Intro

Good morning, good evening, good afternoon, wherever you are and wherever you're watching from. My name is Matt Pierce, host of the Visual Lounge, and I'm excited to be with you today talking to you about the requests that we sometimes get. Could you just make a quick video? Now, if you've listened to this podcast for the last couple years, you know we talk a lot about video. And I've been making videos for TechSmith for 20 years. And very rarely do I make a quick video. Video is one of those mediums that it takes some time. And I think it's important to acknowledge that right out of the gate that video is not necessarily quick. It can be sort of quick, but there's always things we're going to have to be trading off. And in that process, we can be looking at, you know, is it cost effective? Is it worthwhile doing something quick, or is it worthwhile investing? And we'll talk about some of the ways that we can make uh affordable, quick videos uh that hopefully satisfy the need. Now, the other thing I think it's worth noting is that not all videos are equal. So your organization might come to you and ask you for a video, and if that's a training video, tutorial, quick thing, that might be something that, like, yeah, we can turn around and show some people some steps, we can do that, but maybe they want something bigger than that. Maybe they want you to get others involved. You gotta work with your subject matter experts, you've got a number of stakeholders, you've got all these parts and pieces. All of a sudden, the scope creep on that can get pretty big. And so I just want to acknowledge, first of all, again, there are lots of different types of videos, and they are going to need and require different timing. They're gonna need different things from you as a creator or from others, and that's going to change and affect the scope of things. But I want to talk about a few things that we can keep in our control and things that we should be considering in our processes so that we can do the best that we can. So if you're interested in learning about making videos faster, learning about how you can scale some things better, maybe some suggestions for dealing with some of those tricky points, this is the episode for you.

.000 - Seeking clarity

So, who's it quick for? Well, that's a good question, is oftentimes we can turn things around pretty quickly. I know a lot of you out there are very talented and very skilled at making things and content. And of course, we've got AI, we've got all these other tools coming into play, and that can also help maybe put some little gas into the fire, if you will, and speed the process up. But the reality is that still you need to make sure we're investing in the right places to get the right outcomes. So uh let's talk through about a few of these things. First of all, one of the places where I think I spend a lot of time and have done this relatively recently, is on clarity. We need to make sure that when we get a request for any type of video, particularly for learning videos, what is the clarity that we're looking for? How much do we need to understand and know to make sure the thing that we're gonna create is actually gonna satisfy the need? Because if someone says, make a quick video and we don't know who it's for or why we're doing it, or what's the point of it being quick, then like where are we going? What are we gonna get at? So a couple things that we want to start asking about is of course, all your needs analysis. So if you've been in learning development for a while, you've probably had to do some types of needs analysis. Who's our audience, whether that's real audience or persona audience? We got to be asking about like what's the expected outcome? Is it changing behavior? Is it changing action? Is it something that they're gonna refer to? Um, you know, what is the thing that we want them to do next? How are we gonna measure this outcome? Is it that we're going to go and observe and see that they could do the task? Are we gonna just be checking for error rates? Or what are we looking at to make sure that whatever we're building is going to achieve those outcomes? Because that all of a sudden, that clarity of what we're gonna build will change the way we go about building something. If you're trying to reduce error, that might be very different than if we're trying to get like an attitude adjustment or kind of feeling about something. Those have different needs, different approaches. And so any place in your process where you're looking at your video and you're thinking, I don't know if I know this. This is a pinch point. This is a point where you're gonna have problems, you're gonna have issues, and you need to seek out clarity. Having that clarity up front will take a video that might take you a long time to be a lot shorter, because then you can make one, the right video. You can make a video that is focused and tuned to that thing, and you can get rid of a bunch of stuff, things that you just don't need. So wherever you can, seek for clarity up front.

