OCTOBER ARCHIVES CHALLENGE 2026
Visit the October Archives Challenge to see what it’s all about and what participants are getting up to.
THEY’RE TURNING HOARDS OF FOOTAGE INTO VIDEOS THEY CAN ACTUALLY WATCH.
Whether it’s a few months of footage or years of it, it’s easy to keep putting off doing anything with it because the job feels far bigger than it needs to be.
I did that for years. It was only recently, while looking through old family footage, that I realised how much I’d filmed and never turned into anything. So I stopped trying to use everything and started making smaller videos from individual days, trips, events and activities.
That’s the approach participants are taking throughout October: breaking their archive into manageable pieces, using what matters, leaving out what doesn’t, and making it much easier to finally do something with all that footage they’ve been sitting on.
THEY’D ALREADY FILMED SOMETHING WORTH MAKING.
It was time to turn it into something they would actually want to watch.
WHY I CREATED MAKE THE DAMN VIDEO.
For the last decade, I've been figuring out how to make filming fit around real life, not perfect days. Building a business, raising two young kids, and trying to capture moments without feeling like I had to turn every outing into a film production.
Over time, I realised the biggest obstacle was my over-the-top camera setup and my mindset. I was the one getting in my own way. I would overthink. I’d want everything to be perfect, and I was obsessed with making every video “cinematic”, which made the process take far longer than it should have.
So I started simplifying the way I filmed and what I carried with me. I focused on documenting and sharing thoughts and experiences, instead of producing. This allowed me to film in a way that naturally fit around my busy life instead of competing with it. That's exactly what Make The Damn Video is all about. Getting you to make the damn videos in the first place, without worrying about trying to be perfect or overthinking your way out of it.