Oh man, am I ever a sucker for adoption videos. With You Tube at my fingertips I can sob and laugh right along with families as they experience meeting their child for the first time. I don’t always have the emotional capacity to do this, but last night I was up into the ridiculously wee hours of the morning watching others’ adoption videos and working on Ella’s.

Ella’s video has been a work in progress. I am so extremely glad that we were able to film those first moments with her. The scenery on the way to Bac Giang; our car’s turning down the tiny street and coming up to her baby center; seeing her nannies delight in her; it’s all so precious. It’s the emotionally charged aspect of all these hours of film that has made it so hard to edit! I’ve found that working on it for awhile then putting it away for awhile (a few months in my case!) will let you look at your video through fresh eyes and you may be able to do some stronger editing. Of course, keep your original tapes unedited so your child can watch the full hour of countryside driving if they wish.

While working on my own video project and watching so many others online, I’ve come up with a few things that I think make a great video. Of course, they are completely personal vehicles to share your child’s story with them, but they’re also a wonderful way to share your family’s experiences with family and friends.

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  Use a good mix of video and still photos – this keeps the video flowing nicely
  



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  Choose music that means something to you. Man, it’s always the music that’s playing behind those little faces that just do me in!
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  Don’t share too much. Keep your child’s story private, their adoption video isn’t the place to broadcast to the world their personal background story.
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  Use titles and effects minimally. It’s fun to play with all the great features in movie making programs, but sometimes they can be distracting. Let the focus be on the subject at hand.

I’ve decided to make Ella’s video from getting her referral up to and including her first birthday. I just couldn’t cut it down any further. Since I’ll probably want to share it with friends and family online, I broke it down into three parts, since you can only upload ten minutes of video onto You Tube. Hopefully, this is something I can do yearly to document a year in the life of my sweetheart. And if you’re needing a good ol cathartic cry, head on over to You Tube and type in “Vietnam adoption.” Have some tissues handy.

More Reading:
How to Preserve Your Adoption Trip
The Art and Necessity of Storytelling

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