One of the challenges for trainers, in our time-crunched world,where we’re doing a million and one things a day, is knowing how to makeengaging training videos fast. After all, today’s trainers don’t just designand deliver learning. Many also curate and create content. The secret to makingand curating all those training videos quickly is to have a video creationworkflow. This may sound overly organized but most of us follow workflows foreveryday tasks whether they’re simple or complex, important or personal. Here’san example everyday task workflow.
Every morning, just before 6 AM, our alarm clock buzzes. Bymutual consent, we hit snooze three times then I stumble out of bed and trudgedown to the kitchen to perform my morning duties.
The most important of these is making coffee. As much asit’s a ritual, I strive to brew the same perfect coffee every morning using mytried and trusted coffee press. It’s funny how we get picky about coffee.
As well as making coffee, I unload the dishwasher, fill awatering can, and then water the pot plants on our deck.
These three tasks used to take 22 minutes. But I’ve beenable to whittle that time down to about 14 minutes by changing the sequence andorder in which I do things.
If I started boiling the water first, then put the wateringcan under the faucet for a few minutes to fill up, I could grind the coffeebeans and unload much of the dishwasher while I waited.
Then, when the water is hot, and the watering can full, Icould pour water into my coffee press to steep, and as it steeps, head outsideand water my plants.
Good workflow ensures I get all the right things done, inthe right order and done well. Workflow is equally important if I want to makeengaging training videos fast.
Making videos requires you to manage multiple tasks andpriorities that range from technical to editorial. Doing the right things inthe right order is your key to ensuring that each video consistently hits theright quality and you don’t waste time in production.
<H2>The key to consistently producing great video is following a workflow
In almost 30 years of teaching media production to mediaprofessionals around the globe, I can confidently say that those consistentlychurning out great content follow a creation workflow.
Like my morning routine, a workflow is a sequence of stepsyou take to perform a task. It becomes a habit and you can perform the taskfaster without compromising quality.
Good workflows save time by ensuring tasks aren’tduplicated. And as much as possible, each step builds on the previous step. Theyprevent mistakes. And the process becomes a habit, so tasks are performed almostautomatically. This frees the mind for creative tasks.
An important factor in production workflow is to allowsufficient time to planning. It makes no sense to write an objective afteryou’ve finished filming. Generally, allocate 40% of your project time toplanning (Figure 1).
Figure 1: Video production[KF1] workflow
One of the biggest struggles training professionals facewhen they start to make video content, is knowing what to do in what order. Ifyou nail workflow, you’ll find you make video faster. And it will be ofconsistently higher quality.
<H2>Basic video workflow
In my book Rapid MediaDevelopment for Trainers, I run through the workflow I share with myclients. This workflow helped individual producers and production teams speedup production and improve their content quality. Here’s a distilled overview youmight adopt or adapt to your situation.
Step One: Identify the Objective and Learner.
Before anything, identify who your learner is and what they can expect to knowor do after watching your video. This is like an editorial statement andbecomes a yardstick to evaluate content element.
Step Two: Break Your Content into Chunks.
Breaking down your learning objective into chunks forces you to think carefullyabout every aspect of the topic. Brainstorm on paper, use card sorting, or Post-itnotes on the wall.
Step Three: Identify the Best Modality.
Video is not the ideal modality for every topic. If your learner does not needto see something to understand a topic, a podcast, infographic, or text-basedcontent may be more effective.
Step Four: Identify the Device the Learner is Using
Find out what device your learners will access video on and craft yourcontent for it. For example, captions look good when viewed on a desktop butare lost on a small screen.
Step Five: Plan the Video
With this information, you can plan the content. This involves research,creatinga structure, drawing the storyboard, writing the script, and planning otherelements like music and graphics. This goes faster when you have completedsteps one to four.
Step Six: Prepare the Production
This is where you’ll conduct a risk assessment, draw up a shot plan, scoutyour location, and get permission or a permit to film if it’s in a publiclocation. You’ll check equipment is in working order, charge batteries, andpack everything ready to go.
Step Seven: Shoot the Video
When you’ve planned well, shooting the video will take less than 20 percentof overall project time. Make sure to ensure your shots are crisp and clear, otherwiseit adds time and headache during editing.
Step Eight: Edit the Video
Editing is where you pull together all the footage, graphics, music, andsound effects into one final product. Generally, this takes about 40% ofproject time.
Workflows take the guesswork out of any task, whether it be assimple as brewing that perfect coffee or making engaging training videos fast. Inthe case of video production workflows, they speed up production and free yourmind for the creative aspects of making content to engage learners and helpthem learn.
