Last year I undertook a video project: 1 Second Everyday for 2021. This is the result:
You also may have seen these clips one week at a time in each of my 2021 TWiP posts.
They’re also viewable in monthly chunks (minus any background music) on YouTube, if you want to look at a particular month but don’t have 12 minutes to spare for the full year video 🙂
The Details
Apps
- My Samsung s9‘s camera to capture the clips
- The 1 Second Everyday app on my phone to trim, organize, and output the mashed clips on a weekly and monthly basis, and for one final end-of-year collection
- Adobe Premiere Rush on my computer to add music and intro/outro screens to the final end-of-year video above
Variations
Although the name of the app is 1 Second Everyday, I bought a year of Pro, which allowed me to take multiple daily clips, and for a different length of time. I chose 1.5-seconds, because I felt that it gave me an opportunity to give each clip more context, while still being short enough to keep to the spirit of the 1SE idea.
Additionally, there were many days where I took more than one clip, and there were a few days where I missed filming clips at all. On some of those days I filled in still photos, but I just let other days go. It was all in keeping with my new laid-back daily photo-taking approach for 2021 🙂
Thoughts on Future Projects
Will I do this again? Probably someday. Not in 2022, because I think I need a break. But I’ll do it again someday. I liked that it forced me to look for (or create) video-worthy opportunities on a regular basis. And I enjoyed the challenge of trying to find other angles for filming the same-old same-old. For example, you’ll find that my morning coffee figured into a lot of these clips, but I tried not to capture it from the same vantage point every time. And there was a lot of knitting or crocheting in there. But then, that’s what I do in my spare time, so that shouldn’t be surprising ;-P
I decided to do this project when I came across a few videos from 2018 – the first time I tried this. I only managed 3 non-consecutive months with that project, but those little films contained clips with my dad, his brother, a great-uncle, and a cat, all of whom are no longer with us. It made me realize that even though I have a huge library of photographs of the people I love, there’s something extra special about moving pictures.
Videos like this are valuable. Capturing the bits and pieces from daily life is valuable.
So, yes, I’m glad I did this, and Future Me will appreciate it even more, I have no doubt.
For 2022, I’ll probably pop into my Instagram stories more often. And I’ll do some little one-off video projects as the mood strikes.
Recommendations
If this kind of thing interests you, I can recommend 1SE. There’s no reason why it has to be for a full year, either. Maybe you want to capture every day of your birthday month. Or take videos while on a special vacation. You could, of course, just collect clips on your phone or SD card, but it’s nice to have an app that will let you trim them, and store them in an organized way.
If you can’t see yourself doing the daily thing, but you like the idea of producing personal short films, I highly recommend Xanthe Berkeley’s Handmade Films class. There’s a new session starting at the end of January. I took the class in April 2020, and I learned a lot. Plus I produced a week’s worth of videos that documented my life at an interesting time in the world. Even now, a mere 1.5 years later, it’s fascinating to look back at the time I had to buy toilet paper from my sister-in-law’s stash, or how I had to put on a mask and gloves, and wipe down every surface, just to buy bagels on the weekend. Strange times, then. It may not seem like it sometimes, but we’ve come a long way since those early pandemic days!
If you have any questions about taking on a project like this, be sure to ask. I’m happy to share what I know 🙂
