A new tool for telling life stories: Video obituaries

Reporter Elinor Brecher and photographer Candace Barbot began work on a recent obituary about a long-time Miamian in a most unusual way: They sat down with the 92-year-old woman -- still very much with us -- and taped her thoughts about her life.

''She'd heard about this new thing we're trying,'' said Ellie, The Miami Herald's lead obituary writer. 'She called and said, ``I wouldn't mind doing one of those.' ''

The new thing is a video interview with interesting South Floridians who realize their time is coming. While nothing can replace the traditional obituary, Ellie is trying an array of online experiments to supplement her stories. They include slide shows, family movies, and now personal interviews recorded in advance and stored away for the day the obituary runs.

''It's a brand-new tool that fits perfectly with this venerable form that is the obituary,'' said Ellie.

Reporters tend to start their careers on the obit desk, developing their reporting, interviewing and writing skills, before moving to assignments in features, sports, news or the world desk.

Ellie Brecher has done it the other way around.

When she took the obit assignment last year after 33 years on a dozen different beats, she was drawn to what she realized is some of the most meaningful work we do.

Her obituaries are powerful, lively and eloquent. Family and friends call her in awe and sometimes in tears. They ask how she captures these lives so precisely.

INSPIRATION

You won't get many straight answers on this from Ellie, a witty, wise-cracking veteran. But there is a story behind the dedication that keeps her ear to her phone for hours on end, at a desk piled high with notes, scrapbooks, family pictures and history books.

She lost both her parents in the past two years: first her mother, at 90, in July two years ago, then her father, at 95, last July.

''This is something that's close to me,'' said Ellie.

Then, in the past few months, she started taking the beat in new directions, including looking for nontraditional stories about fascinating people to mix in with the obituaries of the high-profile and prominent.

''You don't have to be rich or famous,'' she said. 'My basic question is, `Did this person have an impact?' ''

This has led her to obituaries on a bartender at Tobacco Road; a TV videographer who survived two helicopter crashes; an opera-singing psychiatrist; a neighborhood barber at work so long he's trimmed multiple generations of many families.

She started playing around with different ways to tell their stories. She had been thinking about the enormous impact that humorist Art Buchwald had when, his health fading, he taped a video released with the news of his death.

His message began: ``Hi. I'm Art Buchwald, and I just died.''

REACHING OUT

That won't be the tone Miami Herald video obituaries are likely to take. When Ellie and Candace Barbot arrived for the interview of the 92-year-old Miami woman a few weeks ago, they set up in the living room of her home, made sure she had some hot tea, and she started talking.

''Three hours later, we had so much great material,'' said Candace.

Then comes the hard part: editing down six hours of raw footage (she used two cameras to vary the angles) to a few minutes of reminiscences to run on MiamiHerald.com sometime in the future.

The woman said that she hoped the interview wouldn't somehow hurry that final day.

''You don't think I'm jinxing myself?'' she asked after the video was done.

''You're not jinxing yourself,'' Ellie told her.

In fact, it was a wonderful gesture that will tell her story as only she can -- and showed the courage to try something new.

''We sent her flowers the next day,'' Candace said.

New mum J-Lo glows but poor Marc Anthony looks like he's had a rough ride

Comments (14)

But while Jennifer looked back to her ultra-groomed best, husband Marc Anthony appeared the worse for wear, with a pair of heavy-duty, new father, bags under his eyes.

In their first public outing since the birth of their twins in February, Jennifer and Marc enjoyed dinner in New York.

Scroll down for more...

New parents: Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony appeared in public together for the first time since the singer gave birth to twins, for dinner in New York on the weekend. But while J-Lo glowed, husband Marc Anthony looked worse for wear

Jennifer, 38, was smiling and radiant and appeared to have lost most of her baby weight already while 39-year-old Marc, who became a dad for the fourth and fifth time with the twins, appeared a little tired and run down.

But his rumpled looks cannot have been helped by the late nights, and the demands required with raising twins.

New father Marc Anthony is so hands-on with the babies, that the star and her staff have nicknamed him the "Burp Whisperer."

Scroll down for more...

Rumpled: J-Lo's rumpled looking singer husband appears to have taken on a lot of the childcare responsibilities and has been nicknamed the 'Burp Whisperer' by the singer and her staff

Marc told a US newspaper: "I'm so excited. I'm so hands-on with them that the household developed a nickname for me. They call me the Burp Whisperer."

Anthony, meanwhile, praises his superstar wife, claiming having twins was inevitable, because everything she touches turns to gold.

He adds, "I told Jennifer, nothing you do is small. Everything you do it on such large scale. The first time you give birth, you give birth to twins."

ADVERTISEMENT

Iconocast is about learning and teaching without borders; we offer eMarketing, Internet Advertising, Internet Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Search Engine Marketing, Online Branding, and eMarketing News Services.

Iconocast Home Page

Contact Iconocast

Iconocast Health Articles

© 2003-07. ICONOCAST is a trademark of iconocast.com.