birthday video messages from friends

why video lands

people reread a birthday message, but they replay a birthday video. a face says things a sentence can't: the laugh before the punchline, the dog walking into frame, the friend who's clearly filming at work. it's also the easiest way to bring in the people who are far away, the grandparents, the friend who moved abroad, the cousin with a newborn, because all they need is a phone and twenty seconds.

one montage, or a pile of clips

there are two ways to do it. a montage is one film: someone collects every clip and edits them together. it's lovely to watch with everyone at once, but somebody spends an evening in an editor, and any clip that arrives late misses the cut.

a collection keeps every clip as its own little card. nobody edits anything, late clips still land, and the birthday person can watch them one at a time, in any order, as often as they like. it's the easier one to run, and the one that scales: forty friends at twenty seconds each is a quarter of an hour of watching, not a weekend of editing.

birthdayland is the second kind. each friend films a clip on their own card (up to 30 seconds right in the browser, or an upload up to a minute), and it plays on the board beside their note. it doesn't stitch the clips into one film. on Party and up you can download every card and video as a zip, so if someone still wants to cut a montage, the raw clips are all there.

what to ask people to film

"just say happy birthday" gets you forty identical clips. give people a prompt instead, and let them ignore it:

• who you are and how you met them. the first ten seconds, for the friends who haven't met each other.
• one memory, in one breath. the story, not the summary.
• a toast. raise whatever's in your hand.
• where you are right now. a kitchen, a beach, a desk at work. show them the room.
• the song. sing badly. this is not optional for some friend groups.
• a cameo. the dog, the baby, the flatmate who's never met them and wants to say hi anyway.

how long a clip should be

aim for fifteen to thirty seconds. that's long enough for one story and short enough that people actually film it, instead of waiting for the perfect take. it adds up fast, too: thirty friends at thirty seconds each is fifteen minutes of video, which is about as long as anyone can watch in one sitting before they start crying or laughing too hard to continue.

filming tips that take ten seconds

• face a window. light in front of you, never behind. it beats any setting on the phone.
• get close to the mic. a quiet room, or the phone at arm's length, not across the table.
• phone at eye level. nobody's best angle is from below.
• say their name in the first second. it's what they'll hear first, every time they replay it.
• one take is fine. the stumbles are the good bits.

deadlines and stragglers

video is the thing people put off, because they want to look nice. ask two to three weeks ahead, set the deadline three days before the birthday, and send one reminder the day before it. then message the last few directly. tell them a clip from the bus is perfect, and that a photo with a note is fine if they really can't face the camera.

showing them on the day

you can open them together on a call, so everyone watches the birthday person watch them, or send the link and let them take it in alone. both work; the call is louder.

on a birthdayland site each clip plays on its friend's card on the board, and a friend can pick their clip, not just a selfie, as the face their little character wears on the island. the birthday person walks up to each one to hear what they said, and every hug lights a candle on the cake in the middle.