Movie Stacking

My daughter absolutely loves movies for two reasons; to watch and to stack. The higher the pile, the better. This is THE gift to give her for birthdays and holidays.

We were looking at old photos on the computer a few days ago and she asked me to make her a ‘movie’ slideshow of pictures. I thought I could get away with pressing the slideshow feature and letting the pictures run, but she asked me for a DVD…of course.

Windows Movie Maker

It turned out to be a little bit time-consuming but it was a very simple mundane process of clicking and adding photos. After going through three years of photos I decided to jazz it up with music from itunes. I went to my itunes account and picked out 25 songs to add to the photos. I had about 1 hour and 45 minutes of family photos, unedited! The longest part of making this was waiting for the movie to save and then burning it onto a (rewritable or recordable) DVD.

Windows DVD Maker

There is a really cute feature in Windows DVD Maker that allows you to pick a welcome screen that you can customize with a title, play button, scenes, and notes. You can change the font and text. You can also add music to the welcome screen but unlike Windows Movie Maker, you have to convert your song into an audio file first.

Converting An Itunes Song Into An mp3 File

Itunes allows you to create an MP3 file (audio file) but this has to be changed by going to Edit at the top left corner of your screen, then clicking Preferences > Advanced > Importing. After clicking Importing you can change Import using from default to MP3 Encoder. Once you’ve changed these settings, you can right-click on your song and click Create MP3 Version. This will create two versions of your song in itunes. Copy and paste your newly created MP3 into your Music file or folder on your computer and you are done!

Top 25 Family and Love Themed Songs to Make You Sob and Laugh and *Gigglesnort While Watching Your Slideshow Movie

[These are the songs I chose anyway.]

1. Blackbird Sarah McLachlan
2. Dream a Little Dream of Me Charles Pasi
3. Loves Me Like a Rock Paul Simon
4. Quiet Little Place K’s Choice
5. Love Will Keep Us Together *Captain & Tennille
6. Your Song Elton John
7. The Longest Time Billy Joel
8. We Are Family *Sister Sledge
9. Give a Little Bit Supertramp
10. You Are the Sunshine of My Life Stevie Wonder
11. Stand By Me Ben E. King
12. Stuck in the Middle with You Stealers Wheel
13. I’m Yours Jason Mraz
14. You’re the First, the Last, My Everything *Barry White
15. Teach Your Children Crosby, Stills & Nash
16. End of the Line *Traveling Wilburys
17. Here Comes the Sun The Beatles
18. Lean on Me Bill Withers
19. Somewhere Over the Rainbow Israel Kamakawiwoʻole
20. Celebration Kool & the Gang
21. In My Life The Beatles
22. Obvious Child Paul Simon
23. Boogie Shoes *KC & the Sunshine Band
24. You’re Too Weird *Fruit Bats
25. Peace *Michael McDonald

Another Movie Added to the Collection

It was really a healing process making this family slideshow. I finally organized the gazillion old photos on my computer. Revisiting the past, seeing all of the huge changes my kids have gone through in just a few short years makes me happy and sad at the same time. How quickly things change without even noticing it until you look at old photos capturing those special moments and phases in life.

Have you ever made a slideshow/movie for your family? Isn’t it fun?

Have a great weekend.
~Mary Claire