If you downloaded and opened the trial version of several Adobe programs in June (including RoboHelp, Captivate, FrameMaker, and Acrobat 3D), you may be saddened to discover that the trial period expires after just one day (instead of the expected 30). Adobe is aware of the problem and has issued a patch that will extend the trial period to 65 days.
Adobe Captivate: How Long Should Your eLearning Lessons Last?
by AJ George
Today's working professionals have more on their minds than ever.
"Is the courier going to get here on time?""Am I going to get that raise?""Is the project on budget?""Am I on schedule?""What time do the kids need to be picked up from daycare or school?""What's for dinner?""Is the dry cleaner going to be open this late?"
eLearning developers face a daunting challenge when it comes to engaging adult eLearners. Not only are adults distracted, but many industry experts believe that attention spans in general are shrinking.
Distractions and shrinking attention spans aren't the only hurdles facing eLearning developers. Many professionals who take eLearning courses don't necessarily want to take them. In fact, your eLearning students may have been forced to take your course as a mandated part of their jobs.
Given the distractions, waning attention spans and an audience that may be less than enthusiastic about taking your eLearning course, you might want to seriously consider how long each of the eLearning lessons that make up your eLearning course should take, on average, to complete. Should the lessons last 10 minutes? 20? 30? Should the course itself last 60 minutes? 90 minutes?
Let's assume you're developing a 60-minute eLearning course. How do you go about dividing the course into bite-sized lessons (chunks) that will maximize learning before minds begin to wander?
As Neil Postman pointed out in his book Amusing Ourselves to Death, there was once a time when people would sit and stay captivated by speeches for 8-10 hours. But those days are long-gone. While prior studies have put attention spans at around 20 minutes, a study conducted at Simon Fraser University found that for literate humans, the average continuous attention span was 8 seconds, with a maximum of 30 seconds. In addition, it was determined that the average general attention span was from 10-12 minutes.
In his book, The Media How-To Guide for Nonprofits, David Perry said the continuous attention span for adult learners is 15 seconds. 15 seconds!
Ralph A. Burns conducted a study on adult learners, finding that the bulk of information the students were later able to recall was received during the first 5 minutes of instruction. Burns said that the lowest level of retention occurred between the 15 and 20-minute mark.
At Arizona State University, a group of professors realized the fault in the standard teaching method of having a professor lecture at the front of a classroom for no less than an hour. They banded together to create the Arizona Collaboration for Excellence in Preparation of Teachers (ACEPT). The professors cited the adult attention span as being a mere 8 minutes and structured their new methods of training around this short attention span.
John Talanca, Director of Technology & Distance Learning at Novartis Pharmaceutical Corporation, is not a fan of long eLearning lessons.
In his article, Let's Get Small, Talanca says that the majority of today's online surfing for learning "occurs in small chunks: a web search here, some investigative reading there, a few minutes in a chat room, followed up with a conversation in a break room."
According to Talanca, "My department's eLearning strategy includes the design and development of brief eLearning modules as a main staple. The majority of eLearning courses we offer our employees take less then 12 minutes to complete, and many take only eight to 10 minutes of the learner's time. Sure, we have some longer courses in our catalog, but they're the exception. We constantly receive learner comments on these mini-modules to the tune of, 'Exactly what I needed and no more,' and 'It [the module] didn't waste my time.' "
Clearly the adult attention span is decreasing. And things aren't likely to improve any time soon. Rather than fight fate, consider creating your eLearning lessons for the ever-shrinking attention span of your learners.
Many eLearning professionals that I spoke with agreed with Talanca and felt that adult learners retain the most knowledge in small chunks. When asked how they would approach a 60-minute eLearning course, it was recommended that the course be broken into 12, 5-minute lessons or 6, 10-minute lessons.
