A birthday film: the one occasion where the number matters

Most people who order a birthday film do it the day before, from a phone, with one photograph already on it. They are not looking for a production. They are looking for something better than a message that says happy birthday in the same font as everybody else's.

The best birthday films are built on one idea, and the idea is nearly always the age: the number is the occasion, and the person is who it is for.

What makes one work

• The age is the point. Seven, fifty, seventy: the number arrives last and stands alone, rather than hiding in a sentence.
• It is about one person. Their name, spelled their way, and one thing that is true about them.
• The words are the words you wrote. Nothing in it should sound like a card bought on the way to the party.
• It is short. Under half a minute, because it is watched at a party or on a phone, not in a cinema.

Who orders one, and when

• A parent or an uncle, the night before. A first name, an age, a line or two, and a colour.
• Brothers and sisters, for a round day. They need one thing to show at a party that is already planned, and they are not going to write a speech together.
• Grandchildren, for a grandmother or a grandfather. Usually the same person in the family does this every year, and it is always two days before the day.
• A partner, quietly. A slower pace, and nothing that sounds like a card.
• A team at work, for a colleague. A film on a screen in a room needs words large enough to read from across a table, and in the chamber you can make them bigger.
• A group of friends, with the joke inside. Every word in it is theirs. Nine writes none of it, for reasons that are in what we measure and what we refuse to invent.

What it asks of you

• A first name. It goes straight into the film.
• An age. This is the one number the film cannot work without, because it is the whole idea.
• A line or two, if you have them. Optional, and honestly optional: no message is better than a message somebody else made up.
• A photograph, only if you want one. A drawn film needs none.

Making it in Nine

A film of your own comes with a plan; the free part of Nine lets you look and try, and never makes a film. On a plan there are several ways in. Start from a template puts your own words into one of Nine's templates, a name and one line, a card that holds still, or three points, and adds nothing to them. A script takes the words you already have, in your order, and each paragraph becomes a scene. Just an idea needs only a sentence. A voice recording makes the film run as long as you talk, with your voice as its sound. On the Film plan a film is up to 30 seconds.

The film is drawn, so it needs no photograph. If it should show your own photographs, the plans with a library, Film + Transparent and above, make a film from your own pictures, placed as they are and never retouched. Music is added afterwards in the chamber, calm or with a beat, and goes into the video file when you save. Nine sends nothing to anybody: you get the video file, or a private review link, and you decide who sees it.

If you want the shortest honest version: choose Start from a template, pick the one that puts a name large and one line beneath it, write the name and the age, and send the file. Everything else is optional.