.000 - Stakeholder needs

Now, I want to acknowledge not all stakeholders are familiar with video. They might not be even familiar with your capabilities. And so the question becomes what is it that you need to help them with? Now, I've talked a lot with my team recently about sometimes we just need to make something to give them something to react to. Hopefully, you're developing a rapport and a relationship with the various stakeholders that you're working with and for that they understand your capabilities and you're not having to get clarity there as well. But sometimes you just make something, even if it's rough and dirty, and you're like, oh, this isn't exactly what it's gonna be, but is this what you're looking for? Or you find someone else's example and say, is this what you're looking for? And that can help again give them something when they're not sure how to be clear with you, it'll give them something to say like, yes, no, or yes, but or yes, and I was thinking about these types of things. And so getting to clarity is one of the things that we can do, and that's gonna reduce time. And time is money. Let's not forget, time is money for businesses, your time is money. And you might be thinking, I just, I just do it, right? But that's okay. We gotta, we gotta get beyond that. We gotta be thinking about how that's going to impact the end state of the business. And so that's why they want it fast, right? They don't want to spend a lot of money on this, and so if you can help them to get that clarity, all is going to be better with

.000 - Does this need a full video?

that. Next uh is the right sizing the format. And I don't just mean like, oh, is it 1080? Is it 4K? Is it this dimension by this dimension? That's important too. But right size format is does this thing that you're being asked to create actually need a full video? Now, I love video, we're fans of video on the visual lounge, but we're also the visual lounge, so we like all sorts of images and and uh types of things to help us communicate better. But the reality is not everything's going to need a full video. You might use elements of video, or you might be using a video in a selected piece of this thing. So, but you could be using screenshots, you could be using step-by-step guides if it's a kind of that process-oriented. You might be using videos inside of a bigger piece, an e-learning course, to help convey something that video is really good at. And so what you want to do is narrow down is video doing the job I want it to do for this particular message, for this particular format? And if it's not, can we somehow eliminate some of that video? Maybe we don't want to get rid of all of it because again, we love video. Or maybe video is only gonna be an eighth of it or a fourth of it, or something like that. And so you want to make sure you're really right sizing that format so that you're giving the right delivery and the right timing to someone. So especially if you're worried about speed, again, which is cost, maybe there's a mixed model, a mixed media model that will be much more advantageous than just a straight up video. And again, I think video can be very effective. And I make a lot of video, and I think sometimes uh video is the best delivery mechanism. I think it can be a very powerful mechanism. There's lots of things that it can do very well, but you've just gotta ask the question up front. Uh, we had a on this show a while back, we had uh Greg Mead, and Greg talked about working for a large uh organization using video, but he also used a lot of animated gifts. And he was helping customers, so using animated gifts, and I think that's a really another powerful way to think about uh delivery, right? Not it's not just gonna be all MP4. It could be animated gifts, it could be uh, you know, motion graphics that probably are MP4, but then maybe there's no voiceover, more no avatar, no person on screen, right? You just got the kind of the core pieces that show the process. And that doesn't just have to be screenshots. You could use animated gifts for real world things too, maybe showing somebody how to turn something or turn something on or step-by-step process that's fairly short. Again, uh, we want to make sure we're paying attention to our bandwidth usage on those things. So that way, if you're working in an environment, maybe you've got out on the frontline workers and you know they're using maybe their own device or some device that doesn't have good Wi-Fi and good connectivity, you want to make sure you're able to deliver something to them in a way that they can get it. The other benefit of looking at beyond video is uh when I'm at work. Uh, if I was on a frontline position, maybe I don't want my workers on their phone uh for a long time. I definitely don't want them listening maybe with headphones or volume up so everybody can hear. And so what are the other mechanisms that you can deliver that? Again, not saying eliminate video, but just asking the question and this important question is video right for this kind of outcome that we're trying to achieve? Will it help us to get there? Or is it a part of it, or is it not

