.

Lots of things can be done along this line, unfortunately, it takes lots of money to market them.

I know of churches that play slide shows throughout the entire service, but the family has to put it together. No music is required, since the photos are being displayed during the service. There is definitely a niche for it. gc

Tom Storey said:

"A Tribute in Pictures"
We can create a tribute in pictures of your loved one.
The tribute would take the form of a slide show using pictures
taken during their lifetime and on the day of the funeral service,
including pictures of any places which were particularly special to
them.
The DVD show would be accompanied by appropriate music.
Any good?
Tom

http://www.northerneye.org
http://www.pbase.com/tomstorey

Click to expand...

Sounds good. I will give it a try.

thanks

Allan

Be aware of the fact that if you "sell" or "make money" off of your slide show and there is recorded music in it that is not royalty free, you are on the fringe of copyright violations. Heck, a dance studio that my daughters took lessons at got "nailed" for selling the video of the recital based on the fact that there was music in it. Good deal for them up until they got caught and pleaded ignorance to no avail.

I have looked into the slide show concept for wakes but was told by the funeral home that I spoke to that they use "canned" music that was specifically purchased for this use.

Just a heads up.

Angelo

What slideshow creation software are you/they using?

I'm assuming the DVD slideshow is created to play on a standard (or Hi-Def?) Television.

I just used the slide show creator potion of ACD. It makes stand alone .EXE files, that will play on any windows PC. Giive those and a copy of the .jpgs to any family member that wants them. 150 photos, slide show fits on 1 cheap CD and runs fir 15 min. at 6 second per pic. Note, photos not scanned at high MP.

slowhands said:

What slideshow creation software are you/they using?

I'm assuming the DVD slideshow is created to play on a standard
(or Hi-Def?) Television.

Click to expand...

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Very good point and one often overlooked by folks new to slideshow presentations...

ASCAP/BMI and the music industry are VERY active in being sure they get paid for use of the music they control rights for and anyone who owns a business that plays music for customers in any manner and has ever been "audited" by the licensing companies know it all too well. As do the folks nailed by RIAA for file sharing.

Using music in a slideshow is "performance rights" or "Synch Rights" and getting the proper clearance for popular music titles is tough and expensive, and with many popular songs, almost impossible for a small time operator.

Royalty-free and Buy-out music that license you such uses up front are far safer choices if your slideshows are being seen in public...
--
Eric in Florida

Do they have procedure's in place, that if someone wants to pay/use their music for something small, or one time use, that they can pay a fee and be legal? Example, 75 photo's, 12 min, and I wanted to play 3 songs on the DVD. Something like $65 for the sevice, and $4.50 a DVD? I don't mine doing something if the structure is in place to pay legal. After all, I would be very upset if someone used my photo's and violated my copyright.

birdpix said:

Very good point and one often overlooked by folks new to slideshow
presentations...

ASCAP/BMI and the music industry are VERY active in being sure
they get paid for use of the music they control rights for and
anyone who owns a business that plays music for customers in any
manner and has ever been "audited" by the licensing companies know
it all too well. As do the folks nailed by RIAA for file sharing.

Using music in a slideshow is "performance rights" or "Synch
Rights" and getting the proper clearance for popular music titles
is tough and expensive, and with many popular songs, almost
impossible for a small time operator.

Royalty-free and Buy-out music that license you such uses up front
are far safer choices if your slideshows are being seen in public...
--
Eric in Florida

Click to expand...

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LarryPhoto said:

Any of you specialize in funerals, talking about slide shows. I'm
not talking about taking them there, but in preparing them.

Click to expand...

When my mother-in-law passed away recently I submitted 2 dozen digial images to the funeral parlor. They had a canned setup which simply added my images to their template. I was astonished at the number of people who sat through the cycle three and four times.

It was apparently very well received.

--
Henry Posner
B&H Photo-Video, Inc.

sadly no, most of the big record labels and licensing companies do not have anything like that in place now for small users and are only interested bigger deals with far larger dollar amounts up front due to thier high cost of doing biz. The licensing companies that handle "background" music played in stores, bars, churches, etc mostly do so with a yearly performance license (ever notice the little annual ASCAP/BMI sticker on the front window of a store or eatery?) based on a formula involving size of biz and other factors, but they are not selling products involving the music.

There is a market for it of course, and eventually some smart company out there is going to figure a way to do it for the small time market and will make good money from it, but for the most part now, royalty free or buy out music is the easiest/cheapest way.

BTW, I once actually have licensed a popular country singer/songwriters (written) lyric quotes from a major label for use in a multimedia presentation (screensaver) sold as a charity fundraiser following that singers death and it was a huge and lengthy (months!) pain in the backside involving lawyers in both NY and CA, about a ream of faxes, and ONLY got done in the end because the recently killed singers lifelong manager wanted it done for the charity he was also on the board of still and pushed it. The publishing company (owned rights to lyrics) still got a per unit royalty from every sale made. We used apx. 20 single line quotes from songs in a text format overlayed on our images, but could not use the actual music in any way with the licensing terms we had from them.

I would never want to go through the hassle of that again...

Royalty-Free an Buy-Out are the only thing we use for our stuff anymore and after spending about 1k on different "libraries" from a host of vendors, we have a decent selection of good sounding music to match most needs. So much of the RF stuff out there is horrible basement composer synth junk that you may buy a collection with 200 songs on it and only find a couple that are actually suitable for use with your clients.

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Eric in Florida

Has anyone seen the high end cemetary stories on tv this year that showed how some are using full multimedia shows that can be played at the persons grave or masoleum (sp?) site?

REALLY REALLY high end stuff in some cases, involving documentary film crews and producers naking videos telling the persons life complete with pre-death interviews with the person. Of course they were showing them from California... ;-)

There are also some memorial websites online that host virtual tribute guestbooks for mourners and feature flash slideshows online that are pretty cool.

When you consider the aging population of baby boomers, it would seem a potentially lucrative biz in some areas. Of course the short time between death and service would mean you'd have to be FAST with production...
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Eric in Florida

birdpix said:

Has anyone seen the high end cemetary stories on tv this year that
showed how some are using full multimedia shows that can be played
at the persons grave or masoleum (sp?) site?

Click to expand...

Check the NYTimes site for an article dated May 25, 2007 titled, "Cemeteries Seek Breathing Clientele."

--
Henry Posner
B&H Photo-Video, Inc.