Recipe for effective video creation

Regardless of the topic or subject matter, a poorly designed video piece will suffer from poor engagement, and if your audience isn’t engaging with your content then you’d struggle to answer the question ‘what was the point in pressing record in the first place?’

Koumi (2014) developed a formula or structure to ensure effective implementation of video in higher education. It’s a fluid approach that includes a hook, signpost, facilitation of attentive viewing, enabling of constructive learning, allowing time to reflect, clarify, reinforce and finally conclude. It is assumed that following these steps will ensure engagement with the content will go beyond just viewing and will create impactful and constructive viewing.

Hook

This is where you rouse the viewer or student, the moment where you need to grab attention. It is recommended to be at the top of the content. Liken this to the scrolling through a Facebook or Twitter feed and think about the images that grab attention and stop your thumb for eight seconds – it can be a shock, a surprise or something that triggers delight. Aerial shots of a CBD or country side, cats doing interesting things, eye contact, a calculator in a blender can all work well, or even asking a question, e.g. “Can you tell me who won the Battle of Gettysburg?”

Casey Neistat is the master of the hook

Signpost

Similar to a good subject line of an email or a chapter heading, this backs up the hook to inform viewers about what’s coming. Clever minds and interesting topics can meld the hook and the signpost, giving viewers an idea about what they’re about to spend the next 2-3 minutes engaging with whilst also grabbing attention. But the main aim is to alert audience of what’s coming.

Encourage Concentration

This is where we slip into a more pedagogical approach to video creation. If you’ve correctly signposted, the viewer should be expecting to be challenged which is a great way to continue the concentration. Asking questions is one method in which to approach this, but authenticity and impact for the view can be challenged here. Another option is to present an onscreen instruction or thought-provoking statement.

Construction of knowledge and time for process

It is a difficult task for any viewer to hear lengthy narration and visually see contrasting imagery. It’s advised that any ancillary shots or B-roll heightens the understanding or creates meaning without room for unintended interpretation. This may be a matter of showcasing metaphors or analogies, such as using a traditional brick and mortar shopping example to showcase how blockchain works.

BBC explains blockchain

Sensitise

Now it’s time to take a breath, allow time for contemplation and understanding, solidifying the information. This doesn’t mean black screen but potentially bringing the volume level of the background music up to the level you had the dialog and replaying a b-roll sequence to set the information. This is also a way to change topics, once again bringing the music level up and signposting with a b-roll sequence that’s relevant to the topic ahead. If you were talking about the role cities in the 18^thcentury and wanted to move on to the present, a change in music and a quick succession of modern day city shots and pedestrians would signal this to viewers.

Clarify

Putting graphics on screen is a great method to enhance clarity around difficult to understand concepts. However, text heavy slides and the like will be poorly received, not only are they an eyesore but they’re not taking advantage of the medium. As a rule of thumb, however long it takes to read the text out loud should dictate how long it must be on screen. In order to take advantage of the medium, you may want to show a concept as opposed to narrating it – a simple motion graphic to show a product cycle, or how smaller parts fit into a larger overall machine are good examples.

5 considerations for adding text to video

Reinforce

If you’ve already followed some of the above steps you’re well on the way to reinforcing the content you’re putting across. Complimentary narration or interview content matched with ancillary color or b-roll footage is one such method. Contrasting and comparison is another such method in which to showcase to the viewer exactly what the concept is and is not.

The importance of B-roll

Conclusions

The full stop, the wrap up or the consolidation period. Call it what you want but it puts a nice tidy bow on your video, brings the viewer back to what the initial concept was. This is particular useful if you find the content went off in any form of a tangent. It is also an opportunity to summarise the key features or topics of the content

If content is king, then context is god

Gary Vaynerchuk

This recipe or formula has no specific measurements or (unless stated) order in which to add, and some of them will be subconsciously created in the formation of scripts and the like. But it’s worth keeping in mind in order to create great educational video resources.

Koumi 2014, Guidelines for pedagogic video design and production, viewed 10 May 2018, http://jackkoumi.co.uk/gfp-video-production.pdf

Woolfitt 2015, The effective use of video in higher education, viewed 10 May 2018, https://www.inholland.nl/media/10230/the-effective-use-of-video-in-higher-education-woolfitt-october-2015.pdf