.000 - Pre-production planning

at all? So let's talk about as you go through the workflow process, there's there's several things that I think you can look at inside of creation that are going to be, again, these pinch points that are gonna cause you some uh problems maybe to slow down or maybe get hung up on. We talked about the role of the needs analysis and getting prepped with all that kind of information. Obviously, depending on how you like to make your videos, uh AI can help you with scripting, it can help you with storyboarding, it can help you with maybe outlining, things like that. Uh, so that can be very helpful and that can speed some of the process up in terms of finding research and doing all that good work that needs to be done in preparation for uh actually creating the video. When we get into the actual creation process, uh, you know, there's no plan that goes unscathed when it hits the real world. So I think what you need to be aware of is that plan for all sorts of things. Yes, it takes time to plan. There's no doubt about it. It takes time to prayer, prayer like your location. It takes time to prepare your set, your microphones, your cameras, your desktop if you're doing screen recording to get it ready so it's a clean presentation and you're not getting pop-ups or having too many tabs open like I do right now. Um, what you want to be thinking about is like, hey, what does this need to look like? What am I going to show? And what can I prepare so that way I can run through it relatively quickly, quickly. I I know I've shared this fact, but when you look at film, Hollywood film, and you look at the where the work goes in a Hollywood film, one of the smallest pieces of it is the actual film production. Now, it's still weeks of work for them, but there is maybe a year, two, three of upfront production work. So pre-production, you got your six weeks of or so of uh actual production, and then post-production, a year, maybe two at the max. I mean, Pixar, which is doing animation, they're taking five years to make a film. Uh, and you know, obviously lots of things are happening along the way, but that's a long time. Uh, so we just want to make sure we're planning things out really well so that way we're not having to come back to a location. We're not having to do takes, you know, again later when we've already broken things down. We we know what we need, we've got it planned out. Or, you know, even in our screen recording, it can take a lot of time to set up a fake sit site or database or something that you, you know, you're like, oh man, I got got one or two takes to get this and I gotta get it right. Um, and or you gotta reset a bunch of stuff every time you do it. And I've been there. I've I've been in systems where I'm like, man, I set it up, and now that I've recorded and I want to record again, undo, delete, get it back to its original state. And so just prepping for those things will save you time. And again, I know sometimes that's not what people really love to do. They just want to get in. I just, oh, I'm just, I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna film it. I'm just gonna just gonna hit record. And that can work if you're really good. If you're really good at the things that you do. So just be really mindful about the preparation in the production process that you do, making sure that you can scale things, move things, do things in a very orderly fashion, just the more effort you put in there, it is going to pay off in the end because not only will you spend less time actually recording, uh it can help you in the post-production because then you're getting the things that you need. You're not scrambling to find something, or you don't have so much stuff that you're like, well, I just captured everything. If you've ever just captured everything, you know that is a lot of stuff to go through. And do you really want to do that? I don't. I don't want to go through all the extra stuff that I don't really need. Give me the give me the good stuff so I can move forward with my my post-production task and get that done.

