1 Birthday Everyday: Taking "Just A Second" Up A Notch

[Kent Frost]

I had an awesome idea this afternoon and have been posting this everywhere else, so I figured you guys would love to get in on this, too.

http://facebook.com/1birthdayeveryday



I've been making these "daily second" videos for 3 years now. But I've decided to shake things up a bit this year and ask YOU for video material to make my next one for 2015. Send me a video clip from your birthday this year. I will sift through all the video I receive and choose the best 1-second clip for each day. This is going to be awesome! :D

Here's what you need to do:

1. SET A REMINDER. Create an alarm or a calendar event on your phone to go off either on your birthday or on the date of your birthday celebration.

2. FILM STUFF. Grab footage of the best moments of your birthday celebration that you can and at the highest resolution your camera or phone will allow. Try to keep your clips under 1 minute each, but take as many as you like until you get THE moment you want to submit. Get as creative as you want, and use whatever kind of camera you want. The more clips you get, the better chance you'll have at getting the best moment. DO NOT film vertically. Vertical video clips will not be accepted, so be sure to hold your phone/camera horizontally so your screen is wide rather than tall. If you have the ability to change your framerate, I prefer 30fps (29.97), but I'll take anything.

3. SEND IT TO ME. Once you've got the moment you want to submit, email it to 1birthdayeveryday@gmail.com.

HOW CLIPS WILL BE SELECTED:
Obviously, I'll be getting multiple clips for any one particular date, and I'm sure it'll happen all throughout the year. So here's how I plan to handle it. I'm going to choose which is the most powerful of the submissions for any given date based on content. And not just visual content necessarily, so I encourage people to include explanations with their submissions if there is any kind of compelling background story that may not be obvious on the surface of your clip. At the beginning of next year when I post the video, I plan to include any text given to me by the submitters. I'm approaching this as an unbiased party looking for a cool video project (meaning my friends and family have only as good a chance at making it in this video as everybody else who submits a clip), and I thought this would pretty friggin neat if we could pull it off.

IF THE CLIP OF YOUR BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION HAPPENS ON A DIFFERENT DAY FROM YOUR ACTUAL BIRTHDAY:
Because sometimes your birthday happens on a freaking MONDAY. I'll still accept your video, but you must be willing to accept the spot in the video for the date that your clip was filmed. So, if your birthday is on April 12, but you celebrated it and filmed it on April 14, if you get chosen then your clip will get the April 14 spot in the video rather than your actual birthday. This just keeps with true chronological order.

BY SUBMITTING YOUR CLIP TO BE USED IN THE "1 BIRTHDAY EVERYDAY" PROJECT, you agree to allow me - Kent Frost, editor - the proper rights necessary to use your clip - should it be chosen - in said project to be publicly posted on the web via such formats as Youtube and/or Vimeo.

Did I leave anything out? Feel free to email me with any questions! 1birthdayeveryday@gmail.com

[Francesco Carzedda]

Great idea to transpose the text from image to webpage,
users of assistive technologies will be grateful.
Although some, the non-sighted users, are not filmmakers, everyone is likely to contribute.
C U on april 4th !

[Steve Grisetti]

I've signed up for November 17, Kent. Proud to be a part of one of your projects!

Although I'm not sure if e-mailing videos to you is such a good idea. They can get pretty bulky -- even a minute a video.

May I suggest setting up a Dropbox instead?

[Kent Frost]

Although I'm not sure if e-mailing videos to you is such a good idea. They can get pretty bulky -- even a minute a video.

May I suggest setting up a Dropbox instead?

I considered that because I know that email attachment size limit is 25MB at most, but my dropbox is full.
If nothing else, people could simply upload it to youtube, vimeo, or even facebook, and I can pull it from there.

[Kent Frost]

In fact, Vimeo allows for "original file" downloads.

[John 'twosheds' McDonald]

You can use Wetransfer:-

https://www.wetransfer.com/

You have to pay for the >2GB file service but files under 2GB are transferred free. Be warned - the <2GB facility is available on their website but sometimes it takes a bit of fishing around before you find it.

I have used the facility several times and it works a treat.

[Kent Frost]

I've decided that for the amount of footage I'm asking for from everyone (1 minute or less), that Vimeo is going to be the best answer here (image in original post has been update). Not only does Vimeo offer a "download original file" option (which of course the user has to turn on), but for days I get multiple entries, it allows me a way to view the videos before downloading them. So not only will I be able to choose the best clip before downloading it, but it'll prevent people from sending me nefarious types of files.

[momoffduty]

Great idea Kent! Good idea on uploading to Vimeo too. A basic membership has the original file available for 1 month. For a Plus user it is as long as you keep your Plus account.