Capturing Life's Final Moment: The Art of Funeral Photo Tributes

Jason Khune from Still Moments in Time reveals the art and impact of creating photo tributes for funeral services. This conversation explores how modern technology and thoughtful design transform personal photographs into meaningful visual memorials that celebrate a person's life journey.

From his Perth-based studio, Jason reveals the meticulous process behind each tribute – carefully editing photos, selecting complementary backgrounds, and synchronising meaningful music to create an emotional journey rather than just a chronological display. 

Whether you're planning a memorial service or simply interested in how technology is transforming how we remember loved ones, this episode offers both practical guidance and profound reflections on celebrating life's meaningful moments. What photos would tell your story?

Contact:  Jason Khune

Email:  dvdcreations@stillmoments.net.au

www.stillmoments.net.au

Have questions about death, dying or the funeral industry? Email ask@ladyofdeath.com.au to have them answered in a future episode.

Transcript

Meet Jason from Still Moments in Time

Robyn 0:10

Today my guest is Jason Khune from Still Moments in Time, a business based in Perth, Western Australia that make DVD's for funerals. So we are going we're just going to have a chat about all things to do with videos and what we now have in comparison to what we had when I started a very long time ago where we were still using cassettes to play music, so welcome Jason!

Jason 2:23

Thanks Robyn, thanks for having me.

Robyn 2:23

Okay, tell me about yourself. Who do you live with? What else do you do?

Jason 2:26

Oh my, gosh, how long have we got so? Obviously I work in the photo tribute business. Still moments in time, so we create photo tributes for services. On top of that, I find myself living with my partner, who is a celebrant of course Kevin Clune funeral celebrant so this household can become very funeral (R: funeral oriented). Yes, very much so, because we both are, you know, pretty passionate about what we do, so it can be some big conversations around it. So, yeah, keeps us very busy.

Robyn 3:09

So how did you come to run a business like Still Moments in Time?

Growing a Photo Tribute Business

Jason 3:16

The business started out, there was a need in Perth for something a little different and Kevin was initially approached and asked to look at it and consider it. So Kevin and his daughter, Katelyn, started Still Moments in Time initially. I don't know that it sort of started out with a business name, it sort of sat a little bit under the umbrella of Kevin as a celebrant, because it was predominantly one funeral home and one funeral director, as it just sort of started and then started to get a few more you know bookings coming in and then I started to help because it needed more than one person and then Katelyn's work arrangements changed so I suddenly found myself holding Still Moments in Time and at the time it, you know, it was only a small amount of services a week, so it was quite manageable. And I think I don't even know how many years later we are now, eight or nine years later, and there's now four of us in the production office along with staff that are out on the road so, (R: it's amazing!) I don't quite know how we got there.

Robyn 4:36

Like I've seen it right from the very beginning and it just grew and grew, and grew and grew and now, like digitally, now literally can do dvds for anyone in the country

Jason 4:50

Yeah, absolutely, and we have done so. Um, we've done photo tributes for um people on the other side. Obviously, we're based in Western Australia, so we've done photo tributes for people in Victoria. We've done photo tributes for people in the country and regional areas of Western Australia. So, yeah, the digital world has made it incredibly easy to be able to do that. So it isn't about the person having to be local to us to get us their photos and for us to understand what they need. So, yeah, the digital world's made it super easy.

Robyn 5:26

It's a little bit different than when you did my mother-in-law's funeral tribute oh gosh, it must be, I think 10 years, (J: yeah), and you had to actually courier the DVD from Perth to Brisbane and to the Gold Coast and it was like it was really crazy sort of stuff back in those days of being able to actually having to have the physical digital thing. But now, how does it work? How does it work in Perth? Because it's a little bit different in Perth to what it is in Melbourne, because you actually upload to cemeteries there, don't you?

Jason 6:06

Yeah, absolutely! Gone are the days of compact discs, thankfully, because they're so unreliable. They're great, but not at the same time. There's still a couple of occasions where we have to do that, if it's a private venue that the funeral is taking place at. S o we provide a disc there so that, um, the funeral director can play it, because they're still operating on a dvd player and tv screen within that particular private venue. It's not a funeral home, but majority of the funeral homes that we work with we we either send them an electronic copy to play. T he main Perth cemeteries, t heir system is an upload. They have a portal so we upload the photo tribute, any particular photos they want on the screen at particular times of the service, and all the service music. All of that gets uploaded to their portal the day before. We have a time frame we have to adhere to so that all gets uploaded, so that when they go in on the day of the service they log in and there's all the media entry, music, reflection, photo tribute, all of that sort of thing is all there at the touch of their fingers.

