Start Planning for Your End-of-Year Video Now

Did you make an end-of-year video looking back on 2015? If so, you know just how hard it can be to think back over 12 months and try to remember all the stand-out moments. No doubt, the moment after you share your video with the world, you’ll remember something fun you forgot to include. That’s why we’ve put together a list of tips to help you get started now so that, come December, making your 2016 end-of-year video will be a breeze.

What are you recapping?

First things first: you’ll need to decide what you’ll be recapping. You can make an end-of-year video about your family, your business, hobbies, progress on your goals — anything goes! Once you’ve decided what you want to share, here’s the most important thing to remember: take photos and video clips of milestone moments and progress of whatever you’ll be recapping throughout the year. Without them, your end-of-year video won’t accomplish much.

Need a little inspiration? Check out the 2015 recap of family milestones from blogger Jennifer Borget, below. Creating a video for your business? Check out Facebook marketing Expert Mari Smith’s 2015 Year In Review video on Facebook.

Style: Air
**Song: “A Touch Down” by Jon Robert

Collecting photos & videos throughout the year

Animoto CEO Brad Jefferson has created a Jefferson family end-of-year video to send to his friends and family every year for the past 8 years. In 2015, he decided to document his process and came away with some awesome tips for collecting photos and videos throughout the year:

• Save all of your photos in one place. Brad collects photos using the Photos app on his iPhone. If he’s shot photos or video clips on devices other than his phone, he imports them into Photos as well, for easy access at the end of the year. You could also use Dropbox or simply create a folder on your desktop to store everything in one place.
• Stay current. Remember that this is supposed to be fun! That’s why Brad recommends going through photos and video clips at the end of each month, so that choosing your favorites at the end of the year won’t be overwhelming. You can heart your faves, add them to an album, or collect them in whatever way works best for you.
• Look for themes. You may start out the year with a particular theme in mind — maybe you want to focus on the growth of your children, your travels, or hobbies you’ve taken up. But as you take a monthly look back at your photos and video clips, keep an eye out for new themes you may not have thought of but would be fun to incorporate in your year end video.

If you follow these simple tips for gathering everything you need for your recap video throughout the year, once the end of the year approaches, you’ll be able to focus on making your video all it can be — rather than stressing about which moments to include. We’ll be back in the fall with more tips on how to compile all of the photos and video clips you’ve collected to make your best end-of-year video ever.

Did you recap 2015 with video? We’d love to see what you did! Share a link with us in the comments or reach out on Facebook or Twitter.