Looking Back – Moving Forward.
When Justin announced his plans in 2008 to resign his position at CSC and pursue his Master’s Degree it was a milestone. One of those times when you reflect on the past. His past, our past, our family’s past.
Much of his early life was documented in photo albums and boxes of snapshots taken over the years. Justin’s milestone seemed a perfect time to assemble a ‘slide show’ and I began the process of looking through hundreds of photos and scanning the ‘few’ favorites selected to share. We were looking back as he was moving forward.
We digitized some of the VHS home movies, and added selections of music that were meaningful to us through Justin’s childhood.
As the family gathered at the end of 2008 prior to Justin’s departure for South Dakota for Grad School, we played the DVD. Ahh, such memories. Everyone in the family shared a remembrance triggered by a picture they saw.
Then the tragedy of September 27, 2010. Our lives shaken by the news of Justin’s death.
As we prepared to lay him to rest, the DVD of his life story took on a new role. The work of putting together a remembrance of Justin had already been nearly completed. There was only his short time at Grad school missing. We decided not to change it all all. We just set up a DVD player for the viewings and played his story for all family and friends to see. Many asked for their own copies of the DVD to remember him or many suggested posting it on the internet so that anyone could see it.
Around the second anniversary of his passing, Terri and I revisited the thought of now retelling his whole story — life and death. I set out on the task of seeking permission to use the copyrighted material in our tribute to Justin.
One of the tracks we used was “Adoro te devote” from the 1996 Christmas Chant CD by “The Benedictine Monks of Santo Domingo De Silos” released by Milan Records. I found their website and an email address and dashed off my request. One down, five to go.
One of the snippets we used was from the opening credits from the Walt Disney movie “Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day” — one of Justin’s favorite movies as a young child. We practically wore out the VHS tape. He was our “Tigger” and would bounce around the house singing the “Tigger” song. One of my fondest memories is an audio recording of him singing his version of the song, unrecognizable as such by some, but cherished by us. I embedded this in the DVD with the Disney soundtrack as underscore. Well, searching the Disney websites I found their ‘copyright’ policy. All requests for synchronization rights (what we were asking) must be submitted in writing. Thinking our request was a bit of a longshot and prepared to pay almost any fee that they would have prescribed, I dashed off my letter in writing, signed, sealed in a #10 envelope and USPS postage applied. Two down…
I was then interrupted by a new email notification. It was from Milan Records granting our request to use the chant music. This was just a short while after I sent it on a Sunday afternoon with a moving personal note included from the Chief Operating Officer of the company.
Other requests were sent as well and I turned my attention to revising the DVD adding the last chapter. In case we did not get permission to use all of the tracks, I began my search for suitable replacement music from a couple of the production music libraries I’ve licensed.
A couple of weeks passed when I was surprised to find another email in my inbox from this time from Disney. It was a note from the Assistant to the Executive Director of Licensing granting us a ‘gratis’ license to use the Disney score.
Terri has posted the tribute video of Justin’s life on her blog ‘back of the northwind.com’.