Robyn 7:22

So even with a family's tribute, you have to upload that for a family, do you?

Jason 7:29

Yeah, absolutely. The system is quite particular about the media and unfortunately can sometimes reject the media. So any family-made photo tributes we still get in here into the production office. We run it through our system and make sure that the format we send through to the cemetery is a format we know and trust. Um, so yeah, even family ones. We we still have to send that through to the media. Gone are the days of turning up to the um the Perth cemeteries or chapels with a USB or a disc and just plugging it in. It has to be there the day prior.

Robyn 8:09

Right. And what happens when you get one and it's from the family and you look at it and you go this is terrible. What do you do?

Jason 8:23

Make a coffee! Um, look, do you know, like when we talk about family ones being a little rough, um, it's crazy. The technology that is out there, so family produced photo tributes are getting better and better, um, but nonetheless some of them are, are not great. Often the biggest challenge for a family is they can put all the photos together and create some sort of video, but then they can't get the music into it. Um, so often what we see with family ones is everything moves really fast and is zooming across the screen, zooming in and out really fast. So it's quite a harsh watch, I guess. But you know, like we format it as best we can. We don't make any changes to it because obviously somebody in the family has put a lot of time and effort into it. Um, so, and they come in all shapes and sizes and variations. So, yeah, we look, don't get me wrong, we've watched some that we've gone. Where is this person? We might even approach them. This is actually, actually not bad, and others not so much.

Robyn 9:46

So I always ask people what is their why? Why do you enjoy? What is it about this particular art that appeals to you?

Robyn 10:01

What is your why?

The Art Behind Photo Tributes

Jason 10:10

Do you know it varies depending on the I guess you know the age of the deceased, because if it's, uh, someone in their like late 90s or even in their 90s, we get to see some of the most amazing history. (R: Yeah), in their photos. Um, like when you see the photos of the ladies with their hats and their gloves and their coats.

Robyn 10:28

And the sepia colour.

Jason 10:30

Yes, I mean they just look spectacular. I mean, imagine if you had to walk around Australia now in hats, gloves, coat, matching hat, I mean it's so impractical. But people are much busier and work differently now to what they did then. But like it's such an amazing journey to go through somebody's lifespan of photos and it's a stranger to us because it's rare that we would communicate with the family, we generally deal directly with the funeral director, so we get to see this snippet of their life through photos.

Jason 11:04

We were only talking on Friday in the production office about children's and babies' photo tributes and how it brings a difference in the way you approach a photo tribute. You suddenly there's a lot more effort, a lot more care, a lot more detail. There's a lot more pride goes into what we do because you just you know it needs more um. So I guess the it's the creativity side of it is fun. So you know why the creativity is fun how we can link those photos to a background, to the music, how we can create quite a feeling in the way we create our photo tributes.

Jason 11:53

When we train a new staff member, we use the reference of like, if you watch a movie and it's a scary movie, what makes it scary is the music and the build and up of the music and suspense. So we talk to the new guys about the music chosen, how are you going to help that enhance those photos? So you know, we get to sort of look at how we do that and is this photo on the screen a little longer? Is that one shorter and what background is there? What transition effect do we use? So we try and create more than just a slideshow. We try and create those feelings as you watch the photo tribute, if that makes sense absolutely,

Robyn 12:35

and I think that's what makes your dvd. I keep calling them dvds, they're not dvds.

Jason 12:40

I know it's habit, isn't it?

Robyn 12:43

Visual presentations! You know, that's what I love about yours is because it has that. It has more than just a PowerPoint with digital photos going through them, one at a time, with no background, with no thought, and it's just, you know, photo after photo after photo. I just saw one the other day and sat there and went, 'oh gosh, this is really ..... after seeing yours, and then you watch something like that, you go, people could do so much more with them than what they do, and that even you know. I go back to the one that you did for a baby, where you know some of the photos that the bubs had been in hospital for all of her life, and you know some of the photos weren't really great, and so you know. I know one of them was a Christmas one and so there was kind of a bauble that didn't take away from the baby's photo but also didn't make you concentrate on the baby, who at that stage didn't look that great.

Jason 13:52

Yeah

Robyn 13:53

And it was. It just softened it, it just just made such difference. And that was when, that was when I started to realise how much of an art this is. It's not just a matter of picking something out and putting something together, it's when you enhance something rather than it being, you know, just a photo.