Of course, not everyone agrees that tiny, 5-minute lessons are better. For instance, Chris Bennett, the Founder and CEO of Ah-Ha! Media, an e-learning company providing employee compliance training, said the following about eLearning lessons: "30 minutes is about the maximum; less than 15 is too short. The exact number of minutes between 15 and 30 should be dictated by the depth and number of objectives in the learning lesson. In a one-hour course, it's absolutely fine to have two 18-minute lessons and one 24-minute lesson."
On his BLOG, Dr. Tony Karrer, CEO/CTO of TechEmpower, a software, web and eLearning development firm based in Los Angeles, says he's discovered the perfect timing for eLearning lessons, and it's much longer than 5 minutes.
"I have found a sweet spot for learning chunks around the 10-15 minute range," said Karrer.
When it comes to eLearning lessons, Karrer feels that "Most people are satisfied with just the most basic information and the ability to get more as needed."
What are your thoughts on this subject? How long are your typical eLearning lessons and courses? Send your comments by clicking here… we'll include your comments in a future issue of this newsletter.
Do you have a Captivate production problem that's making you pull your hair out? Email your problem and let others learn solutions from your experience.
Questions of the Week
Captivate Question: Can I Add Closed Captions to Failure Caption Audio
I've just discovered — to my horror — that I can add Closed Captions to Captivate slide audio but not failure caption audio (e.g. the failure caption for a click box). Is this true or have I missed something?
Answer
You haven't missed a thing. You cannot add closed captions to failure captions in Captivate 3. That sure would be a nice addition to Captivate 4!
Captivate Question: Can I Force Closed Captions to Appear Automatically?
Is there a way to have the closed captioned text appear automatically without the user having to click on the CC button on the control panel – maybe a setting that I missed?
Answer:
Captivate does not support this feature. However, as a workaround, you can add a widget to your project that would take care of this for you. Here's a link.
RoboHelp Question: Why Am I Getting a Message to Install a Web Browser?
I'm using Adobe RoboHelp 7 HTML. When I try to compile my project I'm getting a message that says something like Please install a web browser. What can I do? My project will not compile at all. I'm using Internet Explorer as my Web browser.
Answer:
It sounds like Internet Explorer needs to be associated with your HTML files. Here's how you can fix the problem:
- Find any HTML file on your hard drive
- Right-click the file and choose Properties
- On the General tab, click the Change button to display the Open with dialog box
- Select Internet Explorer from the list of programs and click OK twice to close both dialog boxes.
Back in RoboHelp, you will now be able to successfully generate your project.
Got a question you'd like answered? Email me.
New “Skills & Drills” Books
This user-friendly, concise grammar workbook and reference is designed to help all of us become "word" people.
Whether you are a writer, editor, proofreader, manager, staff-person, or student this book is for you. "Abrams' Guide to Grammar" demystifies the rules–it provides practical experience to reinforce learning and build confidence for improved usage.
Whether you are a writer, editor, proofreader, manager, staff-person, or student this book is for you. "Abrams' Guide to Grammar" demystifies the rules–it provides practical experience to reinforce learning and build confidence for improved usage.
"Abrams' Guide to Grammar: Second Edition" covers problems of grammar and punctuation. If you communicate by composing a letter, memo, report, or email you'll benefit from this lively and instructional tutorial. What's more, if the following topics intimidate you or fly right over your head, this is definitely the book for you.
Here are some of the topics covered:
- Sentence Fragments
- The Run-On Sentence
- The Parts of Speech: Definitions
- Commas with Independent and Dependent Clauses
- Commas After Introductory Constructions
- Commas and the Short Phrase
- Interrupters
- An Interrupter vs. The Conjunctive Adverb
- Parenthetical Phrases or Clauses
- Explanatory elements
- Appositives
- Possessive Case
- The Pronouns Who and Whom
- Verb Tense
- Rules for Verb Tenses
- Mood
- Squinting Modifiers
- Misplaced Modifiers
- Dangling Modifiers
- Careless Placement of Only
- Verbal Phrase
- Parallelism
This book also includes confidence checks and answer keys.
There is no faster way to master grammar… at any price!
