Tribute videos are handmade videos that celebrate the life of a loved one, family, coworker, or public figure. They feature photos, artifacts, music, memorabilia, and sometimes interviews with and about the subject of the video. They can be warm, funny, nostalgic, sad, or a celebration. (To see brief samples, click the play button on the below video).
Why do I love tribute videos? I was fascinated by my Dad’s slides and slide projectors when I was a mini kid. There was also my love of music (The Nutcracker, and not much later rock and roll).
I got my first tape recorder when I was 13 and that changed everything. Naturally, I tape-recorded everything– radio (WABC 77 in NYC and its disc jockeys, Jean Shepherd before “A Christmas Story”), TV themes and episodes, and even my family, sometimes surreptitiously. While in college, I started doing slide-sound shows with two projectors, a dissolve controller to make it look like a movie, and a soundtrack to make it even more movie-like. Soon I was telling family stories, later corporate ones.
Graduating from college, I and a photographer I met when I was editor of the yearbook started a company in Milwaukee, Sorgel-Lee Multimedia.
Slides were becoming an industry because specialized computers allowed you to control and merge 3, or 9, or more slide projectors into a wide screen extravaganza. We did that, first for small clients, then biggies, like AT&T, Borden, S.C. Johnson, Pepsi, The Milwaukee Journal, Kirby Vaccum Cleaner, and more. I eventually started a new company to concentrate on the emerging production and distribution capabilities of video, and I’ll celebrate 50 years in the business in 2022.
WHY This Focus? To help people learn to make “Tribute Videos”
Although I made my career in corporate video, it was personal videos I loved doing, paid or not. I’m talking about tribute or legacy videos, where you tell a person’s life story. These are used for weddings, engagements, birthdays, retirements, awards, anniversaries, and memorials– celebrations of life. Using my father’s slide library, my first complete one was for my sister’s engagement party. It traced the generations of relatives that led to this moment, with an emphasis on my sister and her life up to that point. The response was overwhelming. Later, my brother started a business doing just this kind of work, producing videos for various family elders. He also branched into historical documentaries about cities and towns.
These videos become important family heirlooms. Long after the celebrants are gone, their memory lives on in words, pictures, and music. It occurred to me that you and others like you mike want to learn how to do this with equipment you may already have, like a camcorder and computer, and assets you already have, like family films, videos, slides, pictures, and clippings. We want to show you how.
Our GOAL: To get you the right stuff.
How do you create a tribute video? What tools do you need? What are the creative skills you need to learn? How much you should invest in these tools and techniques? These are what we will provide you here:
- Creative Basics
- Equipment You Need
- Bargains You Should Know About
- Creative Resources
- Relevant Tutorials
Many creative techniques never change, while some others seem to change every day. Formats change, and there’s always something shiny on the horizon. But our goal is to get you moving with the least financial investment possible, and if that isn’t possible, then the smartest.
All the best,
Brien Lee
