A new person in the family: christenings, naming ceremonies, and the announcement

Three occasions cover the arrival of a child, and the difference between them is who is in the room when the film is watched.

The announcement

Parents, usually at the point where they have decided to say it out loud, sending one message to family and friends. The film should hold the answer back and give it a shape: the news, the name or the expected date arrives last, on its own.

The christening or naming ceremony

This is the one that gets shown before the food. The parents have a hundred photographs and no idea how to choose, which is exactly why a film built on words helps: the child's name, the names of the sponsors, and a date. Written as a script, each sponsor's line is its own paragraph and becomes its own scene, so the greeting is shared and nothing is written by us.

Introducing a sibling

The film that tells an older brother or sister what is about to happen to their life. It needs the plainest words of all, written for a child, and it is worth writing them as a script so that every word is one you chose.

What all of them ask of you

• A name, once you have decided it. Which is often the real reason the announcement waits.
• A date, a name list, or neither. The expected date, the sponsors' names, or just the news.
• The words. The news can be carried by the film. The sentence, if there is one, comes from you.
• A photograph only if you want one. Nobody has a good one yet, and 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.