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Slideshow for a 50th Wedding Anniversary

Talk about slideshow creation, whether it's with Premiere and/or Photoshop Elements or a third party helper application.

Slideshow for a 50th Wedding Anniversary

Postby schmechel1 » Thu Nov 22, 2012 8:25 am

Hello,
I am going to create a slideshow for a 50th wedding anniversary and was wondering if anyone had any tips or ideas that would be helpful to take into consideration before I begin to create this project. Are there any approaches that have worked better than others, themes, backgrounds, etc?

Thank you in advance ...
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Re: Slideshow for a 50th Wedding Anniversary

Postby Steve Grisetti » Thu Nov 22, 2012 9:25 am

I did this a few years ago for my parents. Here are a couple of things I did:

1) Period music is very effective, of course. In your case, that means lots of pre-Beatles stuff for the courtship and wedding and then timely music as the photos progress in time.
2) Chronological order is the most logical way to arrange photos. But some before-and-after photos can also be very effective: Mom & Dad in 1962; Mom and Dad in the same post in 2012. That sort of thing.
3) Don't forget to include old slides and home movies as well as still photos! People in the 1960s shot a lot of things on slides that they haven't seen in years because it's too much trouble to drag the slide projector out. Properly scanned, they can look even better on video than they did as slides (especially if you Photoshop out the scratches and enrich the color).
4) Finally, you don't say how you plan to use your slideshow but, in my experience, the most effective use was in a presentation that included narration and ran no more than 10 minutes. (As opposed to just having a 20 minute loop of slides playing in the background of the party.) 10 minutes is just about the attention span of most people, if the stories are good, and narration helps guide the audience through the images. In my presentation, I spent a couple of minutes on telling the story of how my folks met, then talked about the day of the wedding (and the blizzard that hit that day) and wrapped it up telling the story of how my dad, a bricklayer, literally built his own house working weekends and evenings and raised 5 kids in it.

Remember, people love stories more than just random images.
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Re: Slideshow for a 50th Wedding Anniversary

Postby Peru » Thu Nov 22, 2012 6:52 pm

Interview relatives and film it, or just ask them about significant or amusing events involving the couple or their family.
Ask them if they have any pictures or video that may be useful.
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Re: Slideshow for a 50th Wedding Anniversary

Postby schmechel1 » Thu Nov 22, 2012 7:39 pm

Thanks for your input. I plan on burning the video to DVD and giving it to my parents as a gift. I was thinking the same thing in terms of video length. I mentioned to my wife that I've got to keep it 10 minutes. I like your idea about music for various time periods. Where do you normally find music? Do people open an account with itunes or similar venue?

Steve, I'm learning VMS11 as I work through this project. I read in your book about your advice on optimizing photo sizes (p. 124). What do you suggest I do to get photos that are over 1000x750 - 72ppi? The reason I ask is that I have a photos that are 3,264 x 2,448 (72dpi), some that are 1194 x 800 (200 dpi) and others that are 3,072x2304 (180dpi). There are "all over the board". I do have Corell Paint Shop Pro. I haven't used it a lot but I can try to resize them in Corell first. Any ideas?
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Re: Slideshow for a 50th Wedding Anniversary

Postby Steve Grisetti » Fri Nov 23, 2012 10:47 am

I don't know Paint Shop Pro. But Photoshop Elements (as well as the pro version of Photoshop) have a batch feature for resizing photos (or making lower resolution copies of a set of photos). If Paint Shop Pro does not, you'll have to resize the photos one at a time.

As for music, since it's for private use, you can "borrow" music from almost any source. iTunes has loosened their copy protection software a bit, but music from iTunes is sometimes blocked from use in an editing project. (You'll get an error code if you try to use it.) For that reason, I suggest ripping music from CDs or buying it from Amazon.com (which costs the same as iTunes but includes no copy protection).
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Re: Slideshow for a 50th Wedding Anniversary

Postby schmechel1 » Fri Nov 23, 2012 8:27 pm

Thanks for your input Steve. Corell Paint Shop does have a batch feature. If I were to take all of my stills and resize them for a video presentation, what size do you suggest? Also, what image properties do I need to adjust?

It would be nice to keep all the pictures the same size (if possible), do I adjust the actual width, height and resolution? Do I need to adjust the pixel size as well?
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Re: Slideshow for a 50th Wedding Anniversary

Postby VernonRobinson » Fri Nov 23, 2012 10:52 pm

I know this was not your original question, but if your slideshow is going to be predominantly pictures with a touch of video, then I would recommend that you take a look at ProShow Gold or ProShow Producer. It is optimized for this type of creation. Gold is is inexpensive at $50 USD. But Producer totally unlocks your creativity, but it is more expensive. Premiere Elements is a great video editor, but when it comes to producing slideshows it is hard to beat ProShow.

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Re: Slideshow for a 50th Wedding Anniversary

Postby momoffduty » Sat Nov 24, 2012 5:47 pm

I made a slideshow for my Aunt & Uncle's 50th last year. Started off with Aunt's growing up photos and then my Uncles, about 15 each. After that was the 2 of them through the years. Normally, my slides are on screen for about 5 seconds, but I stretched that to about 7 or 8 seconds for their project and longer if titles were used.

At their party I went around the room and got well wishes from family & friends. And video of the speeches. After the speeches and before the meal was served, my Aunt introduced all 100+ people at the party and sharing how they knew them or how they were related and also maybe a short story about the person. This wasn't planned, but I am glad she did this for a wonderful keepsake. I followed her around the room with my video camera on a monopod. It took about 30 to 40 minutes to introduce everyone.

Their project ended up with the through the years segments, the party video, and a slideshow of the party photos. Got some nice footage. Another Uncle & I went outside and he retold a family history segment.

If you do get video at the party, I would advise to buy a hotshoe mic. The acoustics were terrible in the concrete hall and all the people talking, kids etc. With out the mic the audio would have been worthless.
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Re: Slideshow for a 50th Wedding Anniversary

Postby schmechel1 » Sun Nov 25, 2012 6:10 pm

Thanks for the input everyone. I'm going to think about all the suggestions.
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