Well, 2020 ended up being quite a year, right? We all know the bad stuff, but I really prefer to focus on the good stuff - quiet moments at home (lots of them!), great church services (I think I've enjoyed church more this last year than I ever have), trips both close to home and several states away, plenty of soccer games and dance performances (although not a many as a normal year), lots of time out in nature, and lots and lots of laughs. That's how I want to remember 2020. I heard this great quote on a podcast once: "Live the story you want to tell." So , for the most part, as much as I could, I lived 2020 the way I want to remember it - full of love and laughs and hope. Here's to hoping that 2021 is better for our country and our world!
Here's a little glimpse of my year. I used the 1 Second Everyday app to put this together throughout the year. Read below for a few tips for using the app and capturing your own year in video! It's not too late to start!
I actually heard about this app from a bride from 2019. When I saw her video on Facebook, I knew I wanted to try it for myself. I'm usually really bad at long projects - I can't even tell you how many Project 52s and 365s I've attempted over the years - but for whatever reason, I was able to stick with this one. I love it because before last year I didn't really take a lot of videos. Sure, I recorded dance recitals and stuff like that, but for the most part I stuck to photos because that's my comfort zone, so this forced me to remember to take videos of the small stuff too. This was really a low pressure project - it's all just videos from my phone (yes, my DSLR takes videos too but honestly it kind of intimidates me for some reason). Here are a few things I learned about working with the 1 Second Everyday app last year:
1. Make sure to take all your videos in the same orientation (horizontal or vertical).
This one is really just a personal preference, but I just think it looks a lot better. You can switch it up, it just looks a lot nicer if they're all the same. Otherwise, you'll have black bars beside the ones that are different. I tend to take all my videos in landscape (horizontal) orientation anyway, but I had to remember that if I handed my phone off to someone else I needed to remind them to turn it because most people default to portrait/vertical orientation. There's not a right or wrong way, I just suggest picking one and sticking to it.
2. Don't quit if you miss a day.
I tried to get a video every day in the beginning, but a few months in I just gave up and decided to fill the squares. Do what works for you, but for me I just wanted a record of the year and didn't mind if I had 5 videos from one day then none for the next week. In the end, I had 366 little moments of my life captured, and to me that's all that really mattered. If it's important to you to have a video from every single day, I suggest turning on the reminders in the app settings or setting a reminder on your phone or watch.
When you open the app, there's a calendar. You just tap the day you want to fill, tap on choose snippet, and choose the video you want to use. Scroll through the thumbnails to find the second you want to use. The app automatically saves that second and backs it up when you're on wifi, so if you delete the original video that second is still in your project. You can also go back and replace your clips with others if you change your mind.
3. Make sure you get in the frame.
Hand your phone off to someone else once in a while or get a little tripod. I tend to hate videos of myself even more than photos, but I did it anyway and I'm glad I did. This is my life after all, so I should be documented too!
4. You can start this anytime - no need to wait till January 1 rolls around again.
You can either go back and fill in the videos for the days you missed, or you can just start now and go until this time next year. You can even just do a week or month at a time, or whatever you want. Play around with the features on the app - the free version is limited to 1 second per day and 1 project at a time, but if you pay for a subscription there are more options, like longer clips, unlimited projects, and more editing options. I'll probably try that out this year because I want to add music next time and I want to make a separate video for our vacation to Montana this summer and maybe even go back to make one for our wild west roadtrip from 2019 - I still haven't done anything with those videos!
I hope this has been helpful and that it inspires you to capture your life in video - obviously I love photos, but video is awesome too! It was so much fun to see the whole video at the end of the year, and I think I'll love it even more watching it years from now!
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