There are several ways to make a funeral presentation these days. Even so, some questions come up time and again. Here is an overview of the questions we are asked most often.
How many photos per funeral?
By far the most frequently asked question. And the answer can differ from one situation to the next.
It depends on a few factors:
- The length of the music: a four-and-a-half-minute song holds more photos than a two-and-a-half-minute one.
- The tempo of the music: with an upbeat or lively piece of music, each photo can be shown a little faster (5 to 6 seconds). With a calm piece, a slower pace is often more beautiful (8 to 9 seconds).
- Personal taste: you and those closest to you decide. A preview quickly shows whether the pace feels right and looks good to you.
- The number of photos you have: if there are a great many photos, you will naturally try to fit them all in. If that makes the display per photo too fast across all the pieces of music, a selection has to be made.
It is wise to do a quick calculation once the running order of the service is known. Add up the total length of all the pieces of music with a slideshow and divide it by the number of photos available.
If that comes out at around 7, you are fine. If it comes out at around 5, in practice a selection is usually made straight away from the available photos, until the figure is back around 7.
At a funeral, a calm pace is usually preferred. Between 7 and 9 seconds is ideal.
That means a 3-minute song holds around 23 to 25 photos (180 ÷ 7) and a 4-minute song around 32 to 34 photos (240 ÷ 7).
How should I hand over the photos?
Once you as a family have collected the photos, they usually need to be handed over to the person who will actually make the funeral presentation.
Does that person live nearby, or will you be seeing them soon? Then the photos can easily be copied from your device onto a USB stick and handed over.
There are also countless ways to do this online these days, WeTransfer being one of the most popular.
We also often see families sharing a OneDrive or Google Drive photo album with relatives and friends to collect digital photos. The link can easily be shared with others.
When does it need to be delivered?
Ask your funeral director. They are in contact with the venue, and the venue decides how many days in advance they want the presentation for checking.
They will naturally want to check that everything runs according to the running order. Usually this is 24 or 48 hours before the start of the funeral.
So make sure everything is ready before then.
Which programme may (or must) I use to make the funeral presentation?
Ask your funeral director about this too. The venue decides how they want the presentation delivered.
Many venues have software available as part of their service. They will then send you a link that lets you put together a funeral presentation easily and in a user-friendly way.
If they do not, PowerPoint is usually the preferred way to deliver it. Put the music and photos together in the order of the running order as one complete file and deliver it to the venue.
No experience of how to do this in PowerPoint, or would you rather do it as easily and simply as possible? Try funeral-ppt.com for free.
Anything else?
These were the most common questions, but of course not all of them. Do you have a different question? Feel free to get in touch for support.