It's Your Birthday

A birthday gift for A.

I can finally talk about this, I've been keeping it a secret for three months now. He has been feeling a bit blue lately, so I wanted to do something to cheer him up. It started out small, with a few of his former co-workers, and suddenly blew up to something quite large. It was originally going to be a 5-minute video, but turned into a 23-minute one, and I had to leave quite a lot on the virtual cutting room floor.

I asked the same questions to everyone, and in case other people want to do something similar here are the questions that I used:

If A were an ice-cream flavour, what would he be?
I don't know why I picked this one, but I thought it would be interesting to see what kind of replies that I would get.

What do you think his best subject was in high school?
I admit, I picked this one because A and I have an on-going joke that we do things to try and prove people are racist. Sure enough, quite a few responses thought he'd be good at maths.

If he were stuck on a deserted island, what three things would he have with him?
I just stole this from /r/askReddit. Some of the responses were funny, but overall, a bit lacklustre.

If he were a supervillain, what superpower would he have?
This question was quite bad, and I considered leaving it out completely. There were a few funny responses, but most people skipped the question.

If you could get A to try something new, what would it be?
I asked this because I genuinely wanted to know what kind of responses I'd get, and it'd be something nice for him to hear. Hopefully he'll take up some of the suggestions. The funniest answer was pop 'n' lock dancing.

If he were put on a spaceship and sent to help colonise a new planet, what would be his contributing role?
This one I picked because I thought it was a creative way to try and tease out what people think his good traits are.

What do you think A's go-to pick-up line is?
This one was just there for comedy value, to try and break up some of the heavy emotion.

What is something you think he does well?
Another one to help him see that other people value him.

What advice would you give him?
This one I thought would be a good question to end the video on, as it would be something to help him move forward.

The tone of the video was a nice mix of humour and emotion, with some people opting to give joke answers, and some people giving sincere answers. When it came to the last question, all of the answers were sincere.

It was actually quite enjoyable to work on, and see how amazing some of the people in his life are. This required a lot less editting time than my other videos, as there were no special effects, and it was just a matter of pacing the answers, and putting in some video transitions.

I really hope he'll like his present, and I hope he realises how much he means to the people around him.