Jason 14:13

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I think you know, gone are the days of people accepting just something very basic. I think the world's changing and people's expectations around things are changing. I hear constantly about the importance of the photo tribute, that that time where people sit and watch the photos, it's such an important part of the funeral service and so for us, we really want to make sure that what you're watching is something special. So those backgrounds, rather than the photo being on the screen and it's just a black background on either side of it, or a blue or a colour, or you know something almost like, as you know, as you said, as PowerPoint can produce for you something that complements the photo, is it that you're at the beach and we can put a subtle background of the beach.

Jason 15:13

But again, it's about complementing, not taking away from the photo, not to replace the photo, either just to complement it so that it has a nice soft background. You know, sometimes an example you know we had recently a lady's photo tribute that we did. She used to make a lemon meringue pie all the time and there's a photo of her with lemon holding said pie. So we were able to put, you know, a lemon meringue pie in the background just to complement it again, not take it away, just as a subtle, you know, complement to it. So, um, and you know we do a lot of that when, when it is a you know a little a child, that if the child is holding you know a Disney character, then we can complement the screen with that Disney character again to, you know, join the photo rather than replace it, so it just softens it.

Jason 16:09

And I guess you know we all understand how incredibly sad a funeral is. But I guess for us, if we look at the photo tribute and think, if we can help you smile at parts of this photo tribute, then you, you know, you're starting to remember your loved one, you know, in a different light and bringing back some joy, you know joyful memories and things like that as well

Photo Selection and Appropriate Length

Robyn 16:37

Yeah, I know, I know when I introduced DVDs DVDs, I'm really trying not to get into that, but just bear with me, people, you just have to put up with me saying DVDs. But when I introduce them, you know, I talk about how they're just a moment in time that's been captured and by watching, particularly when somebody's in their 80's and 90's to watch that. You know, talk about when they were children, you know, only camera enthusiasts had cameras because they were so expensive and then the Box Brownie came in and then suddenly, you know, there were Instamatics and then there were colours and they lived through that whole time. So it also shows us the times they lived in, whether it's the hairstyles, the fashions and all that sort of stuff. That gives us a whole different kind of thing to remind us, particularly with the older ones, to remind us of the times that they did live through, you know the war years and when things were tough and all that sort of stuff. And you know, I know I use a quote every so often and I can't remember who I can attribute to, but I read it somewhere and it said it's like buying a return train ticket to be able to go back and see what has happened. You know, yeah, (J: absolutely). And if you get the chance to look at people when they're watching this, you know they're all, the whole entire chapel is focused on that screen and it's just, you know, you can see the smiles you can see... I often kind of think it's a little bit sad that people are afraid to talk. You know, (J: yeah), you'll see somebody nudge someone and they'll point, you know, rather than saying, "oh, remember that you know.

Jason 18:23

Yeah, yeah,

Robyn 18:23

and I just think it's such a fantastic thing and why photos are so important. And often at the end of a photo tribute, I will get up and say "it's days like today that make you realise the importance of photos. Each one of those photos was taken at an occasion, a get-together, a celebration or just one moment in time when someone took their camera and took a happy snap. And the lovely thing about photographs is they're like our memories. We have them forever" (J: Yeah yeah and we do, like we have those moments again forever to go back to whenever we want to. Sadly, most of the time they get put in a box and put back on the shelf.

Jason 19:02

Yeah, absolutely, oh my gosh, absolutely.

Robyn 19:05

And then I also think that people don't, when they watch a DVD presentation, they don't actually realise the amount of hours that people have trawled through photograph albums and all sorts of things that defined all those you know, and to be able to acknowledge that I think you know is a really good thing. So I'm going to ask a bit of a controversial uh question in in this. (J"Okay, it is, what do you think? Um, is the most appropriate number of photos in in that? How long should a presentation go for? Do you think?

Jason 19:44

Ouuuu, okay, yeah, look, this is a tricky one. Um, there is a number that, like I guess, when I first came into the industry, 60 photos was considered the norm and I say the norm really quite loosely, because what is normal. So 60 was generally the number. We are finding that's becoming quite rare and it is really sitting around the 80 mark. Often we do a lot for 100 and I guess it's you know, 60 photos, for us, the way we build our photo tributes is around six to six and a half minutes. 80 photos is, you know, eight, eight and a half minutes, and I think that's probably about where people can really get to (R: totally agree) that. And then when you start pushing the 100 photos, 10 minutes, that can start to be a difficult watch, because 10 minutes, as you know, the music can change and you can have different songs, but it is still quite long in, you know, in the environment of a funeral, as you know. So I think, I think eight minutes is like really probably a nice. It's time to sort of, because you want, you want everybody to get to the end of the photos and want more (R: yes), as opposed to my gosh is wow

Robyn 21:22

How long is this gonna go for?

