Ties are predominantly accessories for men with instructions on how to tie them passed down from father to son. But what do boys do when all they have is a single mother who doesn’t have this knowledge? Mothers can learn this skill too through The Balthus Knot: A Mother’s Friend. The video takes mothers through the step-by-step process of tying a Balthus knot tie so they can teach their sons this important skill.

Using iMovie and its video editing capabilities, video, narration, and background music were combined and edited to create the final cut. Feedback from course professor and peers guided this work to make the end product better align with project instructions and audience needs. Adjustments to video clip speeds helped the video match the narration, keeping learner focus on the instructions

GarageBand provided audio editing capabilities necessary for video narration. Once the script was recorded, the video was imported as a new track. Chunking narration into sections related to video content and separating the sections into individual tracks helped with ensuring narration matched corresponding video components.

While many components of the script were kept throughout the video creation process in subsequent iterations, the rough cut shows the video’s humble beginnings. This first draft used still photos and video to tell the Balthus knot story without music or narration. After reviewing the video’s content and feedback, it was decided to reshoot the entire video using a different tie with an easier to view pattern and removing still shots entirely.

When designing instructional video, it is necessary to identify a solid concept, create a story for it, and place those elements within a storyboard, creating an outline for the project to follow. For this project, Keynote presentation software was used. Sketches, shot lists, shot angles, narration, and music were identified for each scene with images and text. The storyboard was then used during filming to ensure all story elements were included and shots followed a logical progression.