Josh turned 30 this year. I decided to make him a ‘this is your life’ video for his birthday.
This was no easy task for someone as technologically challenged as I am.
I rounded up all of my SIM cards and imported them to the computer.
I went through all of my printed photos and scanned about 100 of them. Unfortunately, I did not do a good job at putting dates on the photos…so I did my best to guess the correct order!
I photographed photos that were already pasted into scrapbooks.
Attempting to use the mini dvds from a Sony Handycam, I found that they would not play on the computer. I even ordered an external DVD reader, but I ended up having to download something called VLC Media Player, which was only able to read about half of my discs.
I recently heard of a service called LegacyBox and decided to give them a try. You mail in your old video tapes/reel to reel videos, and they digitize them. I placed my order online, and they sent me a box to put my media into with bar code labels to help keep track of everything sent. I mailed off (from Vilnius) a box of 17 miniature video cassettes, and within a few weeks, I received the digital files. (and a few weeks later, I received my tapes back.)
I shared a few of the files with family. A video of Josh and Jerry when they were around 3-5 years old making (and decorating!) a cake for their great grandma, who is no longer with us, had us laughing and crying!
I had to laugh while watching Josh open a Brittany Spears CASSETTE TAPE, that was in his Easter basket. He was so excited to receive it! (I don’t know that kids these days know what those are!)
And then while watching him at Christmas, I heard the FILM rewind in a 35mm camera that was being used. I can’t remember when I last heard that sound!
After gathering all of my resources, I then had to learn how to use Adobe Premiere Pro to string everything together into a video! I worked on this for over four months, and it was really challenging, but I got it finished in time for his birthday. And it brought him to tears.
Mission accomplished!
Happy 30th Birthday Josh!
