 Produce a Summer Video for Your Camp for <$5

Nov 19

This video cost $5

At Friends Camp, we are a pretty small, non-profit operation. Having a "videographer" on staff, or even freeing up a counselor to regularly take video and edit it, isn't in our budget. We were so excited to figure out a solution that worked for us to make an amazing camp video that didn’t cost a lot in time, money, or effort.

Led by a few of our amazing summer staff (including Summer Camp Society member Lauren), we created a 1-second-per-day video. Check it out below! Here’s the 6 steps you need to take to make your own.

Download an app that will let you take one-second-per-day of video. We used 1 Second Everyday (https://1se.co/). It costs $4.99, and it actually lets you add 2 1-second clips for each day.
Find someone on your staff who can remember to take a short video clip or two each day. Put a reminder on their calendar or somewhere they will see it each day. Our office manager Emma loved this task, because it was an excuse to get out of the office! PS If they miss a day, nothing bad will happen.
The app will let you edit the clips take. It’s SO easy. Partway through the summer, check in on your progress. Do you have enough active clips? Enough of peoples’ faces? Is there something you want to capture that you haven’t yet?
Decide what you want your background sound to be. A favorite camp song of the summer? Or, you could have your staff sing a camp song and record it as a voice memo on your phone.
Find a tech-savvy counselor to make the background music the right length and to add a beginning and ending screen. Say what you will about “Gen Z”, but damn they are good at this kind of thing.
Share all over social media!

Summer Camp Society folks also had some great suggestions about additional ways to use the one-second-a-day video at camp. What other ideas do you have to use this at camp?

Surreptitiously put together a video and surprise your staff with it on the last day.
Have a shared phone that staff can grab and take video, so the video comes from lots of different folks’ perspectives. Even include campers!