For example, I record my lessons in a closet off of my office, which totally wouldn't do for a webcam. Plus, if you add the webcam, you have to record in an environment with a suitable background and lighting, which might be tough for some producers. When I produce a lesson, my goal is to make it look like the audio and screen were flawlessly captured in a single take, which is relatively simple to do if you're capturing audio and screencam, but nearly impossible to do if you add webcam video. Should I include webcam video? Although this is my opinion only, you shouldn't include webcam video unless you absolutely have to. However, Camtasia's editor can certainly get the job done, is way easier to learn than Premiere Pro, and includes lots of content and templates to produce highly engaging lessons. I wouldn't buy the Creative Suite just to produce screencam-based lessons, but if you have it, you can use it. I use the Adobe Creative Suite because I don't need any of the aforementioned screencam-related features, I'm faster in Premiere Pro, and Audition's audio filters, particularly compression, are more configurable and more effective.
Then, I input the MP4 into Adobe Premiere Pro to finalise the video edit, optimise the audio in Adobe Audition, and output using Adobe Media Encoder. I've probably created close to 100 hours of instruction over the years, and my go-to workflow is to record in Camtasia, piece together the different recordings in Camtasia's editor, and export the rough lesson as a high-quality MP4 file. However, if you have to add features such as cursor effects, quizzes, or other interactivity, you may need a tool like TechSmith's Camtasia or Telestream's ScreenFlow.
If you already have a video editor, you might be able to use a free tool to capture the screen (see a list at /screenrecording, plus QuickTime for the Mac), export an MP4 file, and edit in your existing program.
What software do I need? This depends on a couple of factors. It's smarter to create and consume four 5-minute lessons than one 20-minute lesson. So the shorter you can make your lesson, the better it is for everyone. Not only are shorter lessons easier to watch, but they're also easier to record and edit. Learning platform Udemy is even more aggressive and recommends lessons that are 2–6 minutes long. Keep your lessons either under 2 minutes or no longer than 12 minutes or so. Thereafter, viewers begin to drop off, although not precipitously.įigure 1. How long should my lesson be? Video hosting service Wistia analyzed 1.3 billion plays of 567,710 videos and found that either 2 minutes (near 70% retention) or 6–12 minutes (around 50% retention) are the optimal durations (see Figure 1 ). Planning and Kitting UpĪny well-executed project begins with planning, so let's start there. Well, you're in the right place, because this tutorial will tackle the hardware and software needed, plus the planning, recording, editing, and output of the lesson.
So you've been charged with producing a screencam-based training lesson for your organisation, and you're wondering where to start.