Making fun and easy videos

by Lara I've been wanting to make fun little videos of the kids for awhile but I often get derailed when trying to figure out how I would do it: what software would I need? Where do I find copyright free music?

Then I remembered a program I've seen a lot of photographers use and decided to try it out : Animoto.

It was easy as anything.  Free if you're happy with videos that are 30 seconds or less or for $30 for the year, you get access to more themes and you can make your videos as long as you want.

It was super straightforward to figure out and within minutes I had made this video:

Then I saw they were advertising their iPhone app so I downloaded that and then created another video right from my phone (nothing could be more convenient since my phone and iPad are where I take all my videos of the kids)

Have you ever played around with making fun little videos of the kids? What do you use?

Do you take the time to take video?

by Lara I'm not great at remembering to take video of the kids, heck, some months I'm not good at remembering to take photos of the kids.  But every once in awhile, as I look back through the videos we HAVE taken I realize just what a wonder the videos are.

Memories

Videos are a great way to remember more than just what your kids looked like at that time in their lives.  The way they sounded, just how much they could talk or not talk, the excitement of learning to walk, etc.

It's so lovely to just look back at those times and remember

Juliette at 13 months

Kiernan, 4.5, singing waving flag

For Christmas Kiernan got a very funny/gross gift. I recorded us trying it out :)

Entertainment

As much as I love the videos for the value of wonderful memories I sometimes wonder if the bigger memories isn't the HOURS of entertainment we can have watching the videos again! The kids ADORE watching videos of themselves when they were younger!

Quinn, 6 months old, gets the giggles

Kiernan was an early talker - here he is at 13 months. I think he sounds clearer here than one of my 2.5 year olds ;)

How

A lot of smart phones can take videos - does yours? I have a flip camera which makes it very easy to take a short video and upload it without needing to download anything off cassette. Whatever way you use, just remember to capture the little moments. And share them - we'd love to see some of yours!

Do you take video of your kids?