2018

DIY Mitzvah
Montage Guide

M

Jason Miller

Jews in the
Digital Age

ontage is a French
word meaning
“the technique of
producing a new compos-
ite whole from fragments of
photographs, text, or music.”
However, ask anyone who
has been to a bar mitzvah or
bat mitzvah in the past two
decades, and they will describe
it as the 10-minute video of
family photos highlighting the
development of the bar mitz-
vah boy or bat mitzvah girl.
It’s quite possible that my
bar mitzvah party back in
October 1989 had the first
do-it-yourself (DIY) video
montage. My father cre-
ated a montage using printed

photographs he digitized
with a camcorder and then
assembled using the family’s
Commodore Amiga computer.
He recorded the montage (we
called it a “slideshow”) onto a
VHS tape and had it displayed
on a large movie screen fol-
lowing the candle-lighting
ceremony. My father controlled
the production with the large
VCR remote control from his
seat in the hotel ballroom. No
one had ever seen such a pro-
duction before, but it certainly
caught on.
Today, no mitzvah celebra-
tion is complete without the
montage. Knowing a few tricks
will help you assemble your

own without much hassle.
The most important thing to
remember when creating your
montage is not to bore your
guests. After all, they came
to celebrate; they don’t want
to sit and watch hundreds of
photos of your family’s cruise
to Alaska. Keeping the entire
montage to approximately
100-150 photos (about four-
five songs) is ideal. You want
to feature the bar mitzvah boy
or bat mitzvah girl, but there
shouldn’t be too many photos
of them alone.

VARIETY

Choosing the photos for the
montage is the most difficult

continued on page 16

C14

celebrate! • 2018

jn