This document provides guidance on creating tutorial or product videos. It discusses equipment needs, preparation steps like knowing your audience and writing a script, technical shooting details, editing tips, file formatting, hosting options, time and cost estimates. Creating high-quality videos takes careful planning, multiple takes, and editing out mistakes while keeping the visuals engaging for mobile viewers. Overall it is a more involved process than most people expect.

1. Make Great Tutorial or
Product Videos
Steve Burge @alledia

2. Steve Burge

3. Steve Burge

4. Steve Burge

5. Part 1 of 8: Equipment

6. Logitech: $50

7. No need to spend $100s

8. Windsocks: $2

9. Camtasia for PCs: $300

10. Screenflow for Mac: $100

11. Part 2 of 8: Before Shooting

12. Prepare
1. Know your audience
2. Know your style
3. Know your product
All of these make it difficult
to outsource videos.

13. Quiet Environment

14. Write a Script

15. Part 3 of 8: Shooting

16. Screen Resolution
High-quality computers:
full screen, then shrink during editing.
Low-quality computers:
screen to 1280 or 1024.

17. Increase mouse by at least 200%

18. Natural voice

19. Keep going despite mistakes

20. Part 4 of 8: Editing

21. Editing
Voice: Remove “um”s and “ahs”.
Visuals: Remove key mistakes
Images: Insert where useful but
keep to a minimum, particularly
logos (add them as overlays).

22. Zooming
Do zoom in on key areas. People
will watch this on their phones.
Don’t zoom in and out much. It
will make viewers dizzy.

23. Export Size
Choose the largest screen size
you’ll use. For us it’s 905px.

24. Export Formats
h.264 is best as it’s HTML5-friendly.
.wmv, .flv and .mov are all propietary
and increasingly old-fashioned.

25. Part 5 of 8: Hosting
1. Free hosting
2. Self-hosting
3. Professional hosting

26. Free Hosting

27. Self-hosting

28. Professional hosting

29. Don’t worry about warez

30. Part 6 of 8: How long will it take?
Preparation: Depends on product
knowledge.
Shooting: 5 mins for 1 min of footage.
Editing: Much longer! Depends on
mistakes, graphics, transitions etc.
Overall: A 5 mins video will take well
over an hour.

31. Part 6 of 8: How much will it cost?
From $150 to $15,000 or more
depending on your ambition.

32. Part 7 of 8: White screen
Equipment: Video camera, tripod
and more.
Room: Often a basement or garage.
Teleprompter: iPad or laptop below
camera.
Software: Final Cut Express, X or
Pro. Export from there to Screenflow.

33. Part 7 of 8: White screen videos

34. Part 8 of 8: Further Learning
telestream.net/screen-flow/demos.htm

35. White screen videos
vimeo.com/789519

36. Over to you …