A Christmas card as a film: the family version, and the company version

Two Christmas greetings look alike and are for different people. One goes to a family. One goes from a company to the people it works with. The shape is the same, and the job is not.

The one you send as a family

The card that used to be a photograph with a printed line under it. The film does the same job with the family name and one greeting you write yourself. It is short, it can run without sound, and it is made to be opened in a message on a phone on Christmas Eve.

• What you supply. A family name and a greeting.
• What it buys you. The same message to everybody, sent once, that does not look like it was forwarded.
• What it will not do. It will not write the greeting for you. Start from a template or a script, and the words in the film are yours, with nothing added.

The one you send as a company

This one carries the company's own look and goes out to customers and partners. On a plan, Nine reads the company's colours and typeface from its website, so it reads as that company's card rather than as a generic snowflake.

• What you supply. The company's web address and a greeting.
• Where it is useful. A small business with a customer list and no design department. The whole reason it works is that it is finished in one sitting instead of waiting for a designer in the busiest week of the year.
• The line to keep. It says what the company wants to say, in the company's own words. It does not invent a message about the year that was.

The third one, which is inside the building

The greeting from a manager to the staff is the same shape again and a different audience. It lands in December, it is read by people who already know what the company does, and its whole value is that it is short and it is signed. Keep the words as a script, and next year's film is the same script with one number changed.

Why December is the month that decides

Every greeting competes with every other greeting in the same three weeks. A card is opened in a second and a film is watched for thirty, so a film has to earn the thirty. The way it earns them is by being about one thing and being over quickly, which is why a Christmas film should be the shortest film you make all year.

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.