Commoncraft.com is a Website that provides ‘easy’ explanations to difficult concepts through animated videos that last no more than three minutes. These videos use custom, hand-made shapes with pencil and colors, then animated throughout the video-presentation. The Website also offers customized videos as well as a vast supply of free custom shapes downloads so users can build their own. Its Know How page offers instructions on how to make your own ‘craft’ video from using their own cut-outs and videos, to guides for script writing, all for decent amount of money if you go with the basic plan.
According to Christy Dena in The Writer’s Guide, Craft Part I, “Writing for new media requires that writers understand elements such as interactivity, micro lengths and digital media affordances.” The people behind Common Craft are aware of how interaction can help not only with the process of learning but also with retaining the information; by making the videos short and using clear language instead of jargon, these videos are easily displayed in a wide variety of platforms, as well all can be shared with different social media.
For example I saw the video for “Application Programming Interfaces (APIs)”, they managed to explain a complicated topic such as APIs in an easy way to understand the subject in less than three minutes. Not only the video’s narrative script is easy to grasp, but also the hand-made shapes and animation contributes to the overall understanding and gives us a feeling like we draw them ourselves.
Dena, C. (2007). Australian council. Retrieved from http://www.australiacouncil.gov.au/writersguide/craft,_part_one