I found your “How I Produce Funeral Videos” to be a well-written informative piece, EarlC. I’ve shot a few funerals in my side business, and you’re right, they are a lot like shooting weddings, yet quite different. You have to be a lot more discreet and have some compassion for what the attendees might be going through.
I do Memorial Videos that are shown at the event and one funeral home that I used to work with decided they were going to do it all on their own. I was told: “Anyone can shoot a camera nowadays, so we’re just going to have our computer guy put these together from now on..” and I wanted to reply, “sure…and anyone can dig a hole, but it takes a funeral director to know just where and how deep..” but I didn’t because that would be tacky.
As you wrote, there are many reasons that people want the funeral captured. My most recent client wanted his father’s funeral recorded so he could send the videotape to the family back in Ireland who never saw their son again after he left to find work in America during the Depression.
Your story spelled out the details quite well.
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