.000 - Strategic stakeholder feedback

Now, in that process, uh you get through your post-production, you go through an editing the same thing, preparation, you know, have a system, have a workflow that in the way you're gonna work through your project, you know, normally people bring in kind of the rough stuff, cut it down, then they start adding uh, you know, b-roll or they'll they'll add kind of layers of pieces one at a time to make sure it's it's looking good, going through it. Um, but we also know that at some point, particularly in learning development, we're going to have to deliver this thing to somebody for feedback. And you want to be really strategic here about when you're giving someone your media for feedback because um you want to make sure you're hitting it at the right points. Now you might have various stakeholders who are going to be eligible to give you feedback. There's probably the person who initiated the project, whoever that stake and stakeholder is who is saying, yep, this is ready to go for you know, internally, for the website, whatever it might be in the LMS. You might have a legal department and they're gonna have some kind of leverage and say in the revision process about, yep, you can't say this, you did say this, can't show it this way, whatever it might be. And there might be others. So, first of all, you want to make sure that's clearly defined up front if you can. And I know every organization working with you folks is this is always a challenge, right? Like, okay, now someone else found out about the project at the very end and they want to be included. That's okay, that can happen. That, but ideally, we're we're doing the homework, we're working with stakeholders to make sure we've got that list well in advance. And then we're making sure we let folks see it at the point where it makes the most sense for them. Some people are going to need probably early access, right? Your legal department probably, if you have to deal with that, may want to see the script. They want to see the language that's going to be used instead. They might need to see it later to make sure that's actually what's done, plus visuals, et cetera, right? But hopefully they're what they're giving you is like legal counsel, like this is not accurate. We can't say that, or can't say it for whatever reason legal people have. But what they're not hopefully giving you is creative direction. They haven't stepped in and said, well, you know, we it's all legally fine, but we don't like that there's a Lego tree in the background. We don't think that looks the way we think it should. Now that's legally, I don't know that there's a reason not to have the tree back there, uh, but that could be something we don't want to probably get from legal, hopefully. Other stakeholders, you might be giving them a rough cut, but you might be asking them for very specific types of feedback. If you're working with people who are not video creators, and this is pretty typical, this is most of us, and folks, in fact, most of us would say, Well, I'm not really a video creator, I'm just part, it's part of my job. I make videos, but I'm not a video professional, I'm not a video editor. Um, but what I think we can be looking for is when we give that person a draft, right? It could be a draft of the video early on, maybe it's later on. We want to make sure we're asking, giving direction on what we're looking for. So, for instance, maybe it's a key stakeholder subject matter expert, and we're we're asking them, when you watch this video, what I'd like you to look for is very specific things that are either correct or incorrect. Have we approached this in a way that actually makes sense and follows the path? Now, hopefully you've worked that all out, so there should be no concerns. You might ask them to say, hey, we've added captions, and this is usually towards the end. Could you review to make sure that our captions are all correct? You might want to give them a specific job so they focus on that. That's not to exclude other feedback they might have, but what we when we get into the actual like we're editing phase, we want to try to avoid the big changes, like, oh gosh, do you know what? I think our character's wrong. And we need a new person on screen. Because that's extra work. Or you're asking for total uh, you know, redoing all what if we added in this new section? Again, that's gonna change your whole workflow and production that you've already wrapped on that part and you're in post-production. So trying to give people specific things. Now, there are some trusted creators. I find that uh I work with my team and they're fantastic, and I just trust that they're gonna give me good feedback on things that are doable. But ultimately, they leave a lot of that to me when it's my video. If I say, nope, we're not gonna change that, and I can give them a good reason why, costs too much, too much time. It's not really super important. Yes, it's unfortunate maybe that that's showed up that way, but like maybe it's not incorrect, uh, it's not gonna confuse people, then I can make that case and I can make that call. But what I want from them is to help me make it better, that something needs to be a little bit tighter, a little bit smoother, or maybe I didn't linger long enough on something and like skipped over a button. If I'm making a how-to video, right? And maybe it feels like it's going too fast, it's hard to follow along. Um, whereas other people, maybe I don't want all the editorial video kind of feedback. What I want from them is like, yeah, this is right. Uh, this is a good approach. Hopefully, things that we've gotten already good approval on early on. And I know, I'm gonna lean in here for a second, and I know that's hard to do. It's hard to get to that level working with stakeholders in an organization. But if you want to go faster, you want to make a quicker video, this is one of the things that, again, let's agree up front, or when we go into the review process, that these are the types of things that we are able to do. These are the types of things we're unable to do at this point. Um, because hopefully, again, they've had their say at the scripting stage, storyboard stage, they saw that. And then at the video stage, they're like, it's hopefully a confirmation of the things that they've already approved on. And they're like, yeah. Now they might catch mistakes, they might catch issues of things that you just missed. You know, you clicked on the wrong thing here, or this said the wrong thing there. That's that happens, and you just have to acknowledge that um and fix it, right? That's your job as a creator to fix it. But what we don't want them giving us late in the process is major changes. When we get to that, like where we feel like we're almost done revision, man, we don't want to go back and re-record things. We don't want to be changing out major aspects of it. We don't want to be shifting around wholesale, with the exception of things are really, really bad and going to get us in trouble or not working. But like, again, hopefully we've they've been along for the process that they trust what you've done and they've trusted each of those processes: scripting, storyboarding, pre-planning, you know, even if you've brought them in on an early draft. Um, again, you can get too much feedback, too many cooks in kitchen. There's lots of challenges that, but revisions are a cost point. Um, ultimately, it's ideal, ideal to have like one review location and one final stakeholder. One person who gets the final call to say, yep, I'm good with it. Yeah, I know you didn't make that change that Bill wanted, but yep, we're

