Production guidelines for educational videos

Some more random ideas/background regarding a format(s) and production guidelines for Drupal Dojo screencasts.

Requirements

• Tighter, more streamlined lessons
  • Create outlines and scripts
  • Lessons that are 10 to 20 minutes rather than an hour and a half or more
  • A format for all of the sessions - something we can pitch to folks as an advertising opportunity
    • break a subject down into easy to handle segments
    • logical layout - Each lesson stands on its own, but builds on the previous lesson's knowledgebase
• Fit the lessons into target-audience buckets:
  • Evaluator
  • Administrator
  • Designer/Themer
  • Developer
• Higher production values
  • standardize screen-cap settings

Example Format

• 20 minute segment
• 10 logical segments
• each ten part series should lead to the creation of a solution to a specific business problem

Ad model?

• create the videos and put in blank ad spots
  • Advertise here with contact information
  • keep making videos until someone buys ads
• go for a sponsor before you start
• host the video and run an adsense block

Examples and inspiration

• http://movielibrary.lynda.com/html/modPage.asp?ID=508
• http://www.google.com/adwords/learningcenter/
• http://www.apple.com/iwork/tutorials/
• http://services.google.com/awp/en_us/breeze/7914/index.html

See also 

• Brainstorm on the Dojo 2.0.
• Role Models For Displaying Video Tutorials
• #drupal-dojo irc chat about Dojo2.0

Divx Web Plugin would be a nice feature for the website because it would allow for high quality videos. Thats just my opinion though :)

Solutions for screen recording

Windows

Free solution: CamStudio
Recommended solution: Camtasia Studio 5 - $299, 30-day free trial available

Mac OS

Free solution: Built-in Mac tools
Recommended solution: iShowU - $20, 30-day free trial available

Linux

Free solution: xvidcap
Recommended solution: N/A - if you want to record screencasts, you can only use worse tools compared to Windows and Mac OS.

If you can afford to buy Camtasia Studio, I reccommend it. It offers the most functions and the easiest handling on the market.

• Important things:
  • Plan exactly what to say and what to do. This is a very impotant step, as you can not stop while recording. It is highly recommended to prepare an outline you can rely on during the recording process and to consider it thoroughly before recording.
  • Check the volume of your microphone. You can do this by opening the volume control or the Camtasia Studio recording tool. Then start to speak at normal volume into the microphone. If the volume indicator goes half way up than it is ok. You can also check this by making a test recording.
  • You should avoid background noises. Make a test recording while the microphone is on but say nothing. Then play the recording while turning the speaker volume to the maximum. It is optimal if you can not hear any background noise. The cheapest microphone probably won’t meet your expectations.
  • Exit every unnecessarily running programs! Especially messengers like Skype, MSN, as they can disturb the quality and process of recording. Switch off even your mobile phone. Finally let the people around you know not to disturb.
  • Clean up your desktop, do not show unnecessary icons and programs.
• As for the video, a resolultion of 800x600 is highly recommended. 800x600 ensures the ratio of 4:3, and resizing the video is easier. And the text is the most readable on 800x600.
• Don’t move the windows of the programs too much! Set the needed programs (browser, text editor etc.) at an exact position before recording to avoid unnecessary movements. These can be very disturbing for the viewer. If the recorded program contains horizontal scroll bar (like the browser), then scroll only in case of real need. So try to minimize horizontal moving.
• Record only the required part of the screen. In most cases the browser is recorded with Drupal running within. Therefore it is recommended to install Firefox, and then to download Web Developer addon to it. This addon can resize the Firefox window (800x600 is recommended. Therefore only the required part of the browser is recorded).
• Set the font anti-aliasing in your operating system. If it is not set fonts appear badly.
• Use clearly visible cursor when recording.
• The speed of the cursor should not be too fast as it can be disturbing. You can set the speed in the control panel. Do not move the cursor too fast or unnecessary when recording and do not click too much either.
• Wait 3 seconds before speaking when recording has started. Wait 3 seconds in the same way before you finish recording. Therefore nothing will be missing at the beginning and at the end.

This has been submitted as a DROP task - please claim it over here:
http://drop.cwgordon.com/node/32

I've created a wiki page for this here: http://groups.drupal.org/node/8945. Feel free to edit. One question I've had is alot of this comes down to knowing how to use a screen capture and/or video editing app like say iShowU and iMovie for example. Making a tutorial for each set of potential apps is a fair amount of work. So I was thinking of pointing to documentation and tutorials for common apps. Thoughts?

For OS X you should also look at ScreenFlow http://www.varasoftware.com/products/screenflow/ - Has really great callout functionality and a surprisingly powerful editing system for $99

To really make a format like this viable for as wide of distribution possible, creating 22 minute shows would be ideal as that is the format used for 1/2 hour shows on broadcast television. 3 x 7 minute 20 second segments.