My Place In Heaven Has Been Reserved...
 

Why, you might ask?

Because a lady asked me to put together a photo montage for her. She inquired about it a few months back and then called every 2 to 3 weeks trying to get some insight about what will make it easy to put it together (she'll be out of town for the next 6 weeks and needs it when she returns). It's going to be a pretty lengthy photo video but this lady is organized like you wouldn't believe!

The songs she wants are all in order on a CD. Sweet!
The pictures to each song are on a seperate CD and NUMBERED! There's no question as to what order they go in!
She also provided a script as well! 'These pictures go with this song, cut out the first 10 seconds of this song, etc.'

Absolutely perfect!

The video is to play during the rehearsal dinner and will be about 30-45 minutes long. I don't think guests will be expected to watch the whole thing... it'll play in the background while everyone is mingling, eating, drinking, etc.

So why is my place in Heaven reserved?

I dare you to ask how many pictures there are.

I DARE YOU.

six hundred

I never turn down a dare!!!

How many!?

ONE THOUSAND, SIX HUNDRED FIFTY PHOTOS.

And I hate a LOT of the music in this sucker...

Of what? Timelapse of the kids growing up?

Ha ha - each picture will be on the screen for 1.6 seconds!

So is the lady already gone on her 6 week trip?

Reminds me of the days I used to be a wedding dance DJ. A bride sent me a list of songs that must be played during their dance. Pages and pages of songs. Enough music for a dozen wedding dances...

I have pictures of the mom's eye when she was 20 something since her child was a sparkle in there. I even have pictures of fertilization as well.

KIDDING!

1,650... 1,650... 1,650... 1,650... 1,650... 1,650... 1,650... 1,650... 1,650...

Am I on crack?

The saving grace is that there's no 'fun stuff' to do with the photos. No 'Ken Burns' type of movement or anything... just lay the pictures & music down, make all the pictures the same length and that's it.

I just can't get over 1,650... 1,650... 1,650... 1,650... 1,650... 1,650... 1,650... 1,650...

Does a grand seem fair?

I can't begin to imagine, how 1600 pics would look like in your time line. That is a lot!!!!!! At 3 sec per pic, you are looking at 80 minutes.

A grand seems fair, hopefully she numbered it correctly. lol

To be fair, you really need to tell this lady that there is no way you can make a *good* slideshow out of 1,650 photos. She really needs to cut back at least 75%. At 5 seconds per picture, this slideshow is 2.5 hours.

I'm breaking each song into its own timeline then butting them back together on the DVD.
Some songs have 50 pictures, a few have ONE HUNDRED SEVENTY.

Only 2 or 3 songs have dissolves and some motion, everything else is just a picture and cutting to another picture. Nothing fancy.

I figured a grand seemed fair for all that.

I don't know how you usually price your photo montages but ours are $200 for 60 pictures. That's roughly $5,500 if you extrapolate it out for your 1650 picture job.

If you had to scan all these pics I'd say just pass her along to someone else, but since there's no scanning involved $1000 - $1500 doesn't sound bad for some mindless work. If you're simply expected to cross dissolve those bad boys it can't take all that long to do... right... maybe... unless your computer starts billowing smoke.

On second thought maybe enough to cover a shiny new computer and still make a little profit would be nice.

Do you have some easy to use automated software?


Oh and Blake, is it pronounced with an "umpty"?

Ethan, please stop what you're doing as I am about to get busy.

My photo montages run $150 for 40 photos, but I'm looking at bumping the # of pictures up a bit.

Glad to know the grand isn't out of line. Another day or two and I should be done!

That almost sounds mean. You're just upset cause I found out about the Burger King bathroom.

And yes, you're about to get very busy.

Like someone else, I'm confused by the math here. Are you seriously cramming 1,650 images into 45 minutes or less ... at 1.6 seconds of screen-time per image ... maybe only 1 second of screen-time once you factor in dissolves? One second per image is not enough time .. heck .. two seconds is not enough time.

This whole process can be automated if you use After Effects. You can even have the pictures blur in and out with some slight movement. You could probably finish the whole project in under an hour. :)