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New Paradigm for Talking Head Educational Videos
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The pain of PowerPoint is that its core feature set — outlines and bullet points, I’m looking at you — rarely facilitates communication. A lazy presenter thinks the way PowerPoint does, not the way the audience does, and that makes for terrible presentations.
I think that Mark made the key point in this conversation when he said that it starts with the content, and that you need a writer and a graphic designer (or a motion designer). Framing the material properly from the beginning is critical. Concepts in any form of multimedia must be presented both verbally and visually, and there must be some balance struck between the two. A good presentation designer will not actually get to PowerPoint until the middle of the process — writing the script and developing a visual style that serves it must come first.
People are wired for stories — we care about the characters, we get caught up in the plot. We don’t literally need human characters, but thinking about objects or concepts in terms of a dramatic arc can make them more compelling. If you can make a story out of your educational piece, that’s way more than half the battle.
You need to know your audience, and tweak the story to appeal to them. If your audience changes, so must your presentation.
There’s a huge difference between live presentation and video. Different media have different strengths and weaknesses. Imagine how flat a movie would feel if it made by simply filming a live stage show; I think it’s the same with educational video and live presentations. You need to know your medium, using its strengths to serve your story, and minimizing its weaknesses’ effects. I design both presentations and “explainer” motion graphics pieces, and each calls for its own approach to the content.
Before you dive into any of the resources on presentation design, read Dan and Chip Heath’s Made to Stick. This book analyzes the factors that made an idea memorable, or “sticky,” and it’s a great lens through which to evaluate your work. After that, read their second book, Switch — a book about why it’s hard for people to make lasting changes, and how to effectively promote change.
On the presentation design reading list, in addition to Tufte, I’d consider Nancy Duarte’s slide:ology and Garr Reynolds’s Presentation Zen required reading. Cliff Atkinson’s Beyond Bullet Points is another good read. There’s a decent amount of overlap in this material, but each of the authors bring a unique perspective to it.
Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
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[Noah Kadner] “Problem with hiring an actor is they often sound like they don’t actually know much about the subject they’re reading a teleprompter about”
Not the good ones, especially the ones who specialize in presentations. Several years ago we had a highly competent and technically adept voiceover artist giving a stand-up presentation, alongside a live satellite feed, at a trade show. The best comment I heard from an audience member was, “Wow. I had no idea that (client company) had an engineer who is such a good public speaker.”
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This link has been posted on the COW before, but it’s very pertinent to this current thread… AND it’s a classic:
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Seth Godin also has some very good PPT-specific points.
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I have just finished recording an actor, who is playing a doctor, reading words to a camera. The doctor we had reading words to a camera was not very good. She was very obviously nervous, her pacing was bad and as time went on her neck developed red blotches. Our actor looks good and sounds good. The actor also took direction.
Two weeks ago I recorded a professional VO guy doing about 15 minutes of material. Last week I recorded to staff doing VO, one sentence at a time. The difference is chalk and cheese.
I love working with professionals because they’re effective. If I make something that isn’t effective, people look to me to ‘fix it’ rather than at their own willingness to spend a few bucks to get a professional to do the important bits.
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