Want to create educational video content that engages, entertains, and educates your audience so you can position yourself as an expert? Creating engaging content is essential to maximize the impact of educational videos and ensure your message resonates with viewers. Educational video production is not only for traditional learning but also plays a crucial role in customer education, helping businesses inform and instruct their customers about products and services.
Whether you’re a teacher, a leader, or a solopreneur, we’ll explore educational video production, including the ability to create a diverse range of videos across different formats and industries, to help you build awareness and trust.
Comprehensive services in educational video production can cover everything from concept development to editing and distribution, ensuring all your needs are met within a single framework.
Educational Video Production: What Is It?
When you hear “educational video production”, you might automatically think about the classroom. But actually, the content could be anything from creating online courses for e-learning for educational institutions to training videos to educate and maintain new employee retention. Educational video production allows you to create educational videos tailored to different learning styles, such as visual, auditory, and kinesthetic learners.
You could even make instructional videos for your business to create a unique learning experience for customers (especially when introducing a new product!). Videos of this type can range from short tutorials to detailed mini-courses.
Educational videos are effective tools to engage learners and simplify complex ideas, making them easier to understand.
Instructional videos can also be used to simplify complex concepts for a broader audience, ensuring that even challenging topics are accessible and clear.
A Few Tips For Planning Your Educational Videos
Effective educational video production starts with thorough pre production planning, including concept development and setting clear learning objectives. This ensures that every aspect of your project is organized and aligned with your educational goals from the outset.
In the planning stage, something that’s important for you to consider is your target audience. This will help determine the style of video you’ll create. Some might have more intricate motion graphics production or full-scale animation. If yours is the latter, partnering with a professional motion graphics studio can elevate your educational video series to the next level. A full-scale production with multiple camera angles, 3D animated graphics, titles, and custom music can actually help to set your educational videos apart from the rest.
Another thing to consider for educational video production…
It is important to think about both your subject matter and teaching style. Your educational video should have visuals that match your style, tone, pace, and overall appearance. Incorporating engaging visuals and interactive features, such as clickable elements or quizzes, can significantly enhance the learning experience and boost learner engagement. In the end, you want it to reflect who you are or your brand.
Now, once you know what kind of educational video you want to make, it’s important to consider how you’ll distribute it. What do we mean by that, exactly? As an example, think about whether your online training videos will be free or if they’ll require paid access.
Aligning your video with specific learning outcomes and applying principles of instructional design can further improve the effectiveness of your educational content.
See the video case study we created for TAB Bank:
Case Studies for Educational Video Production
Case studies are powerful marketing tools that can convert leads by providing social proof to support your claims.HubSpot’s State of Marketing Report 2020 states: that 13% of marketers use case studies as one of their primary content strategies.
You may not have thought about these types of videos as being educational. But when you address a specific dilemma your customers face, case studies take an educational approach to present a problem and the appropriate decision-making skills necessary to resolve it.
Explainer videos, brand videos, promotional videos, and corporate videos can all serve educational purposes and should be considered as part of a comprehensive educational video strategy, helping to engage audiences and communicate key messages effectively.
Using video case studies, potential customers can learn about the history of your previous customers. And also previous situations that are similar to the core problem or challenge. By doing this, you teach them how you can help them overcome these obstacles.
In 2021, 86% of all online video consumption was made up of eLearning videos.
When choosing an educational video production company, it's important to review a quality portfolio that demonstrates a diverse range of educational video production services, including work across different industries.
See the video case study we completed for Humantech of their client Wells Enterprises (Blue Bunny):
Educational Video Production: The Process
The educational video production process typically includes pre-production, production, and post-production phases, each playing a critical role in creating effective educational content.
A key part of the pre-production phase is putting yourself in your audience’s shoes. When planning a video project or educational video project, it’s important to consider key factors such as project scope, timeline, and content complexity to ensure the final product meets your educational objectives. You see, the closer you are to the subject matter, the harder it is to distance yourself from being “the expert” and teaching in a way that is relatable and understandable.
Let’s say you are an expert in search engine optimization (SEO). Teaching someone not to keyword stuff won’t help if they aren’t aware of what keywords are in the first place. Identifying your audience’s existing knowledge of the subject matter (and, more importantly, what they don’t know) is crucial before you even start the video production process for your training videos.
Working with experienced production companies and selecting the right production partner can help ensure your educational video project is engaging, effective, and achieves your learning goals.
Scriptwriting
Writing your script is the first step to video projects, whether it’s an explainer video, a live-action video, a motion graphics video, or a whiteboard animation video. In order to write your script, you must first create an outline. How this structure will look depends on the type of educational video production you’re creating. Before outlining, define clear learning objectives for each video to ensure the content stays focused and measurable. For best results, write a clear, conversational script and maintain a pace of about 130 words per minute. If this is an explainer or product video, a typical outline for a video script would usually have the following components:
- A brief introduction
- Identifying the problem
- Unsuccessful Solutions
- What Makes Your Solution Unique
- The Call To Action (CTA), highlight this as a crucial element to drive effective engagement
If you’re creating educational video content for higher education, for example, you’ll want to:
- When you have finalized your script for motion graphics or animated educational production videos, you will need to record your voiceover.
