Videos and Birthdays

In all reality, I actually made this video almost two months ago, for my friend Daryl's birthday. It seemed fitting at the time.

I mean, after all, she was the one who got me to actually listen to One Direction. She did that by sitting me down and making me watch the Kiss You music video. I watched it and I really enjoyed it, so I decided to give the rest of it a try and the rest is pretty much history. This video was my way of saying thank you and also sharing a part of what I could give her, which isn't much.

I don't usually get my friends things for their birthday. If they're lucky, or Facebook reminds me, I'll acknowledge their birthday and say nice things and give them extra hugs. But not usually. I just don't feel like I have a lot to give, and if I'm going to give something, I want it to be super nice and something they'll actually enjoy.

I'm not very good at many things. I'm not even particularly good at making music videos (as I'm sure you can see) but it is something that I can do and I can do with some small measure of skill. It's something I can create that I can share easily and that came easily as her birthday was approaching. So I decided to do that for her, and it was a bumpy road to get there.

First we had a time crunch for filming, because I wanted the filming to be done with a week left to edit before her birthday, so I would be sure to have time to get it done with finals and two papers I was also writing for my classes.

Then I had to round up our friends and convince them that they really wanted to do this for Daryl. And for me. As our friend Matt put it, "If you had told us beforehand that we were doing a One Direction music video, we wouldn't have come out here to do it. But it was very skilled, waiting till we were already here to tell us what kind of birthday video we were making for Daryl." (In all actuality, I thought I had disclosed everything beforehand, and had forgotten to mention that this great video project I wanted to do for Daryl's birthday and before everyone left the island was also a One Direction music video. But hey, it worked out).

Then I had camera issues, what with trying to check one out, and then discovering I had no way to make that camera actually work, to ending up working with my crappy camera that I had wanted to avoid working with in the first place because that was the last thing we had that would make a good video.

But, it all worked out, in what still feels like divine intervention. I also got the editing done quickly, taking just a Sunday afternoon when I thought it would take at least two days.

Perhaps the waiting was the most painful for me, having not planned on having to wait before uploading the video, and with four days left to spare. So I ended up uploading it a day early, and we all enjoyed it.

So here is my video, and do enjoy it.

Or not. I totally won't blame you.