.000 - Screencast.com – a centralized view

good. Uh and the one location means it's going to be centralized and it's easy for them to know and look. I'm a fan of screencast.com. If you're not familiar with screencast.com, it is a TechSmith product. Uh, upload my videos from Camtasia, I can upload videos from Snag as well, as well as images. But the thing I like about it is I can leave timestamped comments right in the player, and I can add boxes and arrows to point to things so that when I'm giving feedback to my video team, the beauty is that they see it exactly at the time that it's intended to be, and I can highlight the thing for them that they're supposed to maybe change or update, or if that even matters, right? Sometimes it's just like I can give general feedback. They get that feedback in a summary, they can go and look at it, they can see feedback from everybody, they can respond right there. It just saves so much back and forth. We've done it in Slack, I've done it in email, I've done it many of different ways. And this is by far one of the easiest ways uh to be able to give feedback on a video and to receive feedback. It makes my life as a video editor even easier. So it's it's pretty fantastic that way. But again, I mentioned uh one stakeholder review, and I think that's important as well. So just make sure you're you're leaning in there.

.000 - Time saving and cost reduction

Now, when it comes to time saving and really reducing cost, the next thing that happens often is that a video is out there, it sits for a while, and then time comes to update. And uh, it might be for lots of reasons, right? Uh Publishing is typically not the end of its life. Obviously, we want it to live out on our LMS, on a network drive, maybe it's on YouTube, who knows where it is. It does matter, but it's like kind of same, same case that you have to think about like what is your plan for the next iteration? Is there going to be a future update? Do you think something that needs to be changed? Um, you know, when do you make a change on a uh say a UI? So if a button changes, when does the video get updated? Do all videos get updated if that they ever showed that UI? Or is it only ones where it's talking about that particular aspect of the UI? Um, but deciding these again up front can help you narrow down the things that you're going to do and not going to do. Now you could also look at like, okay, if we're going to update what what's our archival process for these videos? Because sometimes going back and recreating a video is it's really time consuming. Maybe you don't even have access to the same materials, but you have to have the original video, this original project files, all those parts and pieces to do that well. And then you can decide, is it actually worth re uh like just updating a small part, or is it easier just to like redo some of it? And that's gonna really depend on the video and the content. Now, I think uh other things here is like what's that process look when when does someone get to say it needs to be changed? Is that your call? Is that the stakeholder's call? Is that, you know, I work in a software company, so oftentimes our developers release something that's gonna trigger a review, making sure that you're documenting that well and at least understanding you don't have to have, I don't think you have to have a library of like a listing card catalog of all the things that ever mention the record button, uh, if you will, but like maybe you want to at least kind of have a general sense of what what topics are out there, what videos are in your overall library. So you know, like, yeah, I need to do a quick review, which videos do I think are going to be affected? Um, and then decide how you're gonna present that to your audience. Is it going in and replace the video that was there? Is it gonna be an update like on YouTube? You can't replace the video. So you just have to upload a new one. But what are the steps you're gonna take? Are you gonna link to the new video? Are you going to uh put old, outdated, or some kind of thing in the title? What's your plan there? And just again, if we're thinking about pro some of this process stuff, you just have a decision made. You don't have to make the decision again, you just move forward. Unless something in the world changes, then of course you can always revisit it. Um, but it's it's always a good thought to, hey, now we have this process, we have this plan. When it heads, we're not scrambling to figure out what to do. Next, uh thinking in kind of modularity. So, what are things that you can build that allow you to think of of your video project a little bit more like Legos than just one stream of consciousness? I do a lot of stream conscious stuff, but like thinking about like, hey, here's some parts and pieces that I can reuse. And that could be just be like your kind of lower thirds, your thumbnail, kind of graphics, your your any kind of certain animations that you use a lot. Maybe it's an introduction or end screen or end card. Um, thinking about those things, even though those minor, uh having them just available is gonna save you time. Don't recreate the wheel for every single video. Don't make it have to look and feel completely different. It should live within a brand standard. You should follow those brand standards, and then you should just move forward until it's time to change and update. Now, of course, you can learn and you can grow and develop new things, or you might have to go one off. But as boring as it sounds, that's gonna make you faster because you're gonna know this is the pattern we follow. This is the way it's gonna look. You're not having to figure it out. In Camtasia, for instance, and other tools too, you've got an asset library. You can add stuff to it. Uh, you've got the asset library you can download from, but you've got your own library that you can add things to it. You've also got things like your brand colors, like add your brand colors and add your font. So you're not having to look up the hex value or the RGB code, whatever it is, right? Um, just making those, taking the time to make those things kind of known, to have them stored, to have them available to you, uh, is going to save you a lot of time. Uh, especially then if you update it, it's it's gonna be available to just say, okay, now that's maybe if it's an image or something like that, a little bit easier to swap out. Um sometimes updating videos is hard, sometimes it's easy, right? Sometimes it just depends on the content. Uh, but maintaining them and keeping them, you know, the longer the shelf life, usually the better the value you're gonna get. If a video takes you a day to make, let's say eight hours of work, but you get to use it for a year, two years, three years, that's pretty good return on investment. Now, if it's something that's changing every three months, every couple weeks, yeah, you're gonna want to spend a lot less time on that. But that goes back to that kind of pre-decision making like what is this video? How long do we think it's gonna be good for? Who's the audience? How many people are gonna watch it? All these questions are really important. So as you are thinking about videos and you're thinking about this process of going through videos and reducing costs, right? These are just some of the ways that I think you can be thinking about structure that allows you to create better video. Now, if you're looking for ways and tips to like get faster at recording uh tips to, you know, so you can go from zero to screen recording in like three minutes. We can do that too sometime. But right for now, there's this kind of the superstructure around all the work that we do. And I get this is pretty general advice. You could be using this for e-learning courses, you could be using this for any multimedia, you could be using it for just creation of any content. But I think the principles are really important. And I think it's one of the things I hear that is neglected a fair amount, and not because we don't want to do it or because it's not a good idea, it's because it takes extra time. And usually the time we're thinking about it is when we're like, hey, could you make the video now? And that's the wrong time to be doing it. You should be doing some of these prep work and steps and planning and organizing uh now so that when the video next video comes, you're ready to roll with it.

