Among the staggering number of primary, secondary and backup resolutions I made for the New Year was a goal to catch up transferring family video clips to some kind of permanent record.
So, last weekend, I initiated my plan for a couple of reasons:
1. I had used up every memory card that was available for the video camera, and 2. My wife asked me if I was ever going to get the assignment done or if we were just going to quit shooting family videos.
Since we have one of those new-fangled cameras that capture everything in digital code on a memory card no larger than a car key, I sat down at the computer and began the awesome task of recalling when the videos were shot and in what order.
The first few clips I recognized from my son’s little league football season, last fall. That provided a good and easy starting point. If I simply posted each card in order, the entire process would take no more than an hour or two.
But, experience has taught me simplicity is a word that rarely enters my vocabulary — and this time was no exception.
That’s because my wife decided it would enhance the quality of the films by editing scenes that did not include action — much like in a major motion picture — except without the same level of talent, unless you were comparing our films to any starring Paris Hilton. So, mustering up as much skill as possible using a free program downloaded from the Internet, I began the tedious task of deciding what constituted quality and what may be considered crumby.
It turned out that was easy, also. Most of the footage we shot fell into the “crumby” category, thanks to the many failed attempts to combine recreational “fandom” with “professional film producer.”
Film clip after clip jumped around, sometimes missing the action, entirely. Many scenes might even have been confused for a National Geographic documentary about the art of growing grass, except for the mysterious cheers or dialogue randomly describing my family’s glee at a particularly nice tackle or jump shot.
There were occasions when there were 30-seconds of sky, bleachers or basketball court — sometimes featuring several legs, and numerous occasions when we zoomed into the backs of peoples’ heads.
Well … at least I knew who else attended the games, I decided.
Literally hours of footage could have been condensed into a single 20-minute segment that recorded nearly a year of our lives. However, thanks to a sale on blank DVDs, we now have several five- to 10-minute films for each activity, which will be impressive only if we ever want to show off the number of films we own. Otherwise, it’s pretty sad.
