Several thousand words

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then the video above is worth many thousands more. It must be true, right? There are a lot of images, and they sort of move, so many thousands of words. Or, maybe not.

The video is this year’s version of a video showing what a year of my blog looks like in pictures alone. I did this last year, but that video included every image I posted to my blog, and the video was long. This year, I limited it to only my own photos and graphics I created; the video is much shorter.

In both cases, I saw some images and thought, “I wonder what that was related to…” but this year I was much more likely to know. Having fewer images helps, obviously, but the fact they’re my own helps even more.

Two images are actually screenshots: I made them, yes, and they were of content I also created. Do they qualify as being “my” work? Meh. I would have deleted one of them given the chance, but it was complicated. One photo wasn’t taken by me, but it was taken with my phone, so I count it. And, I used it twice (our niece took the photo, for the record).

I know full well that this video has VERY limited appeal. I won’t say who, precisely, it could appeal to, but you know who you are and I thank you for it. Your watching this video will help boost what will no doubt be a very low tally of views.

There was another point to this video, though, and one I alluded to before. A few days ago, I talked about learning stuff for making videos, and all those things are on display in this video.

First, the somewhat animated opening titles I learned to do only recently. Then, at the very end, making the “previous video” show and clickable, along with the subscribe button, were both things I learned. Finally, the “watermark” (that “Amer in NZ” in a circle in the lower right) I learned not through any videos, but rather links that led to other links. The main part of the video—the blog images—is a standard iMovie template, the same as last year’s—in fact, I even used the same music.

I doubt I’ll do this again next year—I think I’ve seen and done what I wanted to. But I have so much more to do with video, and this one has helped me learn how to do things; that’s a positive, wherever I go from here.

So, this video was—for me—a way of learning how to do things useful for future videos. And, it was also a way of seeing what a year of blogging looks like in images alone. On that part, at least, I may not be alone in my interest. Even if I am, I still learned stuff.