Your Handmade Stories: Chocolate and Steel

chocolateandsteel

Story by chocolateandsteel

Published on Sept 15, 2008 in Read

Photo by chocolateandsteel

The Etsy Video team at the Storque is always excited when sellers create their own videos, whether it be a portrait, promo or studio visit. Bre Pettis recently produced a wonderful series called Getting Started in Video to help newbies take the leap. Last week Christine Street of chocolateandsteel sent me this excellent promotional video she and her husband Dave created for their shop. I asked her a few questions about why she decided to make a video, how she did it, what she learned from the experience, and what tips she has for other people considering making a video. Here are her responses:

I decided to make a video because I’m looking for new and inexpensive ways to market my shop. I’m very fortunate that my husband, Dave, is an aspiring filmmaker and was really excited to work on this project with me. I recently took the leap to full-time self-employment so budgets are a real concern for me: Not just in business, but in my personal life as well. This project seemed like a great thing to do for many reasons. First, it couldn’t hurt my business. Second, it could help my business. And third, it gave us a fun project to work on instead of spending lots of money going out to dinner or museums (although we did film a lot of it outside the LACMA).

First I told Dave about the feel I was going for. I wanted it to be casual, whimsical and have a fantasy element. He came up with the original concept and we brainstormed from there. It was a lot of back and forth of me saying "I would never say that" and him saying, "That’s cheesy." Finally the concept and dialog were complete and now came all the fun stuff. My mom babysat our 2 year old one weekend and we first had a "craft day" to make all the props. Then the next day we filmed it.

I learned that lighting is super important. Either morning around 10 or afternoons around 4 have the best, most flattering light. Natural light is the best, as I’m sure everyone knows. Also, I think the music is really important because it helps set the mood for the video, but it shouldn’t be too loud and the center of focus.

I think a great way to do this is to get your friends involved. If you are a creative person, most likely so are your friends. One of my friends helped edit the video with Dave, and another friend who is a musician created the music for us. The great thing about getting other people involved is that they too help spread the word because they are proud of their work.

We really wanted to do something that was unique and had a storytelling feel. Many of my jewelry pieces were created from a story that I came up with first and then drew the illustrations for. I wanted to extend that concept of story to this video as well. We are going to do some more videos about some individual pieces also. So look soon for Lady Bird Incognito to be transformed from Jackie O to a bird lady — this one should be really cool!

Oh, I forgot to mention that our total expenditures on this was $12.50. That covered the tulips ($7.50) and the Styrofoam ($5) for the trees. The cottage was made from a cardboard box, the curtains were catalog pages folded, the window pane was chopsticks and I had the wooden rose bead for the door knob. Just thought it would be of interest for people who are not looking to spend a lot of money!

Don’t forget to subscribe to their Youtube channel (and the Etsy Youtube channel too!). Post in the comments if you have a video you’d like to share. You can always convo one of the Storque team too! (Tara aka weirdwolf, BrePettis, and Eric B aka objecked will help you out.)

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