Creating eLearning videos which boost knowledge retention.

0:02
Welcome to how to create engaging videos for learning. My name is Adam King, I am a multimedia Producer here at Access, and when we talk about videos and getting results through the courses, it's all about retention. And as you can see from this slide here, video improves people's retention of new information by 83%.

0:29
About 10 years ago when I started doing this, I would have to really sell the format of video and now that's just not needed. These tips are going to be relevant whether you have an in-house media team, whether you're a single individual or whether you go external and use a freelance team. They should be relevant no matter what.

0:59
I'm not going to get too technical, but here are the three stages of multimedia production; pre-production, production, and post-production. That's essentially the planning, the filming, and the editing.

1:28
We're going to start with pre-production. Like with most projects, the production stage is vital. This is the stage where you get everything in order. It's the stage where you source locations, props, contributors. But most importantly, you're going to decide on what type of video you actually need that's going to suit you best. You can see there's a lot to choose from. We're spoilt for choice when it comes to video.

1:55
These are just the major ones. There's more than this I'm sure, but you can see that we are very, very spoilt for choice. Now your decision is going to depend on time and resources available to you, but also think about what's best going to serve your learners. For example, you might decide to do a ‘talking head’. It's very popular in learning materials, but a talking head might be better suited to just introducing a topic.

2:24
You then might want to introduce an expert interview, which will give additional context and a couple of additional perspectives. Or maybe you want to take a bit of both. Maybe you start with a talking head, introduce what the topic is, and then bring in an expert. And that's where you can get creative with the different types that we have available to us.

2:53
 Moving on to this lovely drawing here, which I actually drew myself. This is back when I ran a video production company, this is a safety video storyboard, and you can see the chap up there is about to get hit by the forklift. It's pretty self-explanatory. Actually this is probably the most important document of the entire project because not only does that sell the concept before you even start recording, but you're going to follow this like the Bible.

3:21
If you follow that faith, of course. Also, this is great to help you imagine the flow and pace, and it's usually accompanied by a list or a schedule with everyone's details, contact details for the day. It's just going to make the shoot go so swimmingly. There isn't a magic document standard for this, by the way.

3:51
This is however you feel you need to put it together. You can keep it simple or you could do the little drawings and have a lot of fun like I did up there. But, it could be literally a text based description. It doesn't have to be fancy. A big part of the strategy at Access is to focus on human centered learning, which is evident in all of the content that we do.

4:17
You can see here a couple of shots of some behind the scenes videos that we've done recently. Human centered learning prioritises the needs, goals and interests of the learner. And you've probably heard that many, many times. But it wasn't until I was putting this presentation together that I actually thought to myself, what are the needs, goals and interests of the learner? Like what are they? I put this slide together so the needs and goals on the left are self-explanatory.

4:47
I'm playing it down because a lot of work goes in there, but it needs to look good. It needs to be accessible, mobile friendly and it needs to achieve learning objectives.  We're going to focus on the interest because that's where video really comes to life and I've zoomed in on it here, so this is what you should be aiming for.

5:15
Take those videos, those talking head videos that are traditionally a little bit dry sometimes and see how you can add some entertainment, enjoyment, emotion, passion, curiosity, inspiration, and it's easier than you think once you start. I'm going to show you a couple of examples. This is probably our biggest and best example of human centered learning in our suite.

5:46
It was a course on Consumer Duty regulation. You're already switching off because you know it's quite boring. But, what we've done is we've taken something that historically probably would have been delivered as a webinar, 15 minute webinar, and we've turned it into a five part miniseries. We cast, we wrote the scripts and I'm just going to play a very small clip. So that may seem like a huge project, but actually it was done on a moderate budget.

6:15
It was filmed by a crew of two videographers and one learning designer and we pulled in resources from all over. We had friends and family appearing in it, colleagues. We used our own house and the Access office in a lot of the scenes. So, although it comes across as a big production, actually it was quite a moderate budget. But I want to counteract that with another option.

