Editing & Post Production of Training Videos

Like the shooting section, this is not an editing tutorial. It’s about getting more out of your editing, so your training videos look and sound better.

Much of the magic occurs during editing and post production stages.

Here is a sequence of events that many studio editors use as their core workflow model when producing a training video.

> Grade the footage, label and sort it into scenes and categories.

> Quickly Edit an End-to-End version of the training video. This will be very rough, so don’t worry about mistakes. It will give everyone an idea of what’s emerging, and see the shape of the video. 

> Consult with video producer/director, ie, show them the End-to-End version. Note: This is not for the client to see yet, only the video producer and/or director/designer.

> Edit to Rough Cut. This is a virtually completed version of the training video. Almost everything will be in place – graphics, sound, edits. But possibly not the parts that require a lot of rendering time, such as image colourising or special visual effects.

> Show the Rough Cut of your training video to the client. They will make amends, but they shouldn’t really need to make suggestions outside of the approved storyboard.

> Edit the client amendments, and complete the post production, eg, effects, colourising, animation.

> Stream, upload or post the completed version to the client for final approval, which should be a formality, or a last minute check at the most. Any changes at this stage will be tiny.

> Deliver as DVD, mpeg2, .wmv and .flv, as all three formats will be needed.

Here’s how the different video formats are used after the training production is complete:

DVD: A disk to be played from a DVD player, or top notch PC.

MPEG2: DVD quality video file playable from a laptop or PC disk. The client may well need a special player or codec to play at this high quality.

WMV: A windows media video file for inclusion in powerpoints, or for fast download, and convenience.

FLV: A flash video file format suitable for video streaming on a website or intranet. Youtube use .flv

Dealing with clients who want to make too many changes at the last minute

This shouldn’t really happen if all the other production steps in your training video have been adhered to.

You have to ask:

> Why have they diverged from the agreed storyboard?

> Have new clients with fresh or different ideas come on board halfway through the project?

> Has everybody been “excessively creative” as the job progresses. This is mostly unnecessary. The video script and storyboard are there as the correct outlet for planned creativity.

Good project management skills ensure the final training video production mirrors or exceeds the client’s original intention.

> Quick Pointers for Training Video Editors