About the Author:
Ellie Abrams is president of ESA Editorial and Training Services, Inc. Ellie has conducted training seminars to a wide spectrum of clients. Writers, editors, secretaries, managers, administrative staff, proofreaders, lawyers, educators, and scientists have befitted from her expertise. Ellie co-authored The New York Public Library Writer's Guide to Style and Usage and STET Again!.
Click here to order this book (or for more information).
Here's a special offer just for readers of this newsletter. Use coupon code 1189731762 when you order the book using the link above, and you will save 10% off of the retail price. (Note: This offer expires June 1, 2008.)
If you taught yourself RoboHelp, there is a good chance that you managed to cobble together a functional Help system. But was learning the software and creating the Help system on the fly a painful experience? Did you get your work done as efficiently as possible? This book offers step-by-step lessons that will increase your efficiency with RoboHelp 7.
Lessons Include:
- Environments
- Working efficiently with MS Word
- Variables
- Snippets
- Cascading Style Sheets
- Templates
- Conditional build tags
- Using multiple TOCs and indexes
- Publishing
Note:
If you have already purchased IconLogic's "Essentials of Adobe RoboHelp 7" book, much of what you will read in the "Robo-Like Efficiency Using Adobe RoboHelp 7 HTML" book can be found in the RoboHelp book (although the RoboHelp book is much larger and contains many more lessons). However, if you're using Microsoft Word as your text-authoring tool, and plan to import your Word documents into RoboHelp, we've been told that the section on Working efficiently with MS Word is worth the small price of the book all by itself.Click here for more information, or to order the book.
(Reminder: This book is only available in PDF format. You will be able to download and print the book almost immediately–your paid receipt will contain a link to the PDF. However, you must have the free Acrobat Reader on your computer to be able to open and print the PDF. )
Save Gas, Save Travel Time: Attend a Live, Virtual Training Class
Learn Adobe’s Technical Communication Suite (Captivate, RoboHelp and FrameMaker) From the Comfort of Your Office or Home!
You can attend a live training class from the comfort of your home or office. All you need is a high-speed Internet connection, the necessary course software (trial versions work fine), a headset for your computer and a few hours to master the following:
Course Menu:
Adobe Captivate 3 Essentials
2-day course
Instructor: Kevin A. Siegel
Adobe RoboHelp 7 Essentials
2-day course
Instructor: Kevin A. Siegel
Adobe FrameMaker 8, Introduction
2-day course
Instructor: Barbara Binder
Adobe InDesign CS3, Introduction
2-day course
Instructor: Barbara Binder
Adobe Technical Communication Suite Integration
1-day course
Instructor: Kevin A. Siegel
Here’s how our virtual training works:
- Register for a class and pay your tuition.
- Check your email after registering… you’ll receive a receipt within minutes. The receipt contains a link to a PDF with important information about the course including date, time and login information.
- On the date of your class, use your computer and go the web site specified in your confirmation PDF. (If this is your first time attending a virtual class with us, we recommend you go to the class site at least 24 hours prior to ensure accessibility to the training site and download the necessary meeting software.)
- Also on the day of the class, hook a headset/microphone up to your computer (we use VOIP) so you can hear and speak with your fellow classmates and instructor … and that’s it.
Note: The software courses above are taught by trainers who have consistently ranked as Adobe’s Top Five Most Highly-Rated Certified Instructors Worldwide.
Need to schedule a custom class for your team? Email your inquiry.
Ground Floor Video Production for eLearning and Web Delivery: Part 3
The following is the conclusion of a three-part series for the beginning to intermediate eLearning content developer. It's designed to teach, from the ground up, how to add video to content for eventual delivery on the world wide web. If you missed the first two parts, I recommend you start with the first article, Part One: Setting Up for Success.
Part Three: Capturing, Editing and Encoding for Delivery
Last week you learned to shoot your video. What now? You've probably got a lot of footage in your camera. The next step is to transfer the video from your camera to your editing station. Nowadays, this step is pretty automatic. You open up the software, create a new file, attach your FireWire cable (FireWire is a cross-platform implementation of the high-speed serial data bus that can move large amounts of data between computers and peripheral devices) to your video camera, and click Import. If you've been using a mini DV camcorder, this step might take a while. On the other hand, if you've got the big budget and have been using a High Definition video camera with Flash memory, this won't take long at all.
