WHILE IMMERSED IN A three-year-old's birthday celebration, I thought I'd create something that extends beyond the day itself. So after the birthday girl retired, I pulled three gigs of HD video and another gigabyte of photos from her cousins (images like the one at right) and burned a birthday DVD for her in 22 minutes. It's something that caps our family gatherings lately, made possible with a true multimedia laptop running Windows 7 Professional, palm-sized HD video recorders, Sony, Xilisoft and Adobe software, and blank DVDs. I pre-cache the historical footage and an assortment of stills on an Iomega USB drive (or 8 GB thumb drive) before converting the collection on a kitchen table. One cuppa later and we have a birthday DVD, complete with intro by the birthday girl herself. It's hard to see how I could do this one-pass production with a rolling storyboard that I keep revising in my Moleskine and a lightweight laptop. I wish I had a birthday DVD for at least once every decade. The background images and hairstyles provide a valuable creative context that help explain what forms personalities.
What did you make today?
Sent mail2blog using my Nokia E90 O2-3G Typepad service in Drogheda, Co Louth, Ireland.
