Christmas at Hilltop Part 2

So I got this idea to do a Christmas video. It started when I was taking pictures as Shelly and the residents started to decorate. I was taking photos of ornaments still in boxes, stars yet to be placed, lights not yet strung. I knew how pretty the trees, especially, would be once they were decorated.

Yet, I was strapped for time and couldn’t stick around to photograph every aspect of the tree decorating.

But I still wanted to share our finished work with you.

So, I spent a little time taking videos of some of our trees and entrance. Then I supplemented with photos of ornaments and decorations.

I try to keep most of our videos to 2 minutes or less. In this fast-paced, want-it-now society, no one wants to watch a long video. And yes, 4 minutes is long. But, this video felt like it would be rushed at 2 minutes. Aren’t the holidays meant to be a time to slow down and enjoy?

So, I found a 4-plus minute song and set about editing the video to match it.

The music was a bit of a challenge. I have some royalty-free music I use for a lot of our videos. But I didn’t have Christmas music. I did an online search, but when you search “royalty-free music,” it’s not necessarily no cost. Then I remembered I’d used a song in the past for a video, and it only required attribution in the video in order to use it.

I went back to our video to find the information, went to the website and found a bunch of royalty-free free music, including holiday music. Yes! I found a pretty version of “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear.” Many thanks to Kevin MacLeod at incompetech.com. He and Creative Commons get the credit in the video for the use of the music.

The trouble with a 4-minute video is its size. While not a big deal on a computer, on my iPhone, it’s a pretty big file. Too big to email, apparently. And I didn’t have my cord to connect to my laptop to drag it directly. But, I was able to use the cloud to transfer it. A few minutes later, it was uploaded on YouTube, watch it here. It also will be on our Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/HilltopAffiliates.

So, take a few minutes and go watch our “long” video. Merry Christmas from all of us at Hilltop!