Personalized Santa videos target skeptical kids
CBC News
Posted: Dec 23, 2011 4:01 PM ET
Last Updated: Dec 23, 2011 3:54 PM ET
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The Santa Video allows users to upload a photo of their home and superimpose clips of Santa. (The Santa Video)Parents of children who doubt Santa exists now have access to a range of web tools to help convince them, including one that creates a video of Santa in their own home and bills it as "proof that Santa visited."
The website called The Santa Video allows parents to upload a photo of a room in their home and uses green screen technology to superimpose clips of Santa creeping through with his red sack of presents, unpacking wrapped parcels of various shapes and sizes, or eating a cookie and drinking a glass of milk left out for him.
It also offers tips about how to make the videos more convincing: It recommends making the videos on Christmas Eve so they have the same background that the house did when their children went to sleep the night before. It also suggests that parents note details like the type of cookies and the way the presents are wrapped in the video.
"For instance there is one clip of Santa pulling out a red box, and if the child's 'big' present that year is wrapped in the same way, it can make the video that much more special," advises the website, run by a company called BHO Video LLC.
"It doesn't matter as much for the really little kids, but the six and seven-year-olds tend to be awesome detectives."
The company also provides advice to parents who don't own a video camera about what to tell their children: "It is plain and simple, the elves took the footage, they brought along the cameras and everything!"
For parents who find the $14.95 US price tag a little steep for a streaming or downloadable video less than one minute long or feel it's more elaborate than necessary, other sites offer free personalized video messages from Santa that may also help convince children who aren't sure they still believe Santa Claus exists.
Sympatico.ca, Portable North Pole, and Google are among the free services that ask users to enter a child (or adult's name) along with details such as where they live, whether they were naughty or nice and what they want for Christmas. Those details are used to generate a video (either live action or animated, depending on the service) of Santa addressing the recipient with some of those personal details.
The Santa Video Portable North Pole GoogleShare Tools
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