How to Sew Your Own Plush
Video, 2021
A 1-minute instructional video showing how to sew a small, round plushie out of felt. This was a project for a university course. The goal was to create an instructional video that would be exactly one minute long and was clear and not narrated.
Skills
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Videography
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Video Editing
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Giving Directions
Tools
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Adobe Premiere Pro
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Canon SLR Camera
Creation Process
Pre-Production
The first step was coming up with ideas for the video. It had to be something simple and short. Because I have a hobby of sewing, I decided to make my tutorial “How to Sew a Simple Plush.” Using this idea, I made a script and storyboard for the video and gathered the equipment and materials I would need to film and make the examples. Before I started filming, I made a test plush to practice the process and prepared multiple sets of the material for multiple attempts.
Production
I filmed most of the content over the span of two days in two locations. I set up the angle for the medium birds-eye shots first and filmed every shot that required that angle so they’d be consistent. Then I changed the angle to be a close-up and filmed every necessarily shot in that angle. Rinse and repeat until I had all the tabletop shots I needed. This was to keep consistency between the shots and be efficient with the amount of set-up I would be. Once I had all the tabletop shots, I filmed the opening and closing shots on a different set. With these shots, I was more experimental with shot types and angles.
Post-Production
I went through all my footage and put the best takes together based on the storyboard. I edited the shots to have more consistent lighting and speed, some of them I had to smoothen and crop. I also splice different takes together for one scene to show a time-lapse, as the shot itself was too long for the video. Finally, I added text to each scene describing the steps. After I finished the rough-cut, I received feedback on the video, reshot some scenes, added background music, and fixed the timing of the scenes and text.
Afterthoughts
This was a long process. Each step was time-consuming and took a lot of detail, dedication, and care. I was tired throughout the entire process, especially with editing and trouble-shooting premiere pro. But I think the final result is acceptable. I would reshoot some parts again, as there’s a clear quality drop in one scene, but other than that and some other minor fix-ups, I’m happy with this video for the most part.