A Movie on Hemming Pants

Carnegie Mellon Survey of Design Fall 2020: Instructional Videos

Project Debrief

On a daily basis, we are inundated with masses of information that LOTS of people can, and do, transmit. Technology enables us to use sound and motion to communicate ideas more quickly and easily than the print conventions used in the past. Unfortunately, much of it is poorly communicated because these new affordances carry additional challenges. For example, how can aural, temporal, and visual content be combined appropriately to tell a cohesive, logical story? How can they sustain the interest of the viewer? These are important challenges that all designers face, which is why we are addressing them now.

Make a movie that instructs people how to perform a specific task.

My task: hem pants.

Learning the Task

I think the first question to ask before learning any task is: What’s been holding you back? There are some fears here to uncover, and a good instructional video would be one that is able to relieve these fears.

Consulting people who had never hemmed before, I concluded that most of the biggest fears around hemming revolved around the irreversibility of hemming. This fear of irreversibility was specifically about cutting off too much fabric to start with, or having uneven hems. Messing up cutting up and weaving a needle through a good (and therefore probably pricey) pair of genes is an honest thing to worry over.

Therefore, I think some of my initial feelings about goals with this instructional video is to create something that felt reassuring, and somehow low-risk.

After studying these sources on hemming and practicing a little bit on my own, I also realized another goal to maintain through hemming: making sure that the stitch is strong enough to hold the hem together.

I feel that the most important thing I’ve learned though is the actual function of hemming: it is meant to be something that can be taken apart if needed. This information confirmed and gave me direction to work with/around most of the “fears” I had discovered regarding hemming.

Which leads to what is actually the most important thing I’ve learned: Always start researching a task seeking not how to do it, but why it is done.

In terms of actually mastering hemming, I already consider myself nifty with the task. As someone quite significantly shorter than the national average, it could be considered difficult to have gotten this far without knowing how to hem. I also went through a whole phase of sewing together and embroidering potholders in my childhood, so there is quite a bit of knowledge on different sewing techniques stored in my subconscious.

Also, I think hemming should be intuitive and therefore, I wanted my instructional video to reflect that. I personally never formally learned to hem, in order to hem. Like learning to tie a pair of shoes, learning to hem is something (I believe) one just naturally figures out. Therefore, the general method of hemming I decided to show in my video is:

1. Measure the amount you want to hem.
2. Flip pants inside out and cuff that amount inward.
3. Stitch the two layers of cloth together.
4. Flip pants back and enjoy your new pair of hemmed pants.

Storyboard Formation

The thought process behind storyboarding is really similar to that of drawing: the key is a balance of provided and assumed information.

In between two clips of a storyboard, it is assumed that action has taken place. The world keeps spinning, the characters age, and the story continues whether or not every microsecond is documented in 2D form.

I think breaking down this instructional video into clips in a storyboard would reveal the information that is and isn’t necessary in a final video. For example, with the repetition of stitches, it probably wouldn’t be necessary to show every single stitch — the same information can be conveyed through showing the first few stitches cut to a clip of the last stitch. Another example I can think of would be about whether the underside of the cloth needs to be shown — does the underside of a stitch need to be shown, or does it need to be shown that the needle passes through both layers of fabric or is that assumed? It’s important to answer these questions because portraying only the necessary information is key to creating an engaging video; on the flip side, a video that assumes the viewer needs everything dumbed down could even be irritating to watch.

The very nature of creating a 60 second instructional video reflects that of storyboarding because of the amount of careful intent necessary in selecting the scenes to keep in or cut out.

“The phenomenon of observing the parts but perceiving the whole… its called closure.”

