How to share a video at a memorial service

Ask the funeral director first

Before deciding anything else: ask what the venue can play and how they want the file. Most funeral homes and crematoria show video as a matter of routine and will have a screen, a projector or both. What varies is the practical part — whether they want a USB stick, a link, or a file sent ahead, and by when.

Ask early even if you are not sure you want a video. It is a two-minute question that closes off a whole category of problem on the day, and directors are used to being asked it.

The five options

1. Played during the service

The most common. Three to five minutes, usually during a musical interlude or at the close. Bring it on a USB stick and have a link as a fallback — venue wifi is unreliable often enough that depending on it is a risk you do not need on that day.

A caution worth hearing: a video shown at a service is watched once, by the people in the room, in a state where very little is retained. If the film matters to you, plan for people to be able to watch it again later. That is a different job from this one.

2. On a loop at the wake

A laptop or a television in the corner, playing photographs and clips without sound. Easier than it sounds and often the thing people remember most, because they can stand and watch it together and talk about what they are seeing. No timing pressure, no AV to coordinate.

3. A link in the order of service

A short URL or a QR code printed on the back of the order of service. Costs nothing, reaches everyone who takes one home, and works for people who could not travel. The weakness is that an order of service is paper — it gets folded into a coat pocket and found again in March, by which time the link needs to still work.

4. Sent to people who could not be there

An unlisted link, sent in the same message as the details of the day. This is the option most often forgotten and the one that matters most to the person who could not get a flight. It costs nothing and takes five minutes.

If you are sending it to people who are not comfortable with links — and at a funeral you usually are — say plainly in the message what will happen when they tap it. "This opens a five-minute film of Dad. You do not need to sign in to anything."

5. Something they can take home and keep

A physical object that opens the video. This is what we make, so read the rest of this section knowing that.

A card the size of a bank card, printed with their name, with a chip inside it. Someone holds a phone near it and the film plays. No app, no account, nothing to sign into — which matters more at a memorial than anywhere else, because the people who most want to watch it again are often the least willing to fight with an interface to do it.

When it is the wrong answer: if the service is in a few days, printing and posting may not reach you in time — ask before ordering rather than hoping. If the family is small and everyone is in one room, a link in a group message does the same job for nothing. And if what you want is something to hand every person at a large service, the order of service with a code printed on it is cheaper and reaches more people.

Two practical things people wish they had known

• Keep the original file. Whatever you use to share it, keep your own copy somewhere that is not a phone — a hard drive, a disc, two places if you can. Every service that hosts video for you, including ours, is a company that exists today.
• Collect the material before the day, not after. People send photographs and clips readily in the first week and almost never in the second month. If you think you might make something later, ask now and decide later.