Ayden's Story: Piecing Together a Family’s Gift
Each new adoption movie we create is like a puzzle. Our job is to figure out which pieces to use and how to put them together. The end result should be an overall picture that encompasses that child’s unique story.
Objective
When beginning a new project, I always spend a lot of time thinking about how to create a movie that best fits that unique family. I need to find my “angle”. I discovered the perfect angle for Ayden’s family when I read the beautiful words they chose for the closing title of the movie. “We hope that this video will give you memories of your first home in China. You were loved far before we ever saw your face...” My object became to do just that!
Challenges
A family I worked with previously is good friends of Ayden’s parents. They wanted to give our DVD service to them as a gift since they had just returned from China with Ayden. Typically I have a few weeks of correspondence with my new customers before their package arrives in the mail. During this time, I get to know the family a bit and can pick up little things about them that will give me direction when I’m editing. But, since this was a gift situation, I knew nothing about this family when I received their package. That was my biggest challenge- putting together something when I knew nothing!
Solutions
The photos and music didn’t provide much insight into this family. But once I saw the footage I finally began “getting to know them”. Ayden’s dad was quite a video narrator, and I picked up a lot of things from that. After reading their closing words for the video, I also knew it was really important to them to include many shots of China’s landscape, buildings, and people. It was around those two factors that I built Ayden’s movie.
This couple did some things when videotaping that I found helpful. First, they took turns with the video camera. I usually have difficulty getting enough footage of dads because they’re always holding the camera. But here, there was a good mix of both mom and dad before and after the baby’s arrival into their life. Secondly, they were great about getting close-ups, which are really powerful when edited to music. The extreme-close up shots of their daughters’ eyes, and her little toes… now that’s what makes a beautiful video!