Caesar instituted January 1 as the first day of the year, partly to honor the month's namesake: Janus, the Roman god of beginnings, whose two faces allowed him to look back into the past and forward into the future. This has grown into a time of year when the world is coated with happiness and glitter. After a year of hard work, it undoubtedly is one of the most celebrated festivals.
2020 failed all our festive plans. As far as a fun year goes 2020 pretty much took a 180 degree turn Festivals were focussed more on family bonding than splurging on gifts. Friends and families have come a long way and have become closer than ever in 2021. The new New Year’s “tradition” had become all about staying at home and having fun with the family!
New Year's gifts often express affection. Before Christmas became the most popular gift giving holiday, New Year's was the day to treat your friends, family and leaders with gifts. In the tradition of good wishes and embarking on a fresh new year, most gifts symbolize wealth, prosperity, fertility or luck.
To convey your love for someone, nothing can beat the appeal of personalized gifts. A group video gift with people who mean a lot can make an ordinary greeting extraordinary.
It’s oh-so easy to turn your video clips into a personalized video that will show how much you care. Check out our step-by-step instructions to create and share your own New Year’s group video greeting in no time at all. This guide will also provide different message ideas that you can give to all who you want to contribute to your surprise New Year's group video gift.
How to Compile Happy New Year Messages Into One Surprise Video Gift
Step 1: Create a Celebration
You are initiating the whole process and also choosing the cast for your group video gift. You are the producer and the director of the show. The “Create a Celebration” refers to the step when you have to choose the following:
- First of all, fill in the name of the person who is going to receive the gift.
- Next, make sure you are choosing the occasion of the celebration, which in this case is New Year’s.
- You will further have an option to select the day you want to share the video with the recipient, which in this case would be the 1st of January.
- Then, choose the deadline for the contributors of your video gift. It’s recommended that you choose a deadline several days before the 1st of January so that everyone in your family and friends get enough time to contribute to the gift and you get enough time to edit it.
- Once you have chosen the dates, you can choose the style of the video you want to create.
- Classic: Collect a single video message from each person before an event to share at the event
- Q&A: Collect several video clips from each person before an event to share at the event. A fun style for all occasions listed in the Classic style plus party games, documentary style videos and interviews.
- Video Guestbook: Capture the magic of the event. Instead of old-school guestbooks, your guests record messages at the event to create a lifetime keepsake!
Step 2: Invite Friends and Family to Contribute
A producer is nothing without a cast. It’s time to cast for your show so that they can contribute to the video with their mini clips that will end up in the compilation. The “Create your Invitation” step is about inviting friends and family that you want to contribute to your video gift with an e-card. In this step, you’ll have to:
Name the e-card that you want to send to the cast so that they understand what it is about from the name itself.
Add a picture of the person to whom you are going to send the final New Year’s gift so everyone gets an idea about who the video gift is for. This image will be shown on the invitation you send to your ‘cast’ when you ask them for the clips with their messages.
Next, you can select one or many ideas that your contributors can talk about in their videos. You can write your ideas and also select from the ideas suggested. Here are some examples that the tool will help you with:
Fun ideas
How did you meet Jane?
What's your favorite inside joke with Jane?
Meaningful ideas
What accomplishment of Jane inspires you?
What do you appreciate most about Jane?
What is Jane's most inspiring trait?
What makes Jane wonderful?
How has Jane impacted your life?
Holiday-related ideas
Share an all-time favorite family memory
Share an all-time favorite memory with Jane
Share a holiday story with Jane
Share a seasonal recipe with Jane
The next step after you have selected from the ideas suggested and have shared your ideas with friends and family, is about fine-tuning the written part of the request. This text will be included in the invitation as guidance to what the video gift is about and what you are requesting from them. You can use the example below as is or you can edit it as you want:
“We're creating an extra-special surprise gift for Jane — a group video from all the people who matter to Jane.
As you’re one of those people, would you please do a short video clip 😄
It's really easy! Just tap the link below to send your video message. You can use this link to record now or to upload a pre-recorded video from your phone or computer.
Please do your video today so you don’t forget 🙏
And thanks!!”
