Live streaming a funeral, trashy yes?

[justiceischeap]

The funeral for the 48-year-old singer will be invitation-only, with a guest list that reportedly includes Oprah Winfrey, Elton John, David Bowie, Bill Cosby and Beyoncé and Jay-Z. According to E! News, Kevin Costner, who co-starred with Houston in her hit movie "The Bodyguard," will speak at the service. Pastor Marvin L. Winans, who married Houston and her ex-husband Bobby Brown and was part of the gospel superstar group The Winans, will deliver the eulogy.

Police plan to block off a six-block area around the church to maintain the service's privacy and they encourage fans to stay home and watch the service, which will be broadcast live on the Internet and several networks.

http://bit.ly/w6LzM3

I find the idea of live streaming a funeral to be a bit... low rent. Is that just my inner whatever rising to the top? Of course, the idea of taking photos of someone in a casket freaks me out a little too.

[Systematic Chaos]

1. If streaming it is trashy, then so is attending it live.

Now if they charge to watch the stream, then you're on to something.

[justiceischeap]

2. I see your point

maybe I'm not conveying my point correctly. I mean trashy and low rent as in, "Can't they do better for her?" It seems a little too little, I guess.

[hlthe2b]

4. They wanted to control the attendence... That's why it isn't at the 3000 person venue in Newark

that early reports had suggested would host a memorial service a la Michael Jackson. I think they really wanted to avoid a bizarre circus atmosphere, which is probably why early reports suggested they wanted to exclude Bobby Brown. While I'm sure there is little love lost with respect to Brown, I think they were also sensitive to his bringing some major disruptive entourage. Announcing that it would be small and invitation only, gave them some control over that, but apparently resulted in considerable public (fan) backlash. I think this is their attempt to find a compromise.

Televised coverage of Michael' Jackson's or Princess Di's funeral or bringing cameras into livestream... Seems pretty much all the same to me.

[nolabear]

3. I don't know. My Great Aunt's funeral was streamed.

She was really old, lots of friends were too old or ill to attend, she had relatives who couldn't come and they watched it online. It was kind of weird (I saw some of it afterward) to be sure but they were happy with it.

[dimbear]

5. Strange true fact: before the days of embalming, people were sometimes buried

with connected telephones in the casket. Nowadays tossing in a cell phone would just seem like ordinary courtesy.

Oh. And I'm blocking that number.

[Phentex]

6. It doesn't bother me at all...

especially for someone famous.

What makes it low rent?

[justiceischeap]

7. With all the hoopla, I just expected them to do more

for her. Live streaming quality often isn't all the great, and the more people that jump on, the quality declines further. That's what makes it low rent IMO. I think they'd be better off not doing anything at all than doing something that isn't the greatest tech. Besides, it kinda seems kinda disrespectful. Do we now expect celebrity funerals to be broadcast since they did it for Michael Jackson? All in the eye of the beholder, I guess.

[Chan790]

8. In some sense, public funerary broadcast of celebrities is not new.

They've been broadcast on TV, both public and closed-circuit. Back before TV, it was quite common to broadcast funerals on the radio and over loudspeaker to massing crowds outside of churches too small to hold all the mourners.

In fact, this all started with the use of criers in the middle ages who used to "broadcast" funerals and cathedral masses (the lower classes were not permitted to enter the cathedral or observe masses performed by the bishop typically) to the throngs outside of the church using a method somewhere between a game of telephone and the people's microphone. (The people responsible for this system and making sure that the called-forth Mass remained doctrinally-correct were called Cantors and were also the music-directors and choral lead-singers of the parish.)

I mean I get what you're saying, it seems kind of trashy and low-rent. If I were tasked to do it, I'd probably do it on a 20-second delay as that would allow time to clean-up the quality, edit if necessary and make it look clean & professional but is not so long as to be noticeable to the public mourners. Also, delay means the viability of splitting streaming across multiple-feeds to prevent quality-decay. (digital media services tech: another of the 100+ random jobs I've had by age 30.)

[UnrepentantLiberal]

9. And then there's Bobby Brown...

BobbyBrownleaves WhitneyHouston funeral in seating dispute

Published: February 18, 2012 3:30 PM By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS



Whitney Houston's ex-husband, Bobby Brown, briefly appeared at her funeral before leaving.

Brown arrived as the service began. He walked to the casket, touched it and walked to the back of the New Jersey church Saturday.

Brown says in a statement that he and his children were seated but asked repeatedly to move.

Brown added, "Security then prevented me from attempting to see my daughter Bobbi-Kristina. In light of the events, I gave a kiss to the casket of my ex-wife and departed as I refused to create a scene."

[Phentex]

10. I am kicking this to add...

that on the news this morning, they announced that the funeral of a local marine who died recently will be videotaped so that marines in Florida could watch.

Trashy?

[alphafemale]

11. Does that hand - lettered sign say caskets for sale or RENT?

That's trashy.

Streaming a funeral not so much.

As other posters said above it could be very useful for people unable to attend a funeral in person.

National Enquirer posting a picture of Whitney in her casket against her family's wishes was beyond tacky. It was a horrid thing to do.

[SwissTony]

12. The mother of my daughter's best friend died last year (in Holland).

She had friends and colleagues in Curacao who couldn't attend the funeral. It was webcast but viewers had to have a URL, a username and a password.

It was a private ceremony but it was webcast.