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How To: 5 steps to making a great screencast

Dec 27 2010

Making a great demo video can be tough, so we decided to share our secrets.

The Setup
Every video on wistia.com has been made using the same simple setup. We use an external mic and a Mac running ScreenFlow. If you’re on a PC we suggest checking out Camtasia.

1. Picking the Subject
Figuring out what video to make can be a challenge. We look for subjects that can be covered in under three minutes and strive to make videos that are under 90 seconds. We look for areas of the product that are particularly confusing and for which a step-by-step video would provide a useful walkthrough.

There are two ways to find these “trouble” areas: Paying attention to support requests and looking for topics that require long written explanations.

2. The Script
Writing the script for a demo video is the most important part of the process. A boring script is the easiest path to failure and a great script will make the production of your video easy. The script shoud flow naturally, as if it’s off-the-cuff.

Instead of starting by writing, I like to start by talking. I’ll ask myself a question and record my answer. I like to record the first version of the script as if I’m walking someone through the product over the phone.Then I’ll transcribe the recording and simplify my answers. The result is a script that sounds like a conversation.

3. The Audio
Record the audio before the video. This will give you an idea of how long the video is going to be and it will give you a chance to make sure that the story has a beginning, middle, and end.

When recording, make sure to keep your pacing consistent and to pause between each sentence. This makes it much easier to edit the audio clips from different takes together. Your goal should be to create a natural flow.

4. The Video
Now that you have some nicely recorded audio, recording the video is much easier. I playback the audio as I record the video. This allows the visual moves to be perfectly timed to the audio, which makes for easier editing. If you’re lucky, you can get away with one video track for the whole video.

5. Editing & Overlays
The final piece of editing is synchronizing the audio and video recordings.

After the audio and video are synchronized you should imagine what it would be like to watch the video without audio. You want people to still be able to understand what the video is about if they don’t have their volume on. I go through and add titles to highlight the different actions being displayed. Once the video makes sense without audio, then we’re ready to rock.

Examples of videos made with this process:

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About the Author: Chris Savage is the CEO and co-founder of Wistia. You can find him @csavage and savagethoughts.com

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This entry was posted on Monday, December 27th, 2010 at 1:55 pm and is filed under Making Video. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

  • http://www.partnershipdancing.com Andrew Weitzen

    Hello Chris,

    Have tried making a couple the other way around, first making the screencast and then reading the words off the screen for the audio. Did not work particularly well. Will give your method a try.

    The time frame is a helpful guideline also.

    Thanks,
    Andrew

  • http://hubshout.com Chad

    Chris,

    Thanks for the post and the tips. This certainly answers a few of the questions that I wrote about but I’d like to see more. I just put a video on our homepage using screenflow and wistia. Here are a few things that I’d like to know more about:
    1. Some of the words in my video look a little pixelated. Are you using Keynote or Powerpoint when you go through the words in your videos? I used your suggestions for video and file format.
    2. I have an audio technica cartoid mic that I bought. Audio is better than when I was using a built-in mic but not as good as yours. What are you using?

    It would be helpful to get more info on:
    1. Suggested setups for small / medium / large budgets.
    2. What other applications are you using to produce your videos.

  • Chris

    Hey Chad,

    These are great questions that beg a more fleshed out answer then would make sense to provide here in the comments. I’ll write up something in a bit more depth and let you know when it’s live.

    cheers!

  • http://www.labescape.com/ Trevor Lohrbeer

    While we used to do scripted videos going up to 10 minutes using Camtasia, we’ve switched to unscripted videos in the 2-5 minute range using online tools like Screencast-o-matic http://www.screencast-o-matic.com/ (we were using ScreenToaster until that shut down).

    This approach requires less work, allowing you to produce a lot more content in less time. I’ve recorded some of our tutorials now and I write a short outline, run through what I want to do before recording and then do a single-take recording. It usually takes 4-5 takes before I get a clean take, but if your just doing a 3 minute video, you can do 5 takes in 15 minutes. Then when you’re done, the video is instantly ready to be uploaded, no audio/video syncing or editing.

    While the result is less polished, for us it works because it allows us to create content quickly. A 3-4 minute video can created in about an hour, from conception to final upload.

    Now we’re even starting to write articles that way, where we first record a video then have our writer translate that video into an article. It takes only an hour to create a video, while 3-4 hours for an article, so it’s time efficient for us.