Some immediate improvements for the future I realized while creating this storyboard:

• The metallic characteristic and reflectiveness of the ruler was distracting. I wanted to used the ruler specifically to show how to make measurements and also how measurements are used consistently throughout the hemming process. This consistent use of a constant measurement would help with my goal of reassurance and alleviate fears of uneven hemming.
• Although having varying depth of fields appeared aesthetically pleasant, it could also be confusing. This further revealed something I had not yet realized regarding the process of storyboarding:

Some strategies and visual familiarities just convey more information in 2D than 4D.

• I need to pay more attention to the background: the gloss of the whiteboard behind me, the clothes I’m wearing, the shadows cast on my work surface, and that I was using a tub of sanitizing wipes as a phone stand–which heavily showed up.

Storyboard Refinement

In addition to my initial individual criticisms, I annotated my storyboard to include the discussion with peers and Steve and Stacie:

• Glare was a really big distraction. There was glare in the ruler and also on the whiteboard in the back, which Steve liked to call “UFO-like things”. The video was honestly nothing when 110% of the focus wasn’t placed on the task being performed.
• There was a concern of repetition: How can it be shown? With hemming, it was crucial to convey the repetition of stitches and I also wanted to show the progression of time with the stitching.
• On the topic of progression of time, I wonder what time actually means in a video that is restricted to be only one minute long. At first, I thought that the allocation of time to steps should be representative of how long they would actually take in real life (ie. with hemming, stitching takes the longest, so stitching should take up proportionately as much time in the video). But now I think that time could actually represent the amount of care put into a step. When I choose to include something in greater detail, and give more time to it, that could then convey to the viewer importance in the step. It could also make them slow down, which fulfills the goals of helping someone hem in a more low-risk manner.
• Shifting point of views. There are mainly two POVs to work with: acting as the person doing the task vs. instructing someone else on how to do the task. Was one better than the other for an instructional video? Or is one better to use to convey certain steps than others – and if so which one? I definitely shifted between these two POVs in my storyboard, but it was mostly out of convenience and also what felt more visually fitting for certain steps. A goal with my next draft would be to understand the different features of either POV, and to them settle one that I could deliberately manage the advantages of.

Drafts

In my first draft, I worked to alleviate some of the concerns deviated from annotating my storyboard: visual cohesiveness, separation of steps and allocation of time, and POV.

For better visual cohesiveness, I changed minor details of the set up.

• I made sure the white backgrounds were cleaner.
• I switched out the reflective ruler for the tape measure that came from the sewing kit. On top of not being reflective, a tape measure is also something that could typically be found alongside the rest of a sewing kit. In a way this change felt like it offered simplification and focus to the process.
• I decided to stick to one filming perspective/POV to show the hemming process, instead of switching between top-down and front profile. This made the entire video more cohesive, and also solved issues I had with the UFOs in the background and general worries I had about the clothes I was wearing.
• I also used a more legitimate tripod setup (courtesy of Sam) instead of the haphazard box of disinfectant wipes I decided to use for my storyboard.

For allocation of time:

• I mainly just considered what I learned from storyboarding: that ration of time reflects the amount of care needed for a step, rather than the amount of time a step would take.
• Therefore, the elements I chose to focus on are: the use and importance of consistent measurements throughout the process, threading and tying the needle, and how to make a stitch.

For POV:

• I changed the POV so that the entire hemming process was one POV looking down at my two hands working from the bottom of the screen. This mimics how someone would be hemming with their pants laid down a desk, if they were following along with the video. This POV made it feel more like the viewer was watching how to hem, rather than just watching someone else hem. Also, thinking about how the viewer would utilize information from the video, it wasn’t necessary for them to see how my entire body moved to hem, but rather just my hands.

Feedback from Cassie, Thien, and Jacky (in order from top to bottom)

The main issue I was working to resolve with this second draft was to be able to cut it down to be under one minute. I trusted the advice from the peer review and continued to cut down every clip just slightly to make this possible.

