For a buddy’s 40th we contacted as many of his friends and family as we could find, and asked them to make a short video telling a joke/story/greeting for him. Then we hired some of his favorite TV show stars to do the same via Cameo - Billy D. Williams was hilarious! We stitched it all together in iMovie and surprised him with it.

We got folks he hadn’t seen in a decade to say hi. We got poetry, jokes, even videos with painting people made him. His dad drove to their old neighborhood and took him on a short walking tour. We got his mom to give us pictures of him as a kid to cut in (gotta include that ubiquitous tub shot!).

When we showed it to him and we recorded his reaction and set that as a screen-in-screen video back to everyone who contributed, and couldn’t come to the party (darn COVID!).

It was a big lift - lots of coordination - but as you get older, old friends are harder see and older relatives begin to pass. That video lasts forever, which is cool.