Tutors on Tape: Producing Instructional Video

Whether in a classroom, boardroom, or even a family room, people everywhere are learning all kinds of new things through the use of instructional videos. Once reserved for highly technical operations in a manufacturing environment, training tapes can now be found covering every imaginable interest or process.

Titles such as "Raising Rabbits," "Better Public Speaking," "Mastering the Violin" and "Senior Aerobics" line the shelves of video stores and fill the pages of mail-order catalogs. There seems to be no subject too bizarre or too narrow to warrant a video production. And though this extreme breadth of product definitely represents a great learning opportunity for the public at large, it represents an even better opportunity for the videographer--the opportunity to create a production with very little funding or experience.

Practice to Perfection
"I really had no professional video experience. Well, no actual paid video experience," begins Matt Luschek of Third Story Video in Litchfield, Ohio. Luschek describes his early days of videography as the classic Catch 22. "Nobody would hire me without prior experience, and how could I obtain experience if nobody would hire me?" With that paradox in mind, Luschek embarked on his first professional piece: an instructional tape on gun cleaning. "I realized I would never get a legit job unless I created one on my own. So I thought about the types of productions I could pull off, and an instructional tape fit the bill. It would require limited actors, limited sets, limited production value and, most importantly, a limited budg…