Jason 21:23

Yeah? You know it's that old, you know this is an old saying is that like you want people leave, leave people wanting more. Um, so I think you know that 60 to 80 range is a really nice range. Do I think that's easy to achieve? Not at all. Uh, like you said, like all these photos you take over time, um, you start collating them together and you have to narrow that down. And recently for my Nan's funeral, I'm in the industry and I'm like "we are not having a long photo tribute. Suddenly we've got 130 photos and I was like no, how did we get here, how have we got 130?" Um? And we obviously then we had to start culling and I guess what's hard is every photo you look at brings an emotion and brings a memory and brings a feeling, so you want it in the photo tribute.

Robyn 22:19

yeah

Jason 22:20

And I guess you have to

Robyn 22:21

and there's also the political thing about members of the family all being in it as well, right?

Jason 22:25

Yeah, absolutely that's um...

Robyn 22:28

I saw everybody else there, but my family wasn't in

Jason 22:31

Oh my gosh - yes! Look, sometimes we do photo tributes, that we stop and and question have we got the right photos? Because we haven't seen the deceased in about 15 photos, because we've seen so many of the family members. So, yes, there are times where there's a political like little bit of you know controversy in the family and everybody wants to be featured and everybody wants to be seen and sometimes the deceased seems to have disappeared through that selection of photos.

Robyn 23:10

And I know we've had this conversation before, but I do wish that people would think about how their really loved family member would feel about being seen in their hospital bed two days before they die.

Music Choices and Transitions

Jason 23:28

Oh my gosh, Robyn. Look, I guess to each his own. But sometimes I think when I see someone that has lived their life let's take a lady, for example. There's plenty of guys out there that have taken care of themselves their whole life but if we talk about a lady that we've seen photos of her, you know with her hat and her gloves and her hair done. She's done her hair her whole life. She's looked after herself. And then we get to the end of the photo tribute, or towards the end, and there she is laying in the hospital bed struggling to keep her mouth closed and everybody is around her smiling and having a photo with her while she comes in and out of consciousness, and I'm like is that a photo for home? Or is that a photo to put on the big screen in front of everybody? And I know that my Nan would come back and haunt me on a level that is indescribable if I put a photo of her like that on display anyway.

Robyn 24:35

Well, I've already created my funeral photo file and I actually just did one on a recent cruise. Where I've got, I've taken one with my husband walking away and with myself walking away, and then with both of us walking away. So whoever dies, first the one who will go first, and then, when the other one goes to join them, we're both walking along the deck of the ship, which we love cruising. We've done 25 cruises or something like that, so it's most appropriate that that's how our dvd finishes, NOT with me in a hospital bed looking my absolute worst, you know. So, yeah, I can see why people do it and and I understand why people do it. I just tend to think, like you, maybe that's a home photo and not one (J: Yeah), remember them at their best. Rather than you know, perhaps we don't all look all that elegant if we've been sick for a long time.

Jason 25:35

My gosh. Yeah, look, and I think you know, obviously, when you choose your photos, it's a very emotional stage as you go through them. (R: Yeah), and then the funeral. And I sometimes wonder if those photos appear in midst funeral and they go "oh my gosh, mum would kill me if she knew I put that photo in. So, like I'm never quite sure how. What's the reality of that? But look, as we know, people do grief differently and you know we've seen some spectacular photos that we do wonder why, but we pop it in. We pop Frank Sinatra singing my Way right along with it.

Robyn 26:21

So that's my next question what is a song that you never want to hear again?

Jason 26:28

Oh, my God, My Way, My Way, My Way. Amazing Grace, True Blue, Unforgettable. Do you know? They're all fabulous songs, they really are, but wow, yes, we do hear them a lot. We do hear them a lot.

Robyn 26:56

I know when I've stayed with you I've heard many uh My Way and you know, as a celebrant I've I've listened to that time and time again. You know, when I started, the big one was Because You Loved Me and so you every second funeral had Because You Loved Me and everything and I actually thought I never wanted to hear that again until I actually did an Auslan funeral. So I had an Auslan interpreter there and she said to me "oh, she said, if you're having because you love me, I can sign that. And I went oh, wow, this will be great. Ok, so I can sit and watch. You know this interpretation with Auslan, because everybody was watching her, it was SO emotional that I had to stop watching her because I went 'I'm not going to be able to speak when I get back up there', because it was just, it was so beautiful and I kind of softened towards the song a bit afterwards, but then it wore me down again, you know, but it's, you know, there's seasons, isn't there? You know, for a while you'll have supermarket flowers, for a while you'll have, you know, all sorts of things one after the other. And you know and you kind of like, "oh, if I hear this song again. (J: absolutely, absolutely) Absolutely

Robyn 28:10

It's all about sort of you know, people picking, but the sad part is that often we know, as celebrants and you would too we know beautiful songs that would be so perfect. Yeah, but they've already kind of picked their songs and you know they've all kind of decided that you know, oh, we can have four songs, so each of the four children are going to pick a song and that's what they're going to go with, you know. So then what do you do when you've got? You know, you've got two songs, and one of them is, well, the two that you just gave me, True Blue and Unforgettable, in the same DVD presentation? How do you go from you know, John Williamson and his real ocker thing through to who, by the way, was my auntie's cousin, which is just a little name dropping there,

Jason 29:11

Sorry to offend anyone!

