Why Create a Video Montage of Baby's First Year?

Even though my son turned one two months ago, it is still settling in that I have a one year old! I am so glad that I took the time to create a one year montage for his first birthday party. Although a great deal of my footage is shot from an iPhone or other cellular device, it was so crazy to watch his progression during the first year edited together into a thirty minute video with fun music and titles.  I stressed myself out to have the cut ready for his birthday party to play on loop on a television, but the truth is that it really was a video for my family and eventually for my son to watch himself grow during the biggest developmental year of his life.

When Xander was first born, each day seemed to take forever. I was just trying to fill our days with something until nighttime when I could actually get a little bit of sleep. I wanted to engage him and expose him to developmentally appropriate things, but every day was somewhat of a challenge to do so.  I was in love with my little guy, don't get me wrong, but adjusting to life with a newborn for the first time was very daunting.  Even though filming his twitches during sleep or playing on his activity mat did not seem like such a big deal at the time because I was watching him do these things every day, at the end of the first year you do start to forget those little details and I am so glad I captured them on video. With the video footage edited into a montage, I'm able to not only see them over and over again in the context of his development during the year, but I don't have to scroll through copious videos on my phone to find them among everything else I have shot.  In addition, editing only the best part of each video makes the whole thirty minutes very interesting and engaging to watch.

Some of the friends and family who attended his first birthday had only experienced bits and pieces of his first year, some had never even met him.  Allowing all of them to get a unique inside look at the ridiculous amount of changes he has already been through in such a short period of time made his birthday party even more about celebrating that whole first year not only for Xander, but for us as parents as well.  Overall, a video montage covering such an important year was key for me and I hope to be able to help other parents create lasting memories with their own home movies as well.