Once the import process is complete, you have the raw footage ready to go. Save it, and back it up somewhere.
While editing techniques and practices are really outside the scope of this series, let's look at a few things to get you started.
Most editing software has a preview function. This is the palette that contains a preview of your raw footage. Even if you shot in relatively low fidelity, going through that footage can be very costly in terms of RAM usage, meaning your computer will begin to run very slowly. Fortunately, you should be able to lower the percentage of your preview, from 100% to, say, 50%. This will let you know what you are previewing without getting so detailed that your computer responds slowly.
The next step is to cut the raw footage down into the pieces that you need. You might want to backup the entire raw footage onto a portable hard drive or other inexpensive media for later use, or simply for posterity, but only keep your new, slimmed down clips on your editing machine. This will help speed things along, and you don't want your hard drive cluttered with rarely used, giant-sized video files.
Try to keep things as short as possible. Keep in mind that your finished video will be deployed over the Web. Longer videos usually mean longer load times or buffer under runs. If you have your choice between two takes, choose the one that has a shorter run time. That is not to say, however, that your editing should include rushed takes, or takes where the actor speaks too quickly. Just make sure that you trim time where it makes sense.
Don't overdo the special effects and graphics. You might run into some situations where "dazzle" is appropriate, but for the most part you won't need too much of it. I find that typography that looks good and a nice background is all I typically need. You want the learner to pay attention to the entirety of the script, not the graphics.
Once you are done editing the video, go ahead and extract the audio track, open it up in your editing software, and put on your headphones. Now that you don't have the video portion of your content to distract you, go to work on the audio. Save a copy, as always, in case you go a little too far. The important thing to remember, and something that really divides professional product from amateur, is that your audio collateral is just as important as your video collateral. Make sure you take the time to make it sound right. Pull out things you don't like. Augment things you do like. If it calls for it, put a very subtle filter effect on a particular word to emphasize it (be careful here, it's easy to go too far). Up the bass a little if you like, or lower the mids.
Listen to the audio with your eyes closed to get a good picture of what is going on in your mind's eye. This simple step can be the difference between a decent piece of content and an award-winning one.
Once you are done, bring the audio back into your video editor. Make sure that your timeline ends on a full second. Some encoding algorithms trip up on clips that don't end on full seconds.
Save your project and render it out with some good settings. This can be relatively high quality, as the next step will encode and compress. You want something here that you can archive and re-encode later if the need arises.
You want the rendering to be high-enough quality that if a client needs something on a DVD for a presentation, you can use it for that. For example, if I was using Adobe After Effects to render my movie, I might render it at "best" quality at 29.97 frames per second as a QuickTime movie with animation compression (I commonly change animation to H264) and the audio at 44.1 kHz, 16 bit stereo format. This will give you a good rendering which you can archive.
When the rendering is done, ask a team-member to watch the movie. A second set of eyes is crucial at this point. You want to make sure that everything makes sense and your team-member will undoubtedly see something you didn't, or hear something you didn't.
The final step is encoding your movie. The industry standard for eLearning content is the Flash Video (FLV). Why? FLV's are platform independent, are a brilliant codec that gets files small enough for rapid transit across the Web, and is the native video format for Flash, which is a tool pretty familiar to most eLearning developers. FLVs also integrate seamlessly with the native video capabilities of Captivate.
When encoding for Flash with the Flash Video Converter you want to be aware of a few things. First, the lower the bitrate, the lower the quality of the final video. Second, compressing your audio will make it sound a little weird. These are two things that you have to balance for yourself, usually via trial and error.