Robyn 29:14

You've got, you know, like two vastly different genres of music that somehow. How do you do that kind of? How do you make that work?

Creating Emotional Connection Through Media

Jason 29:26

Because we use transitions, like we use different effects in our transitions. We listen in to the music and when we hear big accents and big changes in the music we will put a different transition in. So rather than it just fade from one photo to the next, one fades out, one fades in, we might have like sun rays might come through or some sort of lighting effect that are all very soft and subtle. So we generally, in that change of music we will put a six to seven second transition that helps either one song finish or the next song start, so it just changes that pace rather than the songs blend over each other. (R: Right). And just one photo fades. One photo fades in. So we're very careful about the way we link our music together so that there is a nice overlap without there being a moment, you know what it's like in a chapel, two seconds of silence feels like 15 minutes. It just is the most, it's the longest. So we have that nice crossfade of music but the screen has a very distinctive change so that it just it's almost like you shut one book, picked up another, so that it's a nice transition across, I guess

Robyn 30:50

Yeah, because it's it's that's really important, because obviously those two songs are very important but they're such a different kind of (J: yeah) you'd be able to kind of meld and take people from thinking about one thing to another you know? (J: Y eah, yeah, absolutely)

Robyn 31:07

What excites you about your finished product? Like, how do you feel when you finish something because you you've never met this, these, this family, you you've, you've been given a bunch of photos and a couple of pieces of music and then you work your magic on it. What excites you about seeing that finished product?

Jason 31:29

Um, do you know? There are some, and I know this sounds really corny and and weird, but there are some photo tributes. When you, you get to the end, you just you know. You know this is lovely. This is because we, we edit all our photos, s o we go right through from start to end, we edit the photos, we work out what will sit behind them, what will complement them, how will this photo move on the screen, what will it do? So we do all of that to the photos, then we add the music and we start from the beginning and we play it and we stop and we adjust, and we play and we stop and we adjust, add our transitions, work out where they need to be. And when you get to the end, you, just as you see 'forever in our hearts' come across the screen and we close, we fade into a heart shape, comes across the screen.

Robyn 32:22

Yes, I love that.

Jason 32:23

You just, you actually go. Oh my gosh, this lady was just lovely. Oh wow, you just have a feeling you know the family is going to enjoy this and there are times where funeral directors will ring us and say the photo tribute got applause, (R: wow), and people clapped. Or today, people clapped at the end of the photo tribute and for us that is like a massive compliment, but we know that they're not going, ", bravo, the company that made this like that was spectacular. They clapped because the photo tribute moved them. Yeah, and they're clapping for the person who was in the photos and I love, love that.

Jason 33:08

Like, I'm a bit like you, I think. You know I'm not suggesting a funeral needs to be completely interactive, but there's time people get up and they speak and nobody claps and I think 'that was a beautiful story, clap, that was fabulous!' So you know, I guess I love hearing that occur during a photo tribute or at the end of the photo tribute. I love that people laugh during the photo tribute. But yeah, like for us, we will often you will hear the guys in the office say "this is a really nice tribute. This is you know, because sometimes you can get really poor quality photos, they're just, you know, that's just what there is. They're not clear, they're damaged and that's all the family have. And you put we do what we do to them. Then you put the music and you watch it through and you go 'wow, this has just come up really lovely. This is going to be a great time for the family to go through this'.

Robyn 34:23

So is there anyone has asked you to do anything that is out of the norm?

Jason 34:24

Look, norm, what a funny word. We've photoshopped things out of photos, (R: right) Yeah, things that have not been noticed initially, when the photo's been handed in, or perhaps when the photo's been taken and there's something hanging out of somebody's clothing that nobody realised. Or like yeah,

Robyn 34:44

You see it, don't you with the photo, with somebody in the nude taking the photo, and suddenly there it's back in the screen,

Jason 34:50

And they're like "oh, we didn't, we love the photo, but could we please take that bit out? So, or we've spotted on the photo and we've rung the funeral director and said, "do you just want to check if they really want this on a big screen? So we've rubbed things out, we've put people into photos that were never at the occasion. We've rubbed people out of photos and replaced them with other people. Right, someone maybe? You know, an ex or a mother-in-law that they don't like, and can you rub them out? So we've done that.

