Hi folks

This page is top secret. Please don’t tell Kim.

What we’re looking to do is put together a birthday video for Kim. We’d like you to put together two videos and send them along to us, then I’ll combine them, and then we can post it.

If you have any questions about any of this then please don’t hesitate to get in touch with either Donna or me.

See some of the video tips at the bottom of the page. These may help make things easier.

The first video – your individual message to Kim

The first video is taken with your phone in landscape mode. You accept something that someone on your right hands you — don’t forget to thank them, then you give your own Happy Birthday message to Kim — and then you hand the thing to someone on your left — don’t forget to name them. I’ve used a teddy bear, but it doesn’t matter what you use — a beer, a canoe paddle, a fish — it doesn’t matter. These can also be done as individual people, but it may be better to do them as a household. I’ll string these together one after another.

You can see who you are receiving the thing from and who you are handing it off to in the table below. In that table we have households listed.

Here is a sample:

The second video – a greeting from all of us to Kim

The second video is with your phone in portrait mode. This video will be of you holding up your letter or number of balloon and saying “Happy Birthday Kim!”. When you take this video, try to leave a couple of seconds before and a couple of seconds after you say “Happy Birthday Kim”. This will help me make sure that I can put the whole thing together.

You can see what letter or number of balloon you are holding up in the table below.

You can download a PDF of all of the letters and numbers by clicking here.

I used regular size letter paper, with the letter centered, upper case, 700 point, and a Lucinda Console font. This provides a very clear picture of the letter.

Most of us will be holding a letter, but some of us will need to hold a balloon. This can be a real balloon or a picture of a balloon.

Please try to match the pace that Donna is using here. You’ll see why this is important when you watch the third video.

Here is a sample:

The full video

Here is a sample of the full video to Kim. Please watch the full video to see the type of thing that we would give Kim. It’s about 20 seconds long.

Once you’ve finished recording your videos please e-mail them to me — prussellster@gmail.com

If e-mail doesn’t work then please get in touch with us and we’ll work out how to get them to us.

List of participants

Video tips

• Take the video inside, with no fan or heat pump on (you can hear the heat pump behind us). This is to reduce wind noise. As nice as it would be to have an outdoor video, the mic on a phone will pick up the wind more than it will hear you. Audio quality is very important.
• Leave extra time before and after the video. This will help me merge them.
• Speak clearly and slowly. Enunciate. Did I mention that audio quality is very important?
• Use a music stand, or something like that, to grab the item that you will hold. This allows you to reach straight out for it, instead of reaching up or down.
• Don’t forget to smile!
• Pay attention to the audio quality. It’s more important than the video quality.