.000 - What does done mean?

So what do we got? We got um thinking about the needs analysis. We should be thinking about who needs to be involved in the process. Do we need to think about this? Does this actually need to be a video? Um, do we think about like, hey, what's our process for review and updating? Uh, and then what does done mean? Last question for you. What does done mean? Uh there's an old saying, I heard it a long time ago at National Association of Broadcasters NAB conference, and it was that a video is never done. The video producer just has to hit uh produce, uh, you know, export. So videos are never done. You might never be completely satisfied. You might feel like there's always another edit or two. Uh, that's why we get directors' cuts. That's why we get other versions of movies, that's why we get all these things. Uh, you're not alone in that feeling, but sometimes you just gotta be done and you gotta ship it and you gotta get feedback and you gotta learn from that feedback and say, okay, here's what I'm gonna do in the next one. Get and you just keep leveling

.000 - Outro

it up. So, well, I hope this has been at least interesting. I hope it's been helpful. I hope it gets you thinking about your processes, uh, I hope it gets you thinking about the things that you do as a video creator uh or as someone who is a trainer or some other role who has been asked to make video. These are things that I think are founded foundational and fundamental. And I hope they help you to start putting some process around your video so that you can reduce the time, you can reduce the cost for your organization, uh, and if you're an independent contributor or sole contributor, or your if your value is based on what you create, it adds value to you when you're doing these things faster, better, more structured. I think what you'll find as you put some of these in place is that it's gonna give you really good footholds to take steps because you're spending less time on those things and much more time on enhancing your craft and ability to share a message that is meaningful and has the impact that you're looking for. So, with that said, we're grateful for all of our listeners of the Visual Lounge. Of course, we'd love your feedback, theVisual Lounge at TechSmith.com, or you can leave a comment on social media. We've got lots of posts out there. We see them all. We'd love to have you tell us what you think. What worked for you? Is there a topic that you'd like to see, or is there some other message you would like to share with me as the host of the Visual Lounge or any one of our guests? With that said, we are always here interested in helping you to become better, stronger, faster, more capable as a learning development professional, as a marketer, as a technical communicator, as whatever role that you're in, if you're using images and video, we want to help you get better and do more with what you have. And with that said, I hope you take a little time to level up every single day. Thanks, everybody.