Robyn 35:35

I love it when they put the little clips of the person speaking in it. You know I've had a few lately where they've just had the person speaking at the end.

Jason 35:48

What do you mean? Oh, a bit of video. Yes, yeah, oh, video. If we can put video into a photo tribute, that's just another level. It's so awesome to either start a photo tribute with a bit of video footage it can sometimes sit in the middle between songs, which can help that transition and change the music. Yeah, yeah, if you've got some video footage that we can use at the end of a photo tribute, that is a whole other layer of amazing. Like it is incredible.

Robyn 36:25

No, I'm going to go back to that baby one again, because at the very end they had like about 10 seconds of her laughing. Yeah, and it was just oh, it was just the most beautiful feeling to watch it. It was just simply amazing.

Jason 36:40

Yeah, and you know, I don't think that changes irrespective of the age of the person. Obviously, when it's a baby it has a different tug at your heartstrings because you just know you shouldn't be there. But I think, irrespective of the age, if you can hear the person laugh, um so often we get a video where the person, the um, they're yelling "right by see, love you, yes, waving. I mean that is just something special to have finished the photo tribute, you know, come up and feel like have their voice fill the chapel. You know that's quite special.

Robyn 37:23

Maybe I should have been yelling out when I was walking away and they were filming me the other day.

Jason 37:26

Still time, Robyn, s till time!

Robyn 37:31

Do you have a favourite song that you really love seeing in those moments?

Jason 37:46

Do you know, like dare I say, Because You Loved Me is pretty nice, is quite nice. Probably one of my favourite, I think, for an older person, is Smile by Nat King Cole.

Robyn 38:01

Yes, I love that.

Jason 38:04

It is just, and I suggested it to a family just recently. They needed some more music because they hadn't put forward enough for the count of photos they had. And she asked me for some suggestions and and that was the first one I'd suggested, based on the fact I'd seen the photos, and she said, "oh okay, oh okay, I'll go, let me chat with my family and I'll call you back. And she rang me back and she said "now I have to tell you. When you said that, I thought what a strange suggestion. We're at a funeral and you're suggesting a song Smile. She said so, we listened to it. She said it is the most perfect song. And I said it really is. Sometimes people fill the photo tribute and the service with really sad, emotional music, and there's times for that. But sometimes I think in a photo tribute, pop in a really nice touching song, but pop in something that makes you smile and just brings that moment.

Robyn 39:08

Because I mean the words alone. You know, smile though your heart is breaking, (J: yeah), even though it's aching. (J: Yeah), there are clouds, there are skies.

Jason 39:20

It's such a lovely song

Robyn 39:21

Yeah, it's one of my favorites. M y, favourite, and the one that I've got down for my funeral. Yeah, because I've picked all of mine, um, being the organised person I am, um, but it's uh, it's from the, the Wicked, and it's For Good, because, you know, the words are so good, you know. Yeah, yeah, they say that people come into your lives for a reason, Yeah, bringing we must us to learn.

Jason 39:49

Beautiful song!

Robyn 39:49

But I love that there's a segue in it that says 'and just to clear the air, I ask for forgiveness for the things I've done you've blamed me for. But then again there's blame to share and none of it even matters anymore'. And I just think for people who've had that little bit of conflict and everything, just those words can do so much in a way that you know, that's just not possible, anything I say or anything that the family says, because in that moment they're looking at that person and they go. You know what? It doesn't matter anymore.

Jason 40:25

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Robyn 40:28

It's just really...

Jason 40:30

Music like the lyrics and music can speak such volumes in a service and give such a great message and so much comfort to people.

Robyn 40:40

Yeah. S o what do you think are some of the biggest challenges you face in your work, in this work?

Jason 40:50

Timeframes are tricky. The way we produce our photo tributes uh takes between, depending on the number of photos, can take us between two to three hours to put one together from start to finish, package it up, finalise everything, upload media if we need to, um. So sometimes we receive photos the day before a funeral. That's generally rare. That can put us under a lot of pressure, but generally, you know, the funeral world moves very fast and so time is generally our biggest challenge that we do. We don't always get the photos, I guess, as early as we would perhaps like them to allow us to really invest time in the photo tribute, um, you know, at the end of the day it takes us two to three hours, irrespective of whether the funeral is like tomorrow or in three days. So that's how long it takes us, and we don't, there's no way we can cut that corner, so we still invest the same amount of time. But sometimes you just want a little bit extra time because you think, 'oh, you know what I can just... I could this and I could that, and this is spectacular, and I can see how much this man loved, uh, his farm and the wheat, and if I just put a nice video in the background of the wheat moving you know, moves across the front. Um so sometimes you know that's challenging. So probably time is our, is our biggest, our biggest challenge. But I think we're probably all walking around asking for more of that in every job we work in.

