Web Design in Oklahoma City

Lately, I've been spending quite a bit of time creating screencast videos for our content management products. Some of these videos have already been published (see our CMS demos and CMS tutorials) and others are on the way. I thought I'd share with you a little bit about our process for producing these videos.

Why make a screencast video?

Screencast videos are great for showing a product or process that takes place on a computer. Using a screencast lets you capture the action on your computer screen and use it in a demonstration. At Element Fusion, our screencast videos usually fall into one of two categories:

1. Marketing videos. These videos have a primary objective of generating interest in a product rather than actually showing someone how to use it.
2. Tutorial videos. These videos have the primary objective of teaching someone how to use a products, or a specific aspect of a product.

To script or not to script?

With marketing videos, my goal is to communicate as much as possible in the shortest amount of time. So, I choose to script these videos to make sure time is used most efficiently. Scripting also gives a slightly more polished feel to the video, which I like for marketing purposes. With our tutorial videos, we typically don't script them, but rather speak off the cuff (more on this below).

Equipment needed

You need a computer, a microphone, and some software. There are a ton of software options available, but after trying several, I've landed on Camtasia Studio. It costs about $300, but it is designed specifically for screen capture, so it makes the process really quick and easy. The editing side is limited if you're used to true video editing on something like Final Cut Pro or Adobe Premier, but at a fraction of the cost, I will make do with the options Camtasia provides. Again, since it's built for screencasts, it makes some of the most common things you want to do (like panning and zooming) very simple.

I also use Audacity for producing audio when working on scripted videos. Camtasia has very limited audio controls so producing audio first in Audacity gives me a little more control. I can't say Audacity is great, but it's the best free option I've found.

Some helpful hints

1. Choose your final output size. You need to know the size of your final video so you can keep that in mind when you're shooting screenshots. This is really the trickiest part of creating screencasts. In order for the viewer to see the whole picture, you need a very large video (upwards of 800x600) but that makes for inconvenient display options and sometimes even difficult playback. So, picking a smaller output size is good (we use 640x360 for most of our stuff, sometimes smaller) but it means you'll have to do some zooming and panning to make sure the viewer can see what you're doing.
2. Determine how you'll handle audio. You really have three options:
   1. Script it and produce the audio first, then add visuals on top. We use this method for most marketing videos.
   2. Create the visuals first, then record narration live on top of the video once it's ready. We do this for most tutorial videos.
   3. "Click and talk" and just record everything live in one take, talking and operating the computer at the same time. We almost never do this anymore (some of our earlier videos were created this way) because it leads to videos that are much longer than necessary and also provides very limited options for editing. However, this method is less time consuming to produce and can be good for some applications like more detailed how-to instructions where you will have a more captive audience.
3. Carefully use noise reduction filters on narration audio. It's almost impossible to capture raw narration that doesn't have background noise, unless you have a sound proof studio. So, run noise reduction filters, but be careful that you don't overdo it and make it sound muddy.
4. The point of editing is to cut out unwanted stuff. If you've got editing software, use it. No need to make the viewer sit and watch you type in a bunch of text on the screen or do other tasks not related to what you're trying to demonstrate. Cut out the boring stuff and keep things moving.

I hope this helps to give you an idea of the process and equipment we use to create screencast videos. If you have your own methods or products that have worked well for you, please share them in the comments. Your questions are welcomed as well.