Felt cut-outs

How to use it

Tell most of the clip on a felt board, pressing on soft felt shapes for each step or each person, cutting back to the speaker once or twice for the warm moment.

Where the speaker sits

Full sceneSuits itSmallSuits itSplitSuits itSideWorksDrawn overAvoid

Full scene: the scene fills the frame. Stock speaker from Pexels.

Palette

THIS IS A MOODBOARD, NOT A TEMPLATE. The style below is inspiration for the look and feel. Keep its materials, colours, textures and the way it moves, but invent your own scenes, characters and objects for this clip. You are not limited to anything shown in the preview, and nothing in it has to appear. Use illustration and animation to help tell the clip's story.

STORY FIRST. Read the whole clip before you design anything.
1. Write the clip's arc in one line: setup, tension, turn, pay-off. Name the one line that is the reveal.
2. Tag every sentence with its job: setup, context, tension, turn, reveal, example, number, contrast, list, quote, feeling, metaphor, callback, pay-off, aside.
3. The visuals carry the whole clip. If the clip shows the speaker's face, open on them (the first scene keeps them on screen) unless the person says otherwise. After that, never cut back to the speaker full-frame unless the person asks for it; if they do, only on the ending, never in the middle of an explanation. The speaker can still sit inside a scene (a corner, a split or drawn in) when the person wants to be seen.
4. Build one flowing visual story, not a new picture per sentence. Each scene covers a whole thought (one to three sentences), holds 3 to 8 seconds and turns into the next.
5. Start each scene on the first word of its sentence, or up to half a second before. Never cut mid-sentence.
6. Inside a scene, bring small details in on the words they show (an item, a tag, a tick). Earlier details stay.
7. Choose one or two recurring objects or characters in the first scene and bring them back changed. Callbacks beat new pictures.
8. Build up the same picture where you can (add to it, move the camera across it) instead of replacing it.
9. Energy: about 80 percent still, drifting or gentle. Allow one big move in the whole clip, on the reveal, for 1 to 2 seconds, then settle and hold.
10. Numbers sit on a scale (gauge, bar, table, timeline) and hold long enough to read. Contrasts are a still split or the same layout twice.
11. Feelings get a quiet image, or one of the cuts back to the speaker; never effects.
12. On-screen text names, labels or quotes; it never repeats the caption. Five words or fewer per label.
13. End every scene by settling or thinning out, or by turning into the next scene. No exit effects.
14. The style sets the look. These rules set when, how long and how calmly. If the style's own motion rules ask for more energy than this, use less.

VISUAL STYLE: Felt cut-outs
Slice style ref: sref-84SHSF
LOOK: soft wool felt shapes pressed onto a felt board. Board #E8DCC8 oatmeal; felt in #E36A4D coral, #5B8E7D sage green, #F3C55C mustard, #3A4F66 slate blue, with one cream felt for small details. Thread in cream or a contrasting felt colour.
LINE AND FILL: no drawn lines. Flat felt fills with a fuzzy fibre halo on every edge; running or blanket stitches just inside the edge; button eyes with two holes.
TEXTURE: visible wool fibres everywhere, on the board and in each piece; soft and matte, never shiny.
LIGHT: soft, warm and even, like a playroom. Small soft shadows under each piece, larger while it is being pressed on.
CAMERA: locked flat on the board.
MOTION: stop-motion on twos with a tiny frame-to-frame wobble. Pieces press on (slightly big, then settle flat) and peel off from an edge, showing their darker back. Living things move by swapping pieces (an open beak, a raised wing), not by bending.
TYPE: chunky rounded letters cut from felt, each pressed on by hand with a stitched edge.
THE RULE: everything is felt you could cut with scissors and stick on with your thumb.
DON'T: no hard vector edges, no gradients or gloss, no thin lines, no smooth 24 fps tweening, no photos.
Treat these as the look, never a template: invent fresh pictures, words and compositions from what this clip says.
Accent: as in the palette.
Frame shape: ask me before you start (9:16 vertical, 4:5 portrait, 1:1 square or 16:9 wide).
Energy: normal.

TECH: one HTML file, one GSAP 3 timeline created paused as window.__timelines.main, duration = the scene's length, transforms and opacity only.

Look rules

• LOOK: soft wool felt shapes pressed onto a felt board. Board #E8DCC8 oatmeal; felt in #E36A4D coral, #5B8E7D sage green, #F3C55C mustard, #3A4F66 slate blue, with one cream felt for small details. Thread in cream or a contrasting felt colour.
• LINE AND FILL: no drawn lines. Flat felt fills with a fuzzy fibre halo on every edge; running or blanket stitches just inside the edge; button eyes with two holes.
• TEXTURE: visible wool fibres everywhere, on the board and in each piece; soft and matte, never shiny.
• LIGHT: soft, warm and even, like a playroom. Small soft shadows under each piece, larger while it is being pressed on.
• CAMERA: locked flat on the board.
• MOTION: stop-motion on twos with a tiny frame-to-frame wobble. Pieces press on (slightly big, then settle flat) and peel off from an edge, showing their darker back. Living things move by swapping pieces (an open beak, a raised wing), not by bending.
• TYPE: chunky rounded letters cut from felt, each pressed on by hand with a stitched edge.
• THE RULE: everything is felt you could cut with scissors and stick on with your thumb.
• DON'T: no hard vector edges, no gradients or gloss, no thin lines, no smooth 24 fps tweening, no photos.
• Treat these as the look, never a template: invent fresh pictures, words and compositions from what this clip says.

What it suits

Best for

Parenting, kids and family topics, gentle teaching and encouragement.

Avoid for

Serious finance, hard news, hype or edgy comedy.

Content

Advice, How-to, Wellbeing, Personal story, Faith

Tone

Warm, Kind, Cosy

Pace

Medium

Topics

felt, felt board, stitch, wool, fabric, stop motion, cosy, craft

Colours

#E8DCC8 #E36A4D #5B8E7D #F3C55C #3A4F66

For AIs: this style as plain text.