6:46
So here we have a much more simple way of adding human centered learning to your videos. We recently had a shoot with two financial crime experts. Really great people, they look great, they're credible and it sounded great, but it's just missing something. And I remember being on the team's call with the squad and we were trying to come up with ways that we could just add a little bit of personality in there. And what we actually came up with was, let's put a chess board in. Let's have them playing chess.

7:11
 I mean it works perfectly for an analogy with cybercrime attack versus defense. So anyway in regards to SM E's (Subject Matter Experts) you might be thinking, how do you find them? We had to put in quite a lot of time at Access to find all the different experts in all the different areas that we've covered. Personally, I use LinkedIn. LinkedIn is a great trusted platform and you can reach out directly.

7:38
One little bit of advice is, possibly, you might want to create a little PDF to send to them because they are going to push back. They might not know who you are. They might think it's some kind of a scam and that was one of the hurdles that we had to get over. What makes a good SME? Confidence on camera. If you can find people that have got podcasts, YouTube channels, look at their social media. Are they being active? Are they posting a lot of videos that will tell you that they're confident on camera? The last thing you want is someone nervous and we've had it before and the feedback was ‘the SME seems a little bit nervous, stuttering on their words.’

8:07
The learner's going to react to that. The learner's going to be watching and thinking, ‘do they know what they're talking about?’ So it's vital to get the right people in. Also, another great example is real life stories. The two examples on screen here, it’s just there's nothing better than an actual real-life story. A testimonial and finding the real-life story can be challenging.

8:37
Ways of doing that? Personally, we use YouTube. We look for news articles, look locally as well, ask friends and family. We had to find a money launderer. You know how difficult that was? How many money launderers do you know? It was a challenge. But using local news and asking friends, finding the name of the person contacting them? You'll be surprised. A lot of them are actually really keen to appear in video despite essentially admitting to their crimes. But it works really well.

9:06
Essentially, in that video you can tell that it was filmed on a multicamera shoot. And the reason for that was a lot of what he was talking about we couldn't actually use, not just because it was sensitive, but also because he was quite a joker. He was making a lot of inappropriate jokes and we were thinking, well, we'd love to include them. It certainly would be more entertaining. But you know there would be pushbacks,but he was a real character! You can tell, it does still come across in the video.

9:36
So, moving on to the next stage, which is production. Basically, the production phase needs two things. You need to be calm and authoritative, and these are two things that sometimes don't work well together. But believe me, if you stay calm, because pushbacks will happen, things will crop up essentially on a shoot like this. You're a problem solver, you know somebody will start drilling in the room next door, and you have to understand how to fix that problem because it's going to, it's going to ruin everything. It's important to stay level-headed.

10:05
And, be in charge. You might want to take a photo of this. These are three keywords that if you want to become a better videographer, you just need to do a little bit of research. And I don't have time to go through it all here because I could have done an hour long session on any of these three things. Rule of thirds. Quite a popular one. You probably already know a little bit about that 3 point lighting. That's your professional standard. You know that's the way to light someone properly.

10:32
There was actually a quote that I read this morning that said if you want to light something, don't light it because it's all about what you don't do and don't light. So don't light all of it basically. And mic types and placements. You might not have the best gear, you might not be able to bring in a crew. So just Google your mic type, work out where is this best placed? How is this best used? Because it makes all the difference.

11:03
Moving on, one thing to say about being on set is don't rush. Take your time speaking. On a set, just breathe. If everyone on the set is waiting for you, so what if it takes 10 minutes more, if it saves the day then it's worth doing. Make sure everybody on set knows what's what's happening and is all on board with everything.

11:31
You're going to want to take multiple takes as well. No take is ever perfect and your editor is going to be much happier for it. If you've got multiple takes of the same thing there's always something in there and often, similar to the money laundering video, you want to film on multiple cameras as well because it means you can hide the cuts and especially in the age of bite-sized content, it gives you that opportunity to take a 10 minute interview and make it 90 seconds or whatever you're aiming for.