A general rule of thumb I follow is:
- On2 VP6 video codec
- Custom quality at 300 kbps
- Frame rate same as source
- Audio at mp3 64 kbps mono (this can change to a higher bitrate and stereo if you need it, but the file size will go up)
- Crop and resize as needed. If you are delivering in a piece of Flash content, you want to size this to your player within Flash. If you are using it in Captivate, you are in luck. Captivate helps you resize this on the fly!
- If you didn't do it before you rendered your movie, your duration should be shaved down to the nearest full second if possible. Take a little off the front and a little off the back if you need to.
That's about it. Your movie is now ready to be delivered on the Web. Go out there and make it happen! I realize that the information presented in these past three articles is a lot to digest, but you'll get through it. Video is in demand, and all the tools you need are out there. You just need to add your own perspective and make some interesting content!
I hope you had as much fun with this series as I did. And please don't hesitate to email me with any questions.
About the Author:
William A. Collins Jr. is the Creative Director for Multimedia Development at Learning Evolution. An honored graduate of San Diego State University, Will has a B.F.A. with emphasis in Graphic Design. Will infuses the entire creative department at Learning Evolution with the ideal blend of art and science. He brings a professional, abstract and friendly demeanor to all his work. Will enjoys spending time with his beautiful wife Carolyn and their one year old darling daughter, Molly Jean.
About Learning Evolution:
Learning Evolution is a recognized leader in providing best of class customized eLearning and performance improvement solutions available to clients on their Learning Management Systems and Portals. In addition to eLearning services, Learning Evolution provides in-house video and audio production facilities and expertise.
Grammar Workshop: When Not to Use a Colon to Introduce a List
by Jennie Ruby
Since I discussed semicolons last week, I must this week give the colon its due. There is nothing semi about the colon. The colon is a full stop. Full stop is, of course, the British word for that other important punctuation mark, the period. And just like a period, a colon should be placed only after a full sentence.
Because the colon is used to introduce things, many of us are tempted to use it when the first, incomplete half of a sentence introduces a list, like this:
Because the colon is used to introduce things, many of us are tempted to use it when the first, incomplete half of a sentence introduces a list, like this:
- My favorite fruits are: blackberries, strawberries, and bananas.
The colon does not belong in this sentence, because "My favorite fruits are" is not a complete sentence. You would not put a period after are, and likewise, you cannot put a colon after are. The word are is perfectly capable of introducing the list by itself. The same is true of the words include, were, and contained, as in these sentences:
- My specialties include baking pies, creating salads, and barbequing ribs.
- The foods at the party were fried chicken, baked beans, and banana pudding.
- The basket contained biscuits, rolls, and sliced bread.
As for using the colon correctly, if I know my readers, you have already noticed that I have used two colons to introduce sample sentences. Both of those colons are at the end of complete sentences. Here are some more examples of colons concluding sentences and simultaneously introducing lists:
- There were several green vegetables on offer at the open-air market: bok choy, cabbage, lettuce, and chives.
- Many foods evoke spring: asparagus, water cress, strawberries, fresh spinach.
Of course, introducing lists is not the only job of the colon. It can also introduce explanations and examples. More on that next time. By the way, that last example contained an asyndeton. Stay tuned for what that is all about.
About the Author: Jennie Ruby is a veteran IconLogic trainer and author with titles such as "Essentials of Access 2000" and "Editing with MS Word 2003 and Adobe Acrobat 7" to her credit. Jennie specializes in electronic editing. At the American Psychological Association, she was manager of electronic publishing and manager of technical editing and journal production. Jennie has an M.A. from George Washington University and is a Certified Technical Trainer (Chauncey Group). She is a publishing professional with 20 years of experience in writing, editing and desktop publishing.
Want help with a grammar issue? Email us your troubles and we'll turn Jennie loose!
Adobe InDesign CS3: GREP Searches
What in the world is General Regular Expression Print (GREP)? Wikipedia defines it as "… a command line utility that was originally written for use with the Unix operating system. Given a list of files or standard input to read, GREP searches for lines of text that match one or many regular expressions, and outputs only the matching lines."
