By Lasia Kretzel

Saskatoon man’s New Year’s video goes viral

Jan 4, 2015 | 11:20 AM

Ben Schmidt recorded his monologue video one word a day for the entire 2014 year and then posted the result to Youtube on New Year’s Eve. 

By Sunday, the video had garnered more than 26,000 hits. 
 
“I’m blown away,” Schmidt, a Saskatoon programmer, said. “I had no idea that that would take off. I kind of just expected to share it on Facebook and see some of my friends and family watch it.”

In his video, 365 – A One Word Per Day Reflection on Time, Schmidt poetically reflects on the nature and passage of time. Behind him, the Saskatoon landscape shifts through seasons and locations including the freeze-thaw cycle of the South Saskatchewan River from the Sid Buckwold Bridge.

“The world changes around us and we can’t necessarily do anything about it. There’s always going to be things changing and you should just always try and make the best of what you have going on,” Schmidt said. 
 
The video also includes several secrets in the background including computer screen backgrounds to match Schmidt’s words and the sound of a ticking clock amongst the music. 

“There’s actually 365 ‘tick tocks’ in the background,” Schmidt said. 
 
He said the idea evolved from his previous one-second video projects. He edited the piece throughout the year, created the background music and hastily posted it New Year’s eve.

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Within half an hour of posting the video, Schmidt said he was contacted by a company asking to partner with him to spread the video. 

Since then, he’s seen the video on Yahoo, receive more than 40,000 hits on AOL, and be featured on such sites as MSN, Daily Motion, lLive Leak and Laughing Squid. He said his girlfriend even found a version someone had dubbed in Turkish.

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