- Keep your tone friendly and conversational
- Make your sentences as short as possible
- Keep your language simple and clear
- Create a story structure
- Use signaling techniques, such as on-screen text or arrows, to help direct viewer focus on key concepts
Voiceovers
When you have finalized your script for motion graphics (or animated educational production videos), you will need to record your voiceover. In the next step (storyboarding), the voiceover will be used to mark timings for the animation, so it is important that you record it soon after writing your script.
You can either do your own voiceover or hire a professional to do it for you. If you do decide to record a voiceover yourself, you'll want to make sure you use a good microphone and record in a quiet, soundproof room.
Storyboard
As part of the production process, you'll need to create a storyboard. This is basically a series of rough sketches of the visual images that you want to appear in your video at specific intervals. If you're working with an educational video production company, the full-service production team will be able to help you with this.
If you're going at this on your own, there are storyboard templates out there that can be useful for helping you with this. You can even several you can download for free online.
Animation
After you have created your storyboard, you will need to create and edit your illustrations. The Adobe Creative Suite is an excellent tool for this. If you do not have time or feel uncomfortable drawing your own custom images, you can always work with an experienced educational video production company, like Levitate Media. Alternatively, you can use preexisting images from stock image galleries in software such as VideoScribe and Animaker.
Animated videos and animated explainer videos are especially effective in educational video production, as they can make complex or abstract topics more accessible and engaging, particularly for younger audiences. Companies like Imagination Creations specialize in high-quality animated explainer videos and training content, while Epipheo creates animated videos that transform complex topics into clear and engaging content. Interactive videos, which include features like quizzes and decision points, can further enhance learner engagement and effectiveness.
Using the same tools you used to make your movie, you should be able to add your voiceover and sound effects afterward. Video editing is a crucial part of post-production, as it transforms raw footage into high-quality videos and high-quality video content by incorporating motion graphics, animations, and sound design. Achieving professional results requires technical expertise in animation, editing, and post-production. Post-production also includes editing, adding graphics, animations, and finalizing the video for distribution. AI video generation tools like Synthesia and Colossyan can simplify the production process by eliminating the need for traditional filming equipment.
*Post-production tip: if you decide to add music and sound effects to your video, keep in mind that they should compliment your story, not overshadow it.
Frequently Asked Questions
What types of educational videos work best for corporate training?
Microlearning modules, explainer animations, and scenario-based videos are highly effective. Incorporating interactive elements into training videos can significantly boost engagement and retention. Virtual classrooms and virtual reality are increasingly used in corporate training to provide immersive and interactive learning experiences, allowing employees to explore environments or concepts in depth. For example, Kaltura combines the functionalities of a virtual classroom and a video management solution, while CM&D specializes in leveraging virtual reality to transform educational experiences. For ideas on building trust and engagement internally, check out our blog on Employee Testimonial Videos.
Can educational videos be used for onboarding and compliance?
Absolutely. Pre-recorded video content streamlines onboarding and ensures consistency. Levitate’s Training Video Services are designed to support HR teams and compliance initiatives. High quality educational videos can significantly improve understanding, retention, and compliance, making them ideal for onboarding and training. Incorporating interactive videos for onboarding and compliance increases engagement and allows learners to actively participate in the process. Additionally, monitoring performance metrics such as average watch time and drop-off points helps assess and improve the effectiveness of your educational video production for future training needs.
How do I measure the effectiveness of an educational video?
Metrics like completion rate, quiz results, and post-video surveys are useful. Educational video production can lead to measurable increases in learner engagement and knowledge retention by aligning content with specific learning outcomes. The use of data analytics in educational video production helps track engagement and learning progress, allowing you to optimize future videos for better educational outcomes. To go deeper into analytics, visit our post on Video Analytics and see how teams track learning impact.
Where can I see examples of organizations using educational videos successfully?
Explore our Case Studies for real-world applications of educational content in healthcare, finance, and more.
Educational video production companies play a crucial role in collaborating with subject matter experts to ensure content accuracy and quality. When planning your next video project, it's essential to select the right production partner to achieve your educational goals and create engaging, effective content. Companies like Vidico (which has partnered with over 450 brands), Demo Duck (renowned for collaboration and creativity), NextThought (focused on quality and learner impact), and Explainly (experts in strategic storytelling and instructional design) are strong examples of production companies with proven expertise in educational video production.
We offer services from animation, filming, editing, translation, voiceover, music, and e-learning. And for any function! Including marketing, recruitment, training, and development, as well as corporate events, we can generate video. Simply visit our services page for more details or contact us here today.
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