Robyn 42:33

True. So how do you stay emotionally resilient and maintain a healthy work-life balance in this field?

Jason 42:41

We're all lunatics.

Robyn 42:45

I was going to say that, but you know.

Balancing Humor and Respect

Jason 42:50

Look, we recently brought somebody new, Dylan, into the team and we were really clear with him up front at the beginning that we're all pretty quirky in this office and please don't ever mistake our twisted sense of humour or our silliness for in any way a lack of respect for what we do. We see the honour in what we do and the privilege we have to work with these people's photos. You know families put a lot of trust and faith into us. They hand photos over to the funeral director that get given to a stranger. So you know we see the honour that we have in what we do. But really we do. We are, we're pretty crazy in the office and we do laugh a lot. We do banter a lot about what we're working on. Does this work? Does this look good? And none of us is precious. So we're quite happy to tell the other person "that actually looks crap, that what you've done there for the main screen is crap. You need to change it. So because we really care, like we want, from the minute the family walk into the chapel, we want what they see on the screen to look amazing. We want them to go. "Oh my gosh, mum looks beautiful. So yeah, we're pretty crazy.

Robyn 44:13

Yeah, and like you're all, if I'm correct, you're, I don't know about Dylan, but I certainly know that all the others are. Uh, you're all dancers?

Jason 44:23

Yes, we are.

Robyn 44:24

I think that I think that is a a very big way of um getting that timing and everything. Why you do it so well, because there's a rhythm and everything that you're working with in that music and you understand the music that you would normally interpret into dance. You're interpreting into something else and I think that is so obvious in your (I went to say DVDs again) presentations. That is so obvious to somebody like me who just sees all those transitions to the music and the. You know, if I go back to that baby's, one again, where the timing of everything to what was happening in the photos was just like it was magical. It really was magical and you know, it was just simply amazing.

Robyn 45:19

But where do you think the future technology is going to go? In the way that we remember our loved ones? What do you think? You know, because when I started we had cassettes and we had to hope that the funeral director put it in on the right side because otherwise you've got another song on the other side and you know all that. Or they put the wrong track on and it was meant to be this track and suddenly it was that track and it was meant to be some lovely song and it ended up to be 'Crazy' and all of those things that somehow afterwards, when you sort of go, this is so terrible and it's really sad that it's happened, they go look, that song actually suited them much better than what the other one did anyway.

Robyn 45:58

W here do you see this going? Like you know, I mean, I hope that we don't get to the stage where I sat through one presentation where it was all home movies and it was like sitting there going. This is like a home movie night? (J: Yeah,y eah).

Robyn 46:17

. Where do you think the next step will be in this?

Jason 46:23

Look, I think we're going to see more and more video in photo tributes, because people are walking around with an iPhone or thereabouts something like that constantly, so they're forever taking photos. So I do think we're going to see more and more video. I just hope that in that there's room to not always have the audio that's in the video, because sometimes the video is is the family dancing and you know what, and that's fun. That's really fun to have. But when you fade the song of the photo tribute in, out in, out in, out in out to hear the audio of a video like you can lose a lot of the impact. So, um, there's certainly when you hear them talking and things like that, you want to hear moments of that. So I do think we're going to see more and more sort of video.

Jason 47:24

We do laugh a little bit, given people are putting so many filters on their phones these days. We do think we laugh about photo tributes, in 20 years' time, when the photo up on the screen, nobody will recognise the deceased because it doesn't look anything like them, because they've put so many layers and filters on themselves on their phone they're not really sure who that is. So that will be fascinating, but I think, at the end of the day, photos are not going to go away. There will be less and less printed ones. Obviously, everything's still digital, but I don't think. I don't think a photo tribute is going to change enormously, because we're we're forever taking photos. I just think we'll see more video creep its way in which there's space for um as long as it's done really well, I think.

Robyn 48:19

In one of the services that I did, I have to say that I saw the best eulogy ever, and that was done by the grandchildren. Each of the grandchildren took their grandparent to one of the places where they grew up and talked with them about that. "So this is the school that you went to, Pop. What do you remember about this? And he said, well, you know that was there, and yada, yada, yada. And it was amazing and I kind of like went, wow, that's a really interesting concept. And they another one interviewed him in the chair and they spliced this all together, that became the eulogy, with him actually telling his own story, which was really lovely.

