Every Christmas-break our family creates a stop-motion video new year’s greeting card. We have been doing this for 4 years or so and it is an incredibly fun way to spend time together. It has become a “signature” thing we do as a family. Anyway this year was no exception – though it took us much longer than before to come up with a good idea – and then to execute it was another challenge. Anyway, here it is (on Vimeo).

A very wonderful holidays and a very happy new year to all of you,
from Shreya, Soham, Smita & Punya

Just a few comments on the making of these videos. First, all our new-year videos are stop-motion videos. That’s how we made the first one and it has stuck. Second, all these videos are somewhat typographical in nature – playing with words and their representation. Third, these videos rarely feature us either individually or as a family. A hand or a still-frame may show up once in a while but for the most part our videos are made with inanimate objects.

This year I tried to change all three of these, suggesting that we make a live action video, with us as actors – and have some kind of a puzzle that was not related to words. After spending days thinking about this, working with various ideas, this whole line of thought was vetoed down by both Soham and Shreya. It was interesting to me that over time we had not only become a family that makes videos but a family that makes stop motion videos! How cool an identity is that! Of course, this meant that we then had to start over from scratch to come up with something that fit what we had done in the past.

Speaking of videos made in the past, you can see them by following the links below:

• Happy 2011 (last year’s stop motion card)
• Happy 2010 (stop motion card made in 2009)
• Happy 2009 (stop motion card made in 2008)
• Explore | Create | Share (3 short videos with typographical twists at the end)
• Finding Nemo, the sea-quel (a stop motion sequel to Finding Nemo)
• Shreya’s friends animate their names
• A commercial mashup
• or, view the complete collection (including the great Hari Puttar trailer)