New Video Project

I’m an amateur videographer, amateur as in the vein that I have no technical training or skills. But I’m actually pretty good at it.

For years I’ve been playing around with video cameras but nothing serious. When I was in High School I borrowed one from school and made a very crude video to send to a friend in California. I owned one other camera but never really did anything with it, because it was so hard to do any kind of editing with it.

A few years ago I decided to upgrade my computer in hopes of getting into video editing, the technology is there now and basically anyone that owns a “newer” model computer can do some type of editing on their systems. Heck Apple and Windows machines even come with free software (XP versions only folks) to help you create your own home movies.

I’m still quite an amateur but I’ve helped a few people over the last year create some really amazing projects. My most recent project came about several weeks ago, as I posted here.

I met with D last night and my friend that referred me. The basis of this project is that D is infected with hiv and is planning his own memorial service. He has songs planned out, the whole program, readings, etc. He just needs some help getting everything together into one piece for him. I was thinking that my role would be much larger, but it turns out he only needs a video about 3 ½ minutes long, simple to do.

As we were sitting and talking about death and how he was planning all of this, I could see that he had put a lot, I mean A LOT of work into it. He had folders filled with handwritten notes, scripts, plans, etc. It got me to thinking about planning ones own memorial service.

I can see how it could be fulfilling to do something like that, but I could never do that myself. I guess that personally I want death to surprise me, to just jump out from the closet and say “ok, let’s go.” To be able to plan your memorial service I think shows a lot of forward thinking, but at the same time there must be some sense of resignation. Some sense that it will all be over, and that you have some control over it when in essence you don’t.

But I also think that it could be very detrimental to your psyche though wouldn’t it? I mean putting all of this time and effort into something that you’re never going to experience?

I have some ideas that I’d like to present to him, but I’m concerned that they would be too much, and at the same time I’m concerned that anything I do now would probably change in the next year or next 5 years or 10 years, with medications he could live for quite some time.

So I think what I’m going to do is the minimum that he has asked for and help him as much as possible but I don’t think that I’m going to offer much else because he has thought this through much more than I ever could and he knows exactly what he wants.

So that’s what I’ll give him.