Jason 49:02

Wow that's awesome.

Robyn 49:03

I'm not ready to do that yet. But you know who knows? Who knows when I get there?

Jason 49:14

That's a really nice way of doing that. I attended a funeral the other day. I was there to play the, all the um AV gear and the daughter of the deceased um. We had put together there were six photos and they just looped to this Ed Sheeran song. And for love nor money I cannot think of the name of the song just now but the, the deceased's daughter, said I, "I can't actually stand up here and and talk because I know I, I will struggle. So I actually want this song to speak on my behalf. And we listened to the song and I don't think I've ever heard the lyrics in the manner I heard it, even though I didn't know this lady's mum the photos and seeing how it touched everybody in the chapel, I thought how fascinating that her tribute to her mum was done by Ed Sheeran. You know the lyrics of his song said everything she wanted to say about her mum. Wish I could think of the song, but anyway, yeah it's, I love how people are using media more and more in funerals to help tell a tale.

Robyn 50:27

Yes, yeah, you know, I mean. They say, you know, picture paints a thousand words, doesn't it yeah?

Jason 50:33

Absolutely.

Robyn 50:33

And if you put the right song to it, it just can tell the most amazing story ever.

Robyn 50:43

To wrap up our sessions, as a big fan of the actor's studio, I'm going to take a leaf from their book and ask a series of questions to each of our guests. So there's seven questions.

Robyn 50:54

What is your favourite word and why??

Jason 50:58

My favourite word... can I have two? (R: You can) Yes I probably I think I sign off nearly every single one of my emails with 'have fun' (R: right, excellent) so when I send an email to funeral director, I generally don't, I won't write that if I'm emailing a family, but when I'm emailing a funeral director or it's work related, I sign off. Have fun, um, and I just, I don't know, I literally I genuinely mean that like 'have fun'. Like there's so much else going on in the world, 'have fun',

Robyn 51:39

Yeah true. What is the thing that you are most grateful for in life?

Jason 51:49

My granddaughter.

Robyn 51:51

Oh, she's just the best. It brings a whole new meaning, doesn't it?

Jason 51:58

My gosh doesn't it, Doesn't it ever.

Robyn 52:02

I have to add for those listening, you have never seen a child that is so spoiled, which is what Gracie is. No, that's okay. She has very adoring grandparents, and heaven help her if she ever has another little one come along, because there she's might just be knocked off her perch and not...

Jason 52:19

I know I'm not sure how that's, I don't know how to do that, but we'll have a go

Robyn 52:25

If you could work in any other role rather than what you do now, what would it be?

Jason 52:36

Um, do you know, I guess, like I'm already doing it, like I educate children, obviously away from Still Moments in Time, I teach dance. Um, I love that role. To be able to teach children um, of all ages is one of the most rewarding things I do. Like I don't know that I would want a different role we joke about the winning lotto but I would still do exactly what I do every day at the studio.

Robyn 53:06

Yeah, I agree. What is the sound that you love the most?

Jason 53:12

The coffee machine.

Robyn 53:13

Oh really?

Jason 53:16

No, the sound. Do you know music? I just love hearing music, like, yeah, I think it's not really a specific sound, I just enjoy hearing music.

Robyn 53:35

If you could have dinner with one person, living or dead, who would it be?

Jason 53:46

My Nan.

Robyn 53:48

I knew you were going to say that. I knew you were going to say that.

Jason 53:50

I just had to get my breath together to be able to say it without crying

Robyn 53:55

Otherwise known as SuperNan. Yes, uh, beautiful Edna.

Robyn 54:00

Okay, what do you think is the most important lesson in life that you have learned so far?

Jason 54:16

Oh, that's tricky, isn't it?

Jason 54:18

Don't sweat the small stuff

Robyn 54:20

Okay, and directly from the actor's studio. If there is a heaven, what would you want God to say to you when you're met at the pearly gates?

Jason 54:30

Your Nan's over there

Robyn 54:34

Thank you so much for your time, Jason Khune, one of the most creative people I know, and, as we wrap up this podcast, I hope you enjoyed it. If you have a question you'd like to ask or any other related occupation you'd like to learn about, please drop an email to ask@ ladyofdeath. com. au, and we will look at possibly doing a podcast of the questions that you always wanted to know but never knew who to ask.

Robyn 55:00

This is Robyn O'Connell, the Lady of Death, whose philosophy is organising your final farewell is not about wanting to die. It's about wanting to reflect who you really are in your goodbye.

Robyn 55:12

See you next time.