Hi, I am beginning work on my first set of instructional videos for businesses. It will cover some important topics that I have become expert in over the past 30 years in business. I believe that the first set of videos will be 3-4 hours worth of lectures and for the purposes of this discussion, let's assume that there will be significant value provided. Since I have never produced, distributed or sold a video before, I have many questions. 1. How important is it to film a lecturer in front of a whiteboard and/or slideshow? I assume that this approach would be more effective than just a narrator talking over screen captures of a slide deck, but would like opinions on this as it will take significantly more work (and costs) to produce a video with a lecturer in a studio. 2. If I do go with a lecturer in front of the slide deck format, how do the experts make the slide show behind the lecturer "look good" in the video? Whenever I see a video of a lecture, the slideshow behind the lecturer on a screen often looks faded, fuzzy, etc. 3. I realize that 3-4 hours of video instruction is a lot and plan to break it up into a multiple volume "set" of videos. What is the optimum length that I should plan for each video in the set? Thirty minutes? An hour? 4. How are videos distributed these days? Ten or more years ago, I would have planned to ship DVD's with each purchase, but I suspect that is no longer necessary? I have seen a couple of sites sell memberships to login to their site so that their training videos can be viewed. Is that the preferred method now? 5. I realize that nothing will be foolproof, but does anyone have any tips about preventing piracy or theft of the videos? 6. Can anyone suggest easy to use video editing software and any other production technologies that I may need for this project? I am hoping that there are some strong online video production/marketing experts out there who can share their thoughts and experiences. TIA! JR
Simply put your face with your big Portuguese mustache out there - and ta-da your videos will spread like a wildfire.