Riley Year 3: Age 3-4
Three years ago, I gave my impossible-to-shop-for husband a video that covered our adoption process for Christmas. He loved it. Every year since, he has asked for a new video to sum up our year.
The video gives him a chance to see many missed moments that I've captured on video when he has to work. For me, it gives me the opportunity to experiment and refine new editing techniques.
Objective
The objective of an Annual Video is to highlight the major events. It's also important to show how much the child has grown and changed over the year.
My other objective was to develop and refine many new editing techniques.
Adoption videos for the most part have to be told linearly. With this video, I wanted push the boundaries of what's traditionally seen in the average home video and edit without being constrained by chronological order.
Challenges
How can I edit in a totally new way? After three years and 2 videos, how do I make this third video different, not just in technique but in storytelling?
Adoption videos must be somewhat chronological in order for the story to make sense. But with an annual video, I have much more leniency to sculpt time in a different way.
Solutions
With this piece, I decided to edit thematically rather than chronologically.
The first section shows how much our child has grown. The footage contained shots of winter storms, summer rains, and autumn leaves. I expanded on that idea to a theme “Seasons” in the middle section. The idea was to show the contrast between the cold winter and warm summer. This was further enhanced by giving the winter footage a cool bluish tint, and a warm yellow to the summer shots. The result can be viewed in the sample.