In other words… GREP is a way to a take InDesign's Find/Change to a whole new level. Got a problem in a document that you can't fix with a basic find and replace? Try GREP.
For example, the en dash is commonly used to indicate a closed range of values, such as those between dates, times, or numbers. As Jennie Ruby once told me, use an en dash when you would say the words "to" or "through", as in "see pages 14-20 in the reference guide." So what do you do when your writers use hyphens between digits instead of en dashes? You certainly can't just search for all hyphens and replace with en dashes (you'll mess up all the hyphenated words).
Find/Change Text comes so close. You can use the special character list to search for any digit, an en dash and any digit, but there's no way to replace the digits.
Enter GREP. You can enter in a fairly simple GREP query that will find all Arabic numerals with a single hyphen and change those hyphens to en dashes. Don't forget to save the Query so that you can use it again and again!
Intrigued? The best resource I've found so far is "GREP in InDesign CS3" by Peter Kahrel. You can purchase his 47-page PDF document here. It offers clear explanations and numerous examples of common searches.
About the author:
Barbara Binder is the president and founder of Rocky Mountain Training. Barbara has been a trainer for nearly two decades and was recently recognized by Adobe as one of the top trainers world-wide for 2007. Barb will be your trainer for our virtual Adobe FrameMaker 8 and InDesign CS3 classes.Grammar Workshop: The Dreaded Semicolon
by Jennie Ruby
If there is one punctuation mark that rivals public speaking and clowns as a thing that people fear most, it is the semicolon. Maybe that is because grammar mavens and middle-school teachers tend to describe it something like this: "The semicolon functions to join somewhat causally related independent clauses within compound sentences and to separate elements of a list at least one element of which contains a comma." Ok. Got it. Well, maybe not so much. Let's break that down into what really are only two jobs for the semicolon.
The easier job to understand is when to use a semicolon in a list. Of course, normally commas separate the items on a list, like this:
- On the hike we saw squirrels, deer, and a bear. (the second comma is optional)
Sometimes, however, an item on the list might have a comma inside it for some reason. As soon as that happens, the list becomes confusing. Readers can no longer tell which items are being listed. Here is an example:
- Lyon, France, New York, and Amsterdam are the cities we will visit on the tour.
Wait a minute–France isn't a city! That's right, France is included to identify where the city Lyon is. To make this clear, we need to upgrade the commas to semicolons in order to clearly separate the list:
- Lyon, France; New York; and Amsterdam are the cities we will visit on the tour.
The other job of the semicolon is to separate two sentences that have been combined into one. Normally, you use a comma plus a joining word like and, or, nor, yet, but, or so to separate two joined sentences, like this:
- The designer added the final graphic, so the layout was almost complete.
Each half of this sentence could have been a separate sentence, but I chose to put them together because they are closely related. To be a little more arty, I could have used a semicolon instead of the comma and then left out the joining word (called a conjunction):
- The designer added the final graphic; the layout was almost complete.
That's it for the semicolon. Just two jobs: Serving as an upgrade from a comma to separate list items, and separating two sentences that have been combined into one. What's so scary about that?
About the Author: Jennie Ruby is a veteran IconLogic trainer and author with titles such as "Essentials of Access 2000" and "Editing with MS Word 2003 and Adobe Acrobat 7" to her credit. Jennie specializes in electronic editing. At the American Psychological Association, she was manager of electronic publishing and manager of technical editing and journal production. Jennie has an M.A. from George Washington University and is a Certified Technical Trainer (Chauncey Group). She is a publishing professional with 20 years of experience in writing, editing and desktop publishing.
Want help with a grammar issue? Email us your troubles and we'll turn Jennie loose!
Ground Floor Video Production for eLearning and Web Delivery: Part 2
The following is a three-part series for the beginning to intermediate eLearning content developer. It's designed to teach, from the ground up, how to add video to content for eventual delivery on the world wide web. If you missed it, I recommend you read last weeks article, Part One: Setting Up for Success.
