Last month I reviewed an exciting new app called 1SE which stands for One Second Everyday. Well, Elements took on the challenge and took a one second snippet, every business day, during the month of June. The results – and my “new” review of the app – are below. Enjoy!
So, what’d you think? We had to watch it a few times to catch and remember all the memories from this month! In shooting the video segments you come to realize just how short one second actually is. We’d often shoot 20-30 second video clips thinking that it would be easy to decide on a clip from the video. Well, it wasn’t. You can’t capture as much as you think in just one short second. For example, the scene I shot today where I was writing the exclamation point at the end of “The End” – I had to shoot it three times. It apparently take longer then one second to draw an exclamation point.
Now onto my review. Are you curious if I think it’s still revelvant to a business? The answer is yes but…as the shooter of all these videos, it’s much easier for me to recall every moment that we had. But, if you’re an outsider watching this, it’s much harder to tell what all the scenes are and the meaning behind them. If you’re planning on trying 1SE for your business, I would advise you to do more of a story board where each clip blends into the other seamlessly and tells one cohesive story. It’s harder for your customers, followers and viewers to truly get the idea of what your story is when you only have one second to process each scene. So, for all of you viewers out there I’ll take you through the clips so you can get a gist as to what you’re seeing:
Our Monday morning Elements status meeting | the launch of a Clients new website | summer construction that lasted ALL DAY, right outside our front door | an Elements night out at BAR in New Haven | the release of our Elements June postcard | A Client kick-off meeting to start a new package design | a peek into the slow, but sure, redesign of our own website | a snapshot of a Clients website we designed, in print, from our GDUSA Web Award win | Ben holding a CADC award, proudly, at the awards show | the new paint job on our famous Elements door | the unwrapping of a our favorite caramels | contact sheets of new images from a photo shoot we had | the release of Amy and Ben’s book translated into French and Italian | an amazing drawing from Amy’s 5 year old daughter Addie – yes, she’d five and draws like that | late night coffee fuel in our Element mug | new “likes” on our Client’s Facebook page | a Clients feature article we secured in Connecticut Magazine | a shot of my favorite session from yesterdays PRSA conference | and finally, “The End!”
Phew! That’s a lot of memories to pack into a 20 second video clip. Did you get all that from watching it? Ya, probably not. But as I mentioned above, 1SE can potentially be a great tool if you’re willing to put the time and effort into making one story. For example, you can focus on just one project that you’re team is working on. We have been working on redesigning our own website for quite some time now and have really been kicking it into high gear this month. A 1SE would be perfect for the different phases of the website project, from the templates, to the writing, to the photo shoots and the meetings. It is possible to make your 1SE more memorable using just video clips as well though. We thought that some of our more active shots such as the coffee pouring, unwrapping caramels and taking the postcards out of the mailbox were more memorable. Also, we realized after the fact how to switch on the flash so that some of the shots weren’t so dark. But hey, it’s a learning process for us as well and we’re exciting to give this another shot and see what we come up with.
Also, I’m not sure if you all caught this but we did not have a June 14 video clip. Not my fault. Ok, partially my fault. I was reading through the 1SE FAQ’s and it said that after you save the “snippet” of your video, it will save that clip directly in the app. Then, you should be able to delete the video from your camera roll. Well, it didn’t. I shot a video on that day, saved my snippet, and then deleted the video from my camera and it was also gone from my 1SE. Admittedly the app does advise you to keep a back up, which I unfortunately did not.
For personal use, I think this app would be great for capturing life’s moments. You’re likely the person who will be watching and reminiscing about these clips and the memories will be much easier to remember. I think the hardest part of 1SE is actually taking the time out to shoot the videos. That’s part of the appeal, and I think, part of why 1SE was created – to take one second out of every day to capture a moment. Days go by far too quickly and its easy to for all of your memories, accomplishments, and fun moments to pass you by – and for that, I still love this app.
So give it a try. July starts on Monday and your memories are just waiting to be captured!
~Allyson