12:00
Comfort is key, these guys, this is Martin or our SME for the day, subject matter expert. You've got to make them comfortable. You've got to treat them like royalty. I've seen it on a set where they get very, very hesitant and muddled because the videographer isn't being authoritative and that's what you've got to do. You've got to make them feel comfortable, make them a drink, settle them down.

12:26
Have a a run through with the material beforehand. It'll make all the difference to the end goal. And, this is a big one, embrace your team. You know at Access, we're very lucky to have a really big team to help me and not only within my squad, but there are three of us, three multimedia producers in the company now. You might not have that to hand, but ask your friends and family. There are so many hobbyist videographers, Instagramers out there, that essentially anybody with an Instagram account has done some video editing and videography at some point.

12:58
I brought in half the team here, as you can see, and instantly improved the quality across the board. So that brings me on to the next bit. Have fun, enjoy yourself. Film behind the scenes, footage for a vlog, you know marketing. They're going to absolutely love you for it believe me because these opportunities to showcase the people behind the videos, behind these learning courses.

13:26
They don't come around very often, especially in this day and age, when you're all in the same room. My advice would be to take advantage of that and create great content. On to the last part of the production is post-production, so this is the editing suite. If there are any editors out there, please ignore my very messy timeline that we've got on show.

13:53
But there's no better feeling than returning after a shoot to an edit and putting all that footage in the timeline and just having fun. Focus is the key. Like every single time you're distracted, you basically have to start again because you're watching through 15 minutes worth of content at a time. My advice would be to turn off notifications, reject meeting requests, and get stuck in. It's also essential that you organise your footage because You do not want to return to this project in two months time to make that one little change and half of it was saved to your desktop.

14:23
 And if anyone saw my desktop at the beginning when it wasn't working, you'll know that I don't stick to that rule. So, you should always edit with intent. Everything that you do in this timeline here should have a reason behind it. Some intentions from the length of shots to the order of the scenes.

14:49
Transitions, audio, everything should have a reason. It shouldn't just chopping it up and putting it out. It needs to have a decision behind every cut. Pacing and flow are massively important as well and another big part of our strategy at Access is bite-size learning. When you're trying to chop a 10 minute interview down to 90 seconds, you know it can be difficult.

15:18
We have a two-minute rule with our learning where we cut off at that point, but you can go shorter and we've experimented with that as well with little bits, kind of TikTok. We're in this TikTok generation where people's attentions just aren't there anymore and so you're constantly fighting against that. So again, you might want to take a picture of this. It's pretty self-explanatory, but color correction, cutaways and sound design, they're my three top bits of advice.

15:47
For the three major players in video production, obviously visuals, audio and sound. Sound design is massively important. When you're choosing a song, for example, does it even need a song? Is it more important that we hear exactly what the person is saying? There's been so many times where I've used my go to perfect music for learning, but sometimes it can be distracting, so make sure you make the right choice.

16:18
So in conclusion, what I would say is to be brave, push boundaries and test. Test with the learners. See what works, see what doesn't work above all else. You know, enjoy the process because it is fun. It is a celebration. I feel very lucky, everyone works so hard on the courses and then it's my turn to have a bit of fun with it and show it off. There's no better way to show a course than to say watch this video.

16:44
I think that works really well and the whole team feels that way. If you would like to attend our session later, which is called From Boring to Brilliant Tips for Creating Engaging Learning Content, presented by Sarah Mian, then it's over on Theater 7, that's tomorrow, 3:15, and obviously you can visit his here on the stand.

17:13
And there's some games and things that you can win. So do get in touch. Speak to one of the guys out here and they'll help you to win a year's worth of Gamebrain or a year's worth of self-directed learning. But yes, thank you very much.