If you think that the text and the ideas you have sent are not enough, you can record your video request. It’s optional but your friends are more likely to respond to your request quickly if you send them a short video. You lead by example. A video will not only show them that their message will be impactful but it'll also be encouraging for them as you are also participating. The best part is that you can do as many retakes as you wish until you are happy with your video message … Aand you can also change it in the future. You may consider including the following messages in your video:
“Please don't say anything … it's a secret
What accomplishment of Jane inspires you?
Please do it today. It's so easy to forget!”
You can then preview how your invitation will look like to your friends and family.
No worries … you can edit the invitation by going back or you can return to edit any time you want.
When you are done with the invitation text and video, you can choose from two ways to send. You can either Tap to send an email or Tap to copy the link to the invitation.
Once you send them the invite, your friends can tap on the link on any device and they will be able to create a video clip without having to create an account and you will be sent an email whenever anyone responds and contributes a video.
Step 3: Create the Final Video
Once you receive the video clips of family and friends you determine the order for each clip... just like a true editor. It’s time for you to use the editing suite and create/edit the group video. In the editing suite, you will be able to see the following:
A Preview pane where your video preview will play after you’ve added clips to the timeline.
The Timeline is where you can add video and pictures from your clipboard. You can drag and drop to reorder and also tap a clip to edit.
The Clipboard is where your clips are first added. You can click them to preview and also drag them to your timeline to add to your video. The final video will only include clips that are shown in your Timeline.
And, just like any true editor, here you have the features you can play with on the editing suite:
- Record Video
- Add Videos
- Add Photos
- Add Card
- Add GIF
- Browse Song Library
- Upload Song
- Add Credits
Step 4: Share!
Once you have edited the video and compiled it into one group video, it’s time to get ready for laughter and happy tears … yep, you will now be sharing the video 😄.
Now it’s time to process your video. It generally takes about 4-5 minutes for every minute of video to process. To process the video, you’ll have to buy credits. After you’ve paid, your processed video will differ in three ways: 1. It will be in HD, 2. The “draft” watermark will be gone, 3. Any black bars on the screen will be replaced with a blurred background if you use the Blurred background feature.
Please note:
You can make changes later and reprocess at no extra cost.
Further, you can also normalize clip volume for times when people have recorded their video clips at different volumes. Setting the Normalize Clip Volume to ON will automatically balance all your video clips at the time of processing the merged video. In this case, any music that you add will be muted during video clips by the contributors but will still be heard at the volume you select for pictures, cards, and GIFs (don’t forget the Stickers 😉). You can also set it to OFF and fine-tune each video clip on your preferred volume level. In this case, the music on videos, as well as all other video clips by the contributors, will be at the volume levels you choose.
Finally, choosing the credits feature will allow you to display the names of the contributors who took part in the video. Athe end of the video these will appear just like the rolling credits in a movie.
Contributors who have specifically requested to see the final video must have provided their email addresses. Thus you can share the group video with them. You can still check the boxes of the people with whom you want to share the final video.
When you are finally satisfied with the video, you can tap the email video link button. You will see a pre-filled email with checked email addresses in the ‘to’ field, a ‘from’ address, a suggested text, and the link to the video. You can send it as is or even edit it before sending it.
Another way to share with people would be to copy the link and send it via any other messaging app like email or social media.
So choose who you want to share it with but do not forget to share it with the person to whom this gift belongs🙂!
Easy to Create, Fun to Give, Joy to Receive
So, In case you are not done with your New Year’s gift shopping, you can leave your worries behind because compiling Happy New Years messages into one surprise group video gift is one of the most sought-after and at the same time one of the most thoughtful last-minute New Year’s gift ideas.
In fact, in these trying times where travel is uncertain, New Year's surprise group video gifts are the most mesmerizing gifts one can choose to give. It will save you needless hunting for gifts not only in the eleventh hour but also result in gifts more meaningful than ever. It’s the time to cherish old memories, live on while remembering the best of the past, and hoping for the best in the future.
Finally with group video gift maker tools, it can never be too late to give a creative, from-the-heart gift. Happy New Year and Happy holidays!🥳🎉
Also Read: How To Compile Happy Birthday Messages Into One Surprise Video Gift
