Creating Training Videos: Professional Quality With a Smartphone

LIKE FILM SCHOOL FOR TRAINERS! Film and edit effective training videos—using your smartphone. Whether you’re a facilitator, instructional designer, or L&D department of one, you don’t need a fancy DSLR camera or film crew to create successful training videos. All you really need is a learning strategy, a good production plan, and a smartphone camera. Informed by his 30-year career in training and media, including his time as learning executive with the BBC, author Jonathan Halls is committed to best practices in video production that will actually help your learners to learn, and without a giant strain on your resources.With straightforward and accessible language, in Creating Training Videos you’ll get:

• The intersection of media and learning research: Uncover how your videos can effectively provoke learning.
• Best practices for instructional video: Create a smart outline for your instructional video, creatively use repetition, highlight schemas that are familiar to your audience, and more.
• Visual grammar: Learn rules of film that you can put into effect immediately, like framing your shots and selecting the best shot sizes to more powerfully support learning.
• Planning your pictures: Gain a practical framework for mapping out the elements of your video using storyboards, shot formulas, and narrative templates designed to meet various training needs. Understand how picture, graphics, spoken word, and more come together to tell your story.
• Your videographer’s toolkit: An honest discussion of essential gear, helpful gear, and the serious tools you might consider for your toolkit.
• Filming with your smartphone: Learn how to best light, stabilize, and frame your shots using the tool you already have in your pocket.
• Editing and workflow: Stitch shots together for a powerful final product that supports learning, no matter what software you decide to use (yes, even an app on your phone!), and workflow considerations that satisfy all of your stakeholders.

With 96 percent of organizations using video as a key modality for workplace learning and 62 percent of organizations posting video (for L&D and other purposes) to YouTube, the ability to produce video is a sought-after skill in the L&D world. Creating Training Videos teaches you step-by-step how to plan, film, and edit smart instructional content—using only a smartphone and without compromising quality and success.

About the Author

Jonathan Halls is an award-winning author & was recently named by GFEL in the top 100 Visionaries for Education in 2021. His books include Confessions of a Corporate Trainer: An Insider Tells All (2019), Rapid Media for Trainers (2016), Rapid Video Development for Trainers (2012), Video Script Writing (2014) & Memory & Cognition in Learning (2014). He is a contributing author to books including the ASTD Handbook: The Definitive Reference for Training & Development 2nd Edition (ASTD Press, 2014) & has written for publications like T&D, Learning Solutions and others.