Welcome to another glimpse inside my craft space. These past few months, I have been getting emails, messages, and texts asking me to show how I set up for craft videos, tips for editing, and how to make a tutorial. As much as I would love to sit down with each person individually, I decided that it would be easier to just show you through an online video.
Let me first preface by saying that I am not a professional videographer by any means. I don’t have a huge space, a studio full of lights, nor do I have anyone to assist me. It is just me in my 9′ x 9′ space working with what I have on a small budget.
I chose to take a break from crafting this week to help those crafters and consultants who are wanting to start making crafting videos. Everything I am going to show you is very basic, very simple, and very affordable. I do show quite a few of the items I use everyday, but I ask that you research for items that will work for you.
I have two spaces for video recording – a small space and a large space. Both of these are also spaces I use in my everyday crafting so my video recording tools need to be able to be tucked out of the way. Many of you will probably require the same type of set-up. You may have a small space or a multi-purpose space where you plan to record your videos.
Here is what my two spaces look like. As you can see, everything is portable and can be moved out of the way as needed.
I like to have plenty of light and a backdrop when I record my videos. I spoke about both of these when I wrote about how I take photos of my projects. Since my budget is small, I chose these lights that work for when I take photos and when I record videos.
I chose these Tri-Pod LED lights because they can sit on the floor as up-light below my project or used as light above my project. I also like that I can brighten or dim them as needed. This comes in handy when my craft space is extra sunny and I need a little less light in my video.
Lighting is extremely important when you are recording your crafting videos. You want enough to highlight the project and show your viewers what you are doing, but you also want to avoid too much light that causes shadows. It took me a few tries to figure out what lighting set-up worked for me.
I also like to have my project sitting on a lighter photo backdrop. My first few videos were recorded on my dark wood station and my grey desk. Neither of these were good surfaces for my tutorials. They caused my projects to fade into the background and made it difficult for viewers to see what I was doing.
These photo backgrounds are designed to prevent glare and provide a nice neutral surface. I recently had another consultants tell me that she uses wallpaper in the same manner.
After you have recorded your videos, you are going to want to look into some video editing software. You could just upload your videos unedited, like I did with my first few, but they will probably be a little rough and you won’t have the option to adjust any of your footage or add things like music or transitions.
I use my laptop to edit videos with the Movani software. You can choose to use a software or app that works for you. Many of my friends use their phones or tablets to edit their videos and their videos are always amazing. You need to decided how you want to edit videos and what type of videos you want to create. Take some time to write down what you are looking for in an editing software and do your research. It took me about four months of trials to figure out what I liked. In my video, I talk about all the features I was looking for.
As you can see, this is very simple and rudimentary and easy to accomplish on a small budget. I hope that you have been inspired to start creating a few videos of you own.
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