Another recurring piece of feedback I received was regarding the beginning sequence. I personally really enjoyed having my first clip match my very last one, to bring the whole video full circle. I also reasoned that the first clip carried purpose of presenting the existence of the problem and the need for hemming. It also showed how to determine the amount that needed to be hemmed, which I saw as a crucial step to hemming. A goal with my instructional video was to make it easy to follow, which meant making hemming as a task itself seem easy — which meant relieving some fears with hemming, such as hemming the wrong amount. I also felt that showing the list of materials needed didn’t necessarily show what the task was going to be; it could have been anything involving thread and pants.

It was one of those things that I didn’t know if I was holding on to it because I genuinely thought it was a really good idea, or just because it was something I held too preciously. In this draft I decided to switch up the sequence to include the list of materials first, and it didn’t look like it had as great of an effect as I thought it would. I guess it was one of those conflicts that could only be resolved by actually physically doing it and seeing how it looked.

Final Video

I made quite a few changes for my final video.

• I changed how the materials were shown to have the red prismastick sticking out of the prismastick box to give context for what it was.
• I went back to sequencing my video with the “full circle” theme. I also tried to emphasize how the pants were wayy too long in the beginning, and added a “hop” in my step at the end to create this tone of playfulness and joy from making a new and improved pair of jeans.
• I also fixed my filming so that everything was simply in frame and in focus. I did this through improving my process and playing around with the placement of the tripod so that my phone wasn’t placed too high up and I could watch what was being filmed while filming. Also, I added pieces of tape to the set up (like those on performance stages so you know what part of the stage can be seen by the audience at any time) so I had better guides for what was and wasn’t in the frame.
• I changed my method with hemming to include trimming off part of the pant. This just made a generally better hem so that it wasn’t noticeable chunky. I also found ways to make this adaptable to the viewer, by showing that the only constant measurement necessary was the one inch preserved to hem.

• Another reason that I originally wanted to avoid cutting the pant was because I didn’t want hemming to come off as “precious”/irreversible. Ironically, this was one of my largest setbacks in the process of making this entire project. In my final filming for this, my phone ran out of storage so that I thought it was recording for ~25 minutes when it actually only recorded the first 10 seconds. Therefore, I lost all the footage of cutting off three inches of one of my nicer pair of jeans. This honestly really emotionally set me back, which ironically mimics the fear I predicted my viewers would have if they messed up their hemming.

• I also made some changes to teach rather than just show. This felt like “breaking the fourth wall”, acknowledging that I knew there was an audience watching and interacting with the video. From the giftwrapping group, I was inspired to use the scissors to trace where to cut before cutting. From Shannon’s storyboard, I was inspired to outline the way the thread would “swerve” through the fabric.

My Final Movie

Reflection

You know, before deciding on studying design, my dream career was making movies. My bedroom walls were covered in movie posters and my favorite film stills. Movies are just so beautiful, so capable, and so personally touching. Movies tell stories, and in turn, movies change the world.

I found it interesting to try to make a movie on something so practical, outlining instructions for a task I always assumed was intuitive. And at the end of the day, I realized that it was the “theatrical” elements I loved about movies that bled into my instructional video that made it something memorable, and an enjoyable (as well as instructional) viewing experience. Maybe to some extent, something needs to first be enjoyable for it to be more instructional.

Bloopers

There were some very pleasant byproducts of this assignment that I feel a need to remember through this part of my post. I strongly believe that these byproducts were, in a way, part of the goals of this assignment. For one, on top of hemming, I also learned a good deal of other skills, from juggling to making balloon dogs. I honestly can make a balloon dog in my sleep now. On the left is Ricky and Gia holding the first balloon animals we ever made (oh, how far we have come), including my favorite balloon dog of all time: “Ricky’s Cat”.

Another fun discovery I made was that I apparently have hyperextended knees. Looking at my legs in my videos, my calf always bent weirdly outward at a pretty strong angle, which led me to research what was going on. Apparently, that’s why I’m flexible for no good reasons and also why I walk weirdly (well, weird enough for John to make fun of at least).