I Write To Keep From Going Insane…

Starting tomorrow, I will once again be back in school. Back to school means driving out to Fullerton at least twice a week. The hardest part about going back to school, I still don’t have a car. I should be getting a Corolla next weekend, but I still don’t have it yet. Oh well I suppose. Anyway, just thought I’d share =) I’m excited and sad at the same time… I’ll live right?

After attempting many different routes to post the video slideshows I was talking about, I can’t get them online. They are in a format that isn’t supported apparently. Sorry. If you really want to see one or more, lete me know. I’ll try to send you a copy the old fashion way. Here’s the titles: Hawaii, Alaska, Forever Young (parent’s version), Forever Young (Grandparent’s version), Ari Max Joey & Sophie, and Typical Myers. I will only send the first four becase the other two aren’t of my own family.

Friday night was girls night. It was supposed to be the 5 of us who go to school together nd my sister if she wanted to come. She decided to go out with her girls instead… no big deal. Then about an hour or so before we were all due to meet up, I get a text from one of the other girls. She can’t make it either. She had to move and paint, so I suppose she is forgiven. Anyway, the 4 of us went to a little mexican resturaunt on Brea Blvd by the Improv. That was apparently enough for us. We ended up just hanging out and catching up on each other’s lives for the few hours that we sat there. It was actually a lot of fun! Anyway, so after some scary fun photos and convincing one of the girls that she had actually drank more than half of the drink she ordered (which she reall only drank a few sips), we headed home for bed. It had been a long week… All in all, tons of fun!

For those of you who don’t know, I make these video slideshows. I take a bunch of photos, put them into slides, edit the photos, the way they transition and zoom and set them to music. I also design a label for the actual disc (using lightscribe of course) and a DVD cover to make it look a little more professional (which obviously I am not). I really enjoy doing them. Well, my mom recently told a friend who works at a company across the alley from us at the shop and he asked me to make one for him. No big deal, right? Well, he needed it in a week… Just a little time crunch… And to make it better, it was for his wife’s birthday, so it had to be perfect. I finished in time, don’t worry. So he has 3 kids, ages 4, 3, and 7 months. Well, the only one I have ever made where I seperate the kids is the one I made for my grandparents and that was only last Christmas, so I had a lot of photos from various ages to work with. What I found through making this… making a video of kids that are still so young is a lot harder! There is a lot less to work with, especially with the baby.

Anyway, he asked me to do some research and find out what this sort of think costs to know how much he should pay me. After doing the research, what did I find? The average cost of something like this is around $300-$400, with a max of about 175-200 photos, 1 copy of the video (labeled) and a DVD case with a pretty standard cover. I used about 225-250. This was the AVERAGE cost… The lowest I found, $140, with a max of 150 photos, 1 copy of the video in a normal cd case, with a standard label, and no copies of the editied photos. The highest I found, $1600 with a max of 200 photos, though this one included 2 copies of the video, a cd copy of the photos after the edits were complete, the disc was labeled and a cover for a DVD was designed. Oh, and just to stick it to the people who go through these companies, they get to choose the songs for your video with little to no input from you, and they charge an extra $0.50-$2.00 a photo that needs to be scaned in. Anyway, I didn’t charge him this much by any means. I’m sure these pros use a better program and I don’t want him to think I was overcharging him or anything.

So what did I learn through all this? These videos are expensive!! Maybe I should find a way to do this professionally, I’d probably make a lot of money! Anyway, I’ll try to post up the video I made my grandparents last Christmas if you are now wondering what I am talking about. I think I’ve made a total of about 6 videos, each is different… I love them!