This continues a new category of posts: Guest columns where friends and readers share how technology is reshaping their hobby – basket weaving, rugby – whatever.
This time it is Tom Wailgum at CIO Magazine. Tom and I cover some of the same software vendors in our beats. When Tom mentioned he wanted to write about home video technology, I went – there goes another proud father. I am deeply touched by the unbelievable story he ends up telling about his sons.
“Like many other fathers, my desire to make digital home movies started pretty much the day my twin sons were born. We all know that parental syndrome: "My son (or daughter) is the most beautiful baby in the world and I must show everyone the thousands of adorable photos and dozens of home videos I've shot."
With my sons, however, taking those first digital photos was actually all that my wife Karin and I could do at the time. You see, my twin sons were born horribly premature: Typical gestation takes roughly 40 weeks and, in most cases, produces a seven-pound screaming baby. Our twin boys lasted just 24 weeks in the womb and came out way too early and very quiet: Sam was just one pound, seven ounces; Will, one pound, four ounces. To give you an understanding of how small that is, I was able to slide my wedding ring over each boy's fingers and hand, where it would dangle on his wrist -- more than three weeks after they were born. (See the photo below)
They spent 137 of the first days of their lives at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. So those digital photos and movies were, in a sense, our emotional and visual lifelines to the boys when we were not by their sides at the hospital. Through tears and during many grim days and nights visiting them, I shot short movies. I took photos. Lots of photos. (Digital is so great for amateur photographers like me.) Not only was I a proud papa with camera in hand, but I was also documenting most everything because I was worried that these snapshots might be all we would ever have of our boys. There were numerous days when we didn't know if they'd make it to see tomorrow.
Today, the boys are five years old -- happy, and mostly healthy little guys with tons of moxie. How they survived and thrived defies my understanding. Using the digital photos and these low-budget movies taken with an average digital camera, and then combining them with digital audio recordings and music for a soundtrack, I've been able to make home movies that blow away anything my parents ever made for me, which was, in fact, not much. I was the youngest of four boys, and my parents had run out of steam by that point. (No hard feelings, Mom and Dad. I still love you.)
Let me be clear here: I'm no movie-making guru or Apple fanboy with all the hot software and latest hardware. I use a mix of fairly standard equipment, and proprietary and open-source tools to make my "indie" films. The camera is an aging Olympus (if it was SAP software, it'd be R/3) that serves its purpose. The audio recorder I use is Zoom's H2 Handy Recorder, which produces a real nice sound. For video editing, I use Microsoft MovieMaker (which still has its fair share of bugs) and open-source Audacity for audio mixing. Adding other music to my soundtracks is as easy because of iTunes and Windows Media Player. For photo editing, I use Adobe Photoshop Elements. (If I need to, I can also scan in or print hard-copy photos on my HP Officejet printer/fax/scanner.) My storage and disaster recovery "vendor" is also my high-quality printer: Shutterfly. And I use Microsoft software to burn a highly customized DVD.
At the end of each movie's production, my family receives a high-quality DVD (with menu and on-screen options) that we can play on the PC or TV. The TV is the best, of course. The boys think that they look pretty cool on the TV.
You can manage with even less technology than I have. Today’s smaller digital video recorders, smartphones and Flip devices take reasonable-quality video. Technologies from ADSTech and others even allow closets full of VHS videotapes to be converted and stored on CDs or DVDs. And with sites like YouTube and Flickr it has become so easy to share those memories with the world. I can only imagine what my sons will be able to do for their kids in 20 or so years.
I've also been able to make home movies for the rest of my family (it's a great Christmas present). For instance, last year my brothers and I got together for a brother's only weekend, and I was able to create a really cool movie of our weekend together -- complete with a memorable photos and video of us golfing, and a soundtrack that contained Led Zeppelin songs as well as the four of us talking away late night in a bar.
Right now, my boys are still too young to fully grasp the gravity of their survival story. Those early photos and video don't do much for them. But when they do grow up a little, I'll have so much to share on just how miraculous and improbable their journey has been.”
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