Not only are they fun to shoot and assemble, but my family loves to get them!
The DVD consists of pictures, videos, drawings and other fun stuff that I get throughout the year.
I know, I usually write about "woo-woo" or a little more "esoteric" stuff... but hey, I'm a practical guy too! ha ha!
The DVD's are great because it's a unique and intimate way to share your child with the rest of your family, especially family that lives far away. If you already have a digital camera it's an inexpensive way to create a special gift and (most importantly) it allows you to be able to document your child's history for THEM!
So, that being said, I wanted to give you a three tips and pointers about making a DVD of your child... and I encourage you to document as much as you can... we can't get this time back with our children and these memories are amazing!
The 365 Concept
I have an idea that I got from Flickr... It's called "365".
And the idea of it being called "365" is that there are 365 days in a year!
Each day I take a picture of my daughter in the same place (the same location).
In our house, it's next to the entry-way closet.
The reason I chose that location is that there is a darkly colored door knob against a white door. This way, no matter what she's wearing you can see her perfectly...
And more importantly, the door knob is a "height" indicator.
In other words, you can easily see her growth from one month to the next!
This is a cool project that takes about 30 seconds a DAY! The pictures quickly add up and you'll start to notice subtle differences between the weeks. Throw these pictures into a "slideshow" and you're ready to go!
Naming Conventions
Naming conventions are like Ice Cream. We all have our favorite way to do it, and none of them are "wrong".
I'd like to suggest a date based naming convention. It's taken me a couple years (no pun intended) to arrive at this one, but it's a good one!
The reason I find this important is because, especially when you are doing a DVD that's based around a child growing up, you want things to be in chronological order.
That being said I start off with the date first, starting with the year. I then follow it up with a description.
So, being that today is May 29th, today's pictures and drawings are going to be labeled "20080529".
If it's a 365 picture, I'd label it like this: "20080529_365".
Since each 365 picture only contains 1 per day, I'm done.
But say we were at the park and I got a picture of her with a puppy... I wanted to put it into a different location that the 365, but needed to label it.
It would be the same date order, so "20080529" followed by the description of a puppy. It might look like this:
"20080529_PuppyPark.jpg"
This way, when you see them consecutively in a folder and arrange "by name" you can't get them out of order!
Yes!
Scanning And Sharing
Another great tip is to save and scan all pictures that you child draws. If your child is under the age of 8 you'll notice that their pictures vary heavily from the beginning of the year to the end...
And seeing this change is pretty awesome. You can see your child develop from month to month, each picture getting more detailed than the other.
Pretty soon the people's faces have features, like eyes and ears...
Puppies soon have long noses and long tails!
And keeping these in order will show the progress your little artist is making!
You'll also want to pre-determine the 'cut off' date for your DVD.
In my case, my daughter's birthday is December 1st, so I know that right after her birthday I need to start assembling the DVD in order to make it by the "Christmas Present" deadline!
Once you find something that works for you, I know you'll stick to it and in no time you'll have the most incredible DVD you've ever made!
I encourage you to take a few minutes and plan this out... and if you have any specific questions, I'd love to talk about them. You can write at Cliff@SingleParentSurvivalGuide.com.
So, as you're preparing to make the most important home movies of your life, remember that we're in this together, learning lessons along the way.
Talk to you soon,
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