Making Training Video Footage More Interesting

Always have a person or people in shot. Never just shoot “things”. With a building, have people in shot. With a product, have people in shot. This is because people like people.

Plan your shot first. Decide if you want to zoom, pan or tilt in advance. Then keep to your decision.

Witness the action as it unfolds.

Never have nil movement. If the subject isn’t moving, then the camera should.

The commonest mistake is to shoot too many safe shots, where the camera operator shoots wider than is necessary, and loses the facial expressions and reactions of the subject in shot.

The rule is that if you’re shooting somebody doing something, then get in there with the camera and let people see close-up what’s happening. This is much more involving for the audience than long-distance viewing, and corresponding long-distance emotions.

Stick to the video storyboard that you spent a lot time planning, and that the client agreed to. Don’t add new things, because usually there’s no need to do this, and it wastes time and creativity. 

If you’ve developed the storyboard professionally, you will have already referenced all the shots you need.

Use a preview monitor to check for dark areas in the picture. It’s a common mistake to see a perfectly good action shot marred by an unobtrusive dark area. This is usually caused by using the camera viewfinder only.

In fact, it’s advisable to use a preview monitor as often as practical.

Good training video footage comes from getting lots of little things right, as a habit.

To Shoot Training Demonstrations

First shoot the whole scene as an “establisher”, a wider shot. 

Repeat the shot with closer view.

Repeat again on eyes, then hands, or tilt eyes to hands.

Then repeat again from a different angle.

This approach will:

> allow the video editor to cut the training scene to any timeline length, to fit the voiceover, music jingle or whatever.

> offer greater visual interest, as the edits switch seamlessly from view to view, involving the audience in the training to a much greater level. A simple demonstration of someone opening a door can employ 6 edits, if the footage is there in the first place, ie, 6 cuts have been shot.

Shooting more cutaways is always a sure sign of a more polished training production.

Even the dullest of industrial scenes will look better with lots of intercutting of views of the demonstration.

Video directors play an important role in this style of shooting, as they can watch the scene on a preview monitor, and better gauge how tightly the scene can be shot, advising the camera operator accordingly.

Bringing Training Scenes to Life with Lighting

This is what lighting does. It brings training scenes to life.
Lighting operates on different levels.

A single light will lift a scene, and cheer it up.

A single light with a white scrim gauze bounced off the ceiling will look more natural and less harsh.

Backlighting a subject will make them glow, and look more appealing. This has to be done with great care, or it looks wrong.

Perhaps the best light of all is the Fill light.

This is a light aimed at the background not the foreground of the training scene.

It really makes a scene come alive and vivid with colour.

If the scene is in an industrial location or otherwise not so good to look at, or if the scene is a boring brown-and-beige office, then use a coloured gel on the Fill light.

Yellow gel on a fill light will cheer up a training scene without looking over the top.

Scenes can be contrasted by using different coloured gels, say, pink.

But don’t overdo it, or things will start to look unnatural and sci-fi, especially overuse of green or violet.

> Dealing with Talking Head VIPS