Everyday thousands of instructional videos are uploaded to services like YouTube and Vimeo. A few are excellent. Most are not! So, as you develop your next learning video, here are some tips to help your project be among the very best.

A great video starts with a great script. Plan your project by developing a script that focuses on your learning objective. Once your happy with the script add the visuals and create a storyboard. Use note cards or sticky notes, so you easily can add and take away visual and script elements. Share your storyboard with a friend or trusted colleague for feedback and ideas. Have them read your script aloud and listen carefully. It may not sound as good as you think. A great scrip and storyboard are essential elements in creating an excellent instructional video.

Ken Burns made a name for himself by capturing wide sweeping landscapes with gentle zooms and pans. Increase that effect and you can create tension and a sense of motion. Increase it further and you have an earthquake, a rocket launch or a car crash. None of which will contribute to learning during an instructional video. Steady that camera! Use a tripod or a steady cam – but hold that camera still. It is difficult to keep your audience focused on your goal when they notice how much the scene moves or shakes. You can edit the around some rough spots or run a stabilization program on the footage. But the easiest way to capture great footage is to stabilize the camera.

Record excellent sound. Be mindful of wind conditions, camera handling noises, camera focusing noises, and talent to microphone distance issues. You can get excellent audio from just about any camera, but be careful, many cameras have great audio recording capabilities and they also may record sounds you don’t want. Use a windscreen or a dead cat filter to kill wind noise. When you record dialogue, move the microphone closer to your talent or use a lavaliere microphone. Use headphones to verify the audio you have captured. It’s not a bad idea to use a audio recorder, since syncing audio is pretty easy inside of many popular video editing packages.

Have a specific objective for your learning video. Starting with a specific goal helps you focus your content toward that purpose. If anything in the video doesn’t contribute to the goal, take it out. Chances are very high that if it doesn’t contribute to learning, it is a distraction – and that can negatively impact your video.

Finally, watch your video. If it does not look and sound good to you don’t publish it. Re-edit it correcting any issues you have with the video. If you start any section in your video with “I hope you can see this.” or “I don’t think you can see this.” Fix it!! 

Here’s the recap and disclaimer. Script and storyboard your production using note cards or sticky notes, hold that camera steady with a tripod or steady cam, record great audio by getting close to your talent and using windscreens, alternate recorders, and headphones, set a purpose for your project and stick to that goal, and finally, view the video and correct any problems.

Full confession: The blog spot you just read is actually a video script that I am working on. I watched a couple of videos today and could not contain myself.

Look for more tips in the coming months – in video form.