Rapid Eye Digital has produced over 300 training videos, and during that time, we’ve learned a lot about what works and what doesn’t work. We thought we’d take a moment to share a little bit of what we learned.
– Part 2: Location –
The Challenge
Choosing the right location is crucial to effective training videos. Location impacts the style of your message, what and how information is communicated, and creates advantages and limitations with each choice. Choosing the wrong location for your video can produce an unprofessional result, that is distracting to the learning process, confuses the information being presented, and can highlight weaknesses in the presentation.
Solution 1: The Chalk Board
Regardless of the audience or teacher, the chalkboard (whiteboard, writing board of your choice) is the easiest, most straight forward, least expensive, and efficient way to communicate information. Information can be written up ahead of time for the instructor to refer back to. The board gives the instructor something to do on camera (see part 1) thus making them less nervous. This location is therefore relevant for on-camera newbies to veterans. The set is simple to setup: no fancy lighting, background props, one or two stationary cameras, and information can be erased and rewritten for each lesson. We typically can produce around twelve 30min. lessons in a day using this method. One note, we do NOT recommend presenting with a projector for video recording. Projecting a Powerpoint or similar during a presentation works well for live training events but is highly ineffective for video training. The projected image will be blurry, too light to see, and will ultimately need to be reproduced in the editing process and inserted as a screen card into the video.
Solution 2: The Virtual Set
Using a green screen studio allows unlimited possibilities for displaying information. It offer several key advantages. First, it is a controlled environment, meaning lighting, sound, background, etc. are all controlled by the crew and thus distraction is limited. One of its defining features is that it allows the green background to be cut out during the editing process (similar to a weather map on TV). Therefore, you can add tables, charts, pictures, animations, other video, lists, reports, etc. behind the presenter. For presentations where a lot of visual aids are necessary to clearly communicate, this location is ideal. We do recommend this method for more experienced on-camera talent or trained actors.
Solution 3: On Location
For our Chinese language and culture series, we traveled to China to film on location. Training videos on location allow you to take your students on a journey, often where than can not go due to expense, time, distance, etc. If training to use new manufacturing equipment, film at the factory; training retail associates, film at the flagship store; training a team to work in another country, film in that country. Filming on location is useful when the setting can actually communicate or clarify more of the information. Our ideal setup utilizes a video host that can travel to different locations and even interview people along the way. For example, you might stop at each station in a factory to talk to a specialist in that area. On location shooting also presents challenges. It is often best for trained video talent as there are many distractions and changing elements that must be adapted to. Second, the production process can be expensive and time consuming to travel, adapt, and re-adapt.
There are many location possibilities within and beyond the ones listed here. Our hope is that you will take the time to carefully consider and select the location for your next training video. Your video producer will also be able to advise you on this.
The R.E.D. Team
www.rapideyedigital.com
www.rapideyedigital.com/blog
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