Videos Honoring Timothy Wesselowski: His Life and Funeral Service

The Videos

Documentary on My Grandpa's Life

My Grandpa's Funeral Service

My Grandfather's Death

On the 2nd of January, 2021 my Grandpa Tim Wesselowski passed away at the age of 80 years old. He had contracted COVID-19 in the month before and died as a result of the accompanying pneumonia. Unlike many who met the same fate in the last year, he did not die alone. My Uncle Nathan was by his side and my Mom was on speaker phone. My Uncle had spent the prior day with him doing one of his favorite things: watching football with family.

Before COVID-19 I believed my Grandpa Tim had at least 5 more decent years left and then likely a couple fair ones after that. Luckily, I had started my efforts to preserve him about 5 years prior and had recorded over 10 hours of audio with him telling me stories of his life. I didn't collect all of them- I probably didn't even collect 20% of what he could tell me- but I still feel I accomplished what I set out to do.

Making the Documentary

The only benefit of my Grandpa dying during COVID times was the delaying of his funeral. It gave people about 6 months of time to mourn, grieve, and reflect before the funeral service itself and it gave me the time to create a documentary about his life.

6 months may seem like an exorbitant amount of time- especially since I didn't have a job, college, or any other responsibilities on account of my spine/brain surgery and associated recovery/physical therapy. However, I was working on the video right up until the day I left for Kansas. I wanted an outsider who had never met my grandpa to be able to watch the video and feel like he was an old friend. I scanned every photo I had, transferred every vhs and hi-8 tape he appeared in to digital format, I went through every minute of audio and spliced stories together across recordings. I included (and this is not hyperbole) every photo of my grandpa that I had in my files in the video in chronological order. It was a massive undertaking.

Software, Hardware, and Tools Used

Please note that I may get commissions for products you buy using the amazon links in the section below (it won't affect the price for you, don't worry!), but that all of my recommendations are based on the actual products I used to make the final video. Some links are also to free products which of course don't give commission.

A project like this one took a lot of time and several different types of software and hardware to complete. I won't go into extreme detail about how I made it but I will provide some basic details about what I used and tools that may be helpful to you if you wish to make something similar.

Tool #1: Audio Editing With Audacity

Audacity in Action

The first tool I recommend is a completely free tool used for audio editing. I used it to edit the recordings I took of my Grandpa telling stories. It has pretty much all the features you could ask for- basic audio editing, labeling audio segments, noise reduction and more. You can download Audacity here.

Tool #2: Video Editing with Sony Vegas Pro

Sony Vegas in Action With My Documentary File

Unfortunately this tool is not free, but it is extremely useful. It doesn't have as big of a learning curve as some other professional video editing software, although it does still have one. If you aren't very tech savvy or just don't want to put a lot of effort into learning a software you might not use very often, then I can't recommend it in good confidence.

However, if you want a program with a wide array of functionality while still being reasonably easy to use this is a great piece of software.

Personally, I got it pretty cheap in a bundle of other video editing software for about $25 off of HumbleBundle. Humble Bundle often has software bundles available for cheap.

The upside of ordering off of Humble Bundle is you can get a bunch of software at the same time super cheap. Also, each purchase includes a donation to charity.

The downside is there is maybe only one or two video editing bundles available per year and you may have to keep checking back at the available bundles to get one with the software you want.

If you don't want to wait for the heavily discounted price tag, however, you can always just buy it off of amazon here: VEGAS Pro 16 Edit - Professional video and audio editing.

Tool #3: Kodak Scanza for Quickly Scanning Negatives and Slides

The Kodak Scanza

This is the only scanner included in this list because, although I did use other scanners, this is the one that I think was the most helpful. Prior to getting the scanner I had been scanning negatives and slides in my normal everyday use photo scanner which had inserts that allowed you to scan negatives. Of course using the normal scanner took a ridiculous amount of time. I wasn't expecting much from this little guy, but it really exceeded my expectations. Scans are high quality and using it is fast and efficient. My only gripe is that the Scanza is awful with super 8 film. Luckily I didn't really need it for that in the first place. For the price it's really got a lot of value packed into it.

You can buy the Kodak Scanza here: KODAK SCANZA Digital Film & Slide Scanner - Converts 35mm, 126, 110, Super 8 & 8mm Film Negatives & Slides to JPEG - Includes Large Tilt-Up 3.5" LCD, Easy-Load Film Inserts, Adapters & More

Tool #4: Elgato Video Capture For Digitizing VHS and Hi-8 Tapes

Elgato Video Capture Device

This was another purchase I made specifically for this project. I had another video capture device that I had used previously, but it didn't convert directly from analog to digital. Instead it burned the video it was converting to a CD which I would then have to copy over to my computer. This was a huge waste of time because not only was I having to convert between multiple formats, there was also a noticeable decrease in quality between the original video and the digital copy.

The Elgato Video Capture device basically solved that problem for me. It's very easy to use, and the video it captures is high quality. Plus you can watch the video as it is being transferred so if your hi-8 camera is as finnicky as mine was you can tell if something goes wrong while the tape is being transferred.

I actually didn't use much video in the final Documentary since I had so many photos, but I am still glad I got everything transferred regardless.

You can purchase the Elgato Video Capture Device here: Elgato Video Capture - Digitize Video for Mac, PC or iPad (USB 2.0)

Final Thoughts

I am very glad I was able to complete the documentary and share it with my family, and to share with my readers here as well. If any of you have made videos about your family/ancestors detailing their lives I would love you to share them in the comments so that others who may be planning on doing the same thing can draw inspiration from them.