After losing a loved one we usually struggle to find a way to cope. The loss lays heavy on our heart and makes us unable to focus on important things, like organizing a farewell ceremony. One of the more gentle ways to work your way through your grief is creating a memorial slideshow. This kind of video will help you remember the amazing person that is no longer with us and at least start to process that they won’t be coming back. Besides, a tribute video is a great way to honor the life of your friend and relative in a very graceful and respectful manner.
If you like the idea of creating a memorial video, but aren’t sure how to start, we are here to help you. In this article, we’ll share with you some easy tips on how to put together a video to celebrate a life well lived.
1. Cull the Images
First, you need to decide what kind of pictures you want to feature in your tribute video. There are several ways you can go. For starters, you can create a traditional video that would chronicle the life of your loved one, from their childhood, through adolescence and into adulthood. Or perhaps, you would want to focus on their accomplishments and show those pictures where the deceased one was pictured during the high points of their life. Or who knows, maybe your friend or relative was such a free spirit and a jokester. Then consider going with images that truly capture their personality.
2. Pick the Perfect Soundtrack
Since a funeral slideshow is a sensitive matter, most people tend to use bittersweet and melancholic music. There is no fault in that. You can surely go with a sad instrumental piece or classical music. But if you wish to make your video a bit more personal, then consider going with your loved one’s favorite jam. This way you will honor them in a sweet manner. Besides, should you decide to choose the celebration of life approach, even an upbeat song will fit your tribute video, provided it matches the pictures you go with.
3. Keep Decorations Down
When most people hear the term slideshow, they immediately picture dynamic animations, endless decorations, bright flashes, spearing doves, and whatnot. These things should not apply to a funeral video. Your slideshow should be as minimalistic and as subtle as possible. After all, gaudy embellishments and aggressive animations will only take the attention away from the pictures of the person you are honoring. The animations should be gentle, tone down the decorations, and opt to using subtle backgrounds.
4. Set the Ideal Running Time
Granted, there must be heaps of pictures you want to feature in your memorial slideshow. But if you cram them all in, you will make your video way too drawn out. The opposite approach – of making your slideshow way too short – is a bad choice as well, as a short running time will make your video simply underwhelming. Consider making your tribute video run for 8 or 10 minutes. This running time will ensure that you show as many milestones and accomplishments of your loved one as possible and that your viewers will remain engaged throughout the whole slideshow.
5. Get the Best Software
When it comes to creating something as gentle as a funeral slideshow, the choice of the tool is important. We suggest going with SmartSHOW 3D for the making of your memorial video. This funeral slideshow maker is so intuitive that a first timer won’t have any trouble using it. What’s more, the software offers a themed template that will help you create a tribute slideshow in mere minutes. If that is creative freedom you look for, then you’ll enjoy hundreds of animations, transitions, and subtle decoration that SmartSHOW 3D offers. The program also comes with a custom animation module that lets you animate the pictures of your loved one the way you want and a library of built-in photo filters that can give those pictures a bittersweet vibe.
And this is it. Now you know what it takes to create a tribute slideshow for the one who went gently into that goodnight. So find time to make one for many reasons: to walk down the memory lane one last time and to process your grief in a very therapeutic and gentle way.