Scripts, Actors and Shooting the Video
The script…
Good scripts mean good content. A script-writer needs to think about the content to be presented, and the audience. Knowing the demographics of the audience will help you address the audience, and cater to them–a very powerful part of any eLearning course. For instance, you would write your script differently for a group of high school seniors than you would for a group of experienced software engineers.
The written word is very different than the spoken word. As you write your script, you need to break out, momentarily, of that narration or voice-over shell in which many developers have a tendency to feel comfortable. I would encourage you to use a conversational tone in your script-writing to avoid a stiff delivery and jarring content. Pick up a textbook and read it aloud to a friend. Then try to explain the same concepts to your friend in a conversational manner and you'll quickly see and hear the difference.
While writing a script, it can help to pause every once in a while and read your script back to yourself. Even better, ask a colleague to read your script to you. This simple step will most likely key you in to anything that sounds "off" or "strange."
The actor…
When the script is finished, you're ready to find your actor. Knowing your target demographic will help you pick your actor. Do you want the content to come from a peer? A supervisor? How about a character?
Your project might call for a round of auditions–get used to that and really pay attention to quality. Remember, the script you write and the actor who brings the script to life are likely intended for a paying customer. Both the script and actor should be of the highest-possible quality.
The introduction…
Once you've written your script and selected your actor, take the time to do a crucial, oftentimes overlooked step: introduce the script and actor to each other well before the shoot! Send the script to your actor as soon as possible. Ask the actor to come in early to go over the script with you. You can even teleconference (and use a Webcam), and make sure the actor understands the script.
It's important to allow everyone on your team enough time to become familiar with the content and the actor. There is nothing worse than getting someone in front of the camera for the shoot, and handing them a script to read cold. Trust me, it just doesn't work. Shooting a video isn't as simple as recording a voice-over (where you can "magically" splice things together). With video, you really have to get it right in the first place.
I would recommend that you prep the actor directly before the shoot. Take the time to put the actor at ease with your direction, and always treat your actors with professionalism and respect. Things will go much smoother if you direct the video in your mind before the shoot–iron things out in your head before expecting your actor to understand.
The shoot…
Once you've microphoned the actor and done a quick dry-run of the process in your mind, the first rule of thumb is to make sure you shoot as many takes as possible. I can't stress this enough. Shoot and shoot and shoot again. You don't need to be a taskmaster; give people ample breaks. But you don't want to let people leave the shoot until you have at least three good takes of everything you need.
Timing…
For a minute or two of video, you should expect to shoot for at least one hour to ensure you get through the entire take in one shot, several times. A key here is to not get frustrated. Keep your direction strong and professional, and keep a pace in keeping with the content. If you are naturally energetic in your day-to-day life, push pretty hard while recording. On the other hand, if you are a mellow kind of person, keep things mellow on the set. It's also a good idea to let the actor do a few loose takes, using his own words. Oftentimes this can yield surprisingly good results.
Once you are sure that everything has gone well and you can't possibly do just one more take, wrap it up. Be sure to schedule a possible date for re-takes before everyone leaves the set. You probably won't need to, because you got everything you needed, right? It's always possible that a client will request a change after you shoot. If all goes well and changes aren't necessary, the scheduled re-take day gives you a chance to follow up with your actors and team-members and tell them you won't need re-takes after all.
Next time: What to do with the video you've just shot
About the Author:
William A. Collins Jr. is the Creative Director for Multimedia Development at Learning Evolution. An honored graduate of San Diego State University, Will has a B.F.A. with emphasis in Graphic Design. Will infuses the entire creative department at Learning Evolution with the ideal blend of art and science. He brings a professional, abstract and friendly demeanor to all his work. Will enjoys spending time with his beautiful wife Carolyn and their one year old darling daughter, Molly Jean.
About Learning Evolution:
Learning Evolution is a recognized leader in providing best of class customized eLearning and performance improvement solutions available to clients on their Learning Management Systems and Portals. In addition to eLearning services, Learning Evolution provides in-house video and audio production facilities and expertise.