Sometimes it's just fun and useful to look at what other people have done.
This first video kills two birds with one stone as far you're concerned. If you're on a Mac it's particularly handy! Not only does it show you an example of a good video for online instruction but it shows you how to record a video you can put online even if you don't want to appear in it yourself! 😉
Some things to note, that you might want to think about including in your own videos, are:
- the soft focus of the presenter at the start and end. That means that Ewan is very much what you look at as everything else is blurred. Note that this isn't something you can do without a 'proper' camera but it's a fantastic trick when you can use it
- the background itself is pretty high tech. You get the feeling that Ewan is completely competent: if he can use all that tech, he's clearly on top of his game.
- the use of subtitles. A lot of videos are watched without sound! This is tech rather than what we're covering on this course but you can find out how to do it (easily!) here.
- the choice of thumbnail image. The person here looks about as normal as possible, so that prospective viewers identify with her on the basis of "if she can, I can".
The next couple of videos are pretty professional-looking. They should be, given what they're trying to do! Don't be intimidated by the slickness of their videos.
Firstly, it's not as hard to do that kind of editing as you might think (though unless you're interested in it you might like to hire someone!).
Secondly, these people need to be seen to be professional because their subject matter is what it is – you don't have to be the same!
Lets have a look at a full-on expert, doing a blatant sales video. Actually, scratch that, it's not so much of a blatant video at all as he's presenting it as though it's a educational video – what? He's cheating! 😉
So what do you think?
This next video does a lot of the same things, too. https://youtu.be/j8nltMkicBw Take a few moments to watch the video then another few to do the exercise as you watch the video again.
Exercise:
- How far into the video did the titles appear?
- What had the presenter done before that?
- What had the presenter done to give himself some energy and be engaging?
- How had the presenter avoided distractions?
- How often did something happen (a cut, some text, a shift to another scene etc?)
…. and now the hardest question! How can you apply any of those things to your own videos?