Camera Work: Learn from the Pros (page 2)

Training Videos

Where event videomakers know the high points that will appear in their programs, makers of training videos plan everything that will show up in theirs. In this genre, precise and exhaustive scripting is crucial to success.

To ensure success in this demanding form, you should script every sequence fully, often shot-by-shot. You should include every title at the point where it'll appear. You should write every word of narration and time it for proper length.

Otherwise, savvy videomakers who are new to training programs will sometimes skimp on scripting, thinking that they can write an outline of sequences, shoot each one ad-lib, edit the results and then write narration to fit.

But the seasoned pro will tell you that that approach is unsound, for at least three reasons. First, training videos tend to be expensive; and you can't cost-out a production if you don't know exactly what's involved in it.

Secondly, if you don't script the show fully, you'll never see where the content holes are, and--trust a grizzled veteran on this--there are always holes at first.

Finally, few clients are willing to give you permission to spend a large pile of their cash without reassurance that you're in full control of the project. And in the pre-production phase, the only evidence of control is your script.

The next thing a training video pro will do is budget the show to the last penny. In the industrial production company where I toiled a while back, the standard budget worksheets were legal-size and the individual line items filled several single-spaced pages. Today, those worksheets are computer spreadsheets, but the level of detail is the same.

Meticulous budgeting delivers two benefits. It lets you predict costs closely, of course; but in addition, the process reminds you of things you might otherwise forget. "Let's see...line item 231: lunches for the crew--wow! I completely forgot we'd be shooting on the factory floor through lunch time."

Another key concept to learn from the training pros is program pacing and length. Pacing as in snappy, and length as in short. Let's face it: in the keep-you-biting-your-nails department, The Revised Clinic Processing Record (an actual opus of mine) isn't quite up there with Jurassic Park. To hold viewers' attention, you have to move it right along.

Your audience will forgive a lower inherent interest level because they understand that the program is for training, not recreation. But woe unto you if you let things drag for even a few moments. Quite simply, you'll lose your viewers and never get 'em back.

But no matter how brisk your pace, your programs still have to be short, if only to prevent information overload. Viewers can retain only so much of what they take in, and they have an unconscious sense of when they've reached their limits. Keep pouring it on past the saturation point and they quickly grow restless, and soon resentful.

To prevent this, training pros limit programs to about 20 minutes, if possible. (I plead with clients to keep mine under fifteen.)

Even if you never make training videos, develop the discipline you need to edit tight and keep it short. A ten minute wowser is far more impressive than a 30 minute snooze.

Promotional Videos

Like training videos, promotionals are staples of professional videomaking. But where training programs are heavy on skills and information, their promotional cousins are designed to persuade and motivate.

Some promotional videos seek to persuade viewers that their sponsors are good guys ("We're Behemoth Industries, working for all your tomorrows!"). Others try to move their audience to action ("Cherish our wetlands--adopt a swamp!") To achieve either goal, the pros who make these videos must clearly identify the program's objective, audience and message.

Identifying an objective means determining what you want your program to accomplish. By articulating a clear objective, you focus your efforts on goals that are specific enough to achieve in a program of watchable length.

To use our wetlands example, you might begin with a vague intent to promote good environmental practices. You know that's miles too broad, so you decide to focus on preserving wetlands. If you're an amateur, you might think you've found your subject.

But if you're a pro, you realize instinctively that the topic's still too diffuse for a video that will move its audience to action. So you narrow it to something like, "the objective of this program is to motivate viewers to adopt a swamp." Now you've got an objective to drive your program.

But which viewers, exactly, do you want to motivate: school children? Senior citizens? Government types? Corporate executives? All these groups might develop an interest in adopting a swamp, but you must address each in a different way. A professional will adjust the presentation of the program's argument, the density of its factual detail, the vocabulary of the narration and the style of the visuals to appeal to the target audience.

This is less technical than it sounds. By putting yourself in the place of a fifth grader, say, or a corporate CEO, you can instinctively tune your presentation to appeal to that person's abilities and interests.

With the program's objective and audience clearly in mind, you can identify the program's message. The message is not the same as the content. Content is what the audience sees and hears; message is what they conclude from doing so.

Since you want them to adopt a swamp, your message will communicate why this is a worthy action, how to go about doing it, what the results will be, and how they will feel about doing it (good).

And if you work the way the pros do, you won't begin the job of outlining the message until you've identified the objective it supports and the audience it's intended to persuade.

Commercials

Promotionals are not the only persuasive videos, as we all know only too well. For every motivational program we watch, we may see a thousand commercials.

Like 'em or not, commercials represent the highest levels of professional expertise. (On a dollars-per- minute basis, they often cost ten times as much as a typical feature film.)

The biggest thing we can learn from the pros who make commercials is economy. These people go through the same objective/audience/message process as promotional videomakers, but then they must shrink the program to 30, 20, or even five seconds! To do this, they have to weed out every non-essential shot and pack the visuals that remain.

They also pack the audio track with music, effects, dialog and voice over. The result is a density of information and a power of persuasion unmatched by any other video form.

What if you never make commercials? True, you can't maintain a commercial's intensity through a longer program. Your audience would quickly overdose and tune out. But economy is a virtue in every kind of videomaking, and the place to study it is on your monitor screen during those breaks when you'd otherwise go grab a soda. For whatever else it may be, the commercial is the most efficient information delivery system yet devised. As such, it's worth learning from.