A simple process for recording your product demo videos

written by josh ledgard on Thursday, October 01 2009

imageSomeone recently asked me how I created the Telligent Community 5.0 demo video that you can watch here.  The thing that made this the easiest was TechSmith’s Camtasia Studio product.  Using their fine software as a base I was able to use the following process…

  1. Created the rough outline “on paper” of the scenes I wanted… like white boarding a real movie.
  2. Used the Camtasia Recording tool to capture clips with audio notes… not final audio.  The key point is that I didn’t have time to try and do it all at once in one smooth 10 minute demo. 
  3. Then I laid the clips out in the camtasia project, trimmed, and inserted the transitions/zooms, etc.  I had a time limit in mind that I didn’t want to go over and had filed too much.
  4. I did the transitions because I didn’t want to try and fake like it was one smooth demo.   It’s a series of stories that are cohesive.
  5. I recorded the audio.  Camtasia lets you do this one snippet of video at a time and has a great tool with keyboard shortcuts to pause the video on certain frames for callouts if you need to add more content. 
    1. Each section was tightly scripted audio content so I didn’t stumble much.
  6. Finally Camtasia lets you output in any number of formats depending on the need. 

Other Important Tips

  • Find a good Mic.  I went through 5 before I found one with minimal static and background noise.  Camtasia has filters for this, but they can only do so much.
  • Send dogs, kids, spouses, etc away or give them fair warning you’ll be grumpy if they ruin an awesome take.

Finally, show it to other people and watch it frequently yourself until you are convinced the points you whiteboarded come across.  You’ll find that some stuff just doesn’t work well.  What’s your process? Do you have any tips?

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Comments

  • Rick on on 10.04.2009 at 11:12 PM

    Rick avatar

    Camtasia also produces SCORM content if you'd like your presentation to actually be courseware to be used in an online Learning Management System.

    It's a terrific tool and I use it frequently myself.

    -RB

  • Linda on on 10.25.2009 at 3:27 AM

    Linda avatar

    Camtasia also produces SCORM content

  • gabby on on 10.28.2009 at 9:14 AM

    gabby avatar

    Thanks for all the useful tips josh, and Linda and RIck for that matter! GOing to give it a go tonight when get home! Thanks, G.

  • Ornella Kinderseiten on on 11.03.2009 at 6:15 AM

    Ornella Kinderseiten avatar

    Interesting article! Thanks a lot for the detailed description...I am going to try all this process tonight!

  • Omega Seamaster on on 11.04.2009 at 9:13 AM

    Omega Seamaster avatar

    Camtasia also produces SCORM content if you'd like your presentation to actually be courseware to be used in an online Learning Management System.

  • Motz Blog on on 11.04.2009 at 10:41 AM

    Motz Blog avatar

    thank you for tips

  • Elsa Celibataire on on 11.11.2009 at 5:16 AM

    Elsa Celibataire avatar

    Hey , thank you for that, Im gonna try right now!

  • Gaggia on on 11.16.2009 at 10:33 AM

    Gaggia avatar

    Camtasia is a terrific tool and I use it frequently myself.

  • Fitness Instructor on on 12.09.2009 at 7:26 AM

    Fitness Instructor avatar

    Thanks for all the useful tips josh, and Linda and RIck for that matter!

Comments are closed