Production Guidelines

If you have any questions please email [email protected].

Recommendations for Recording

• Software: Camtasia (Windows) or Camtasia / ScreenFlow (Mac)

• Microphone: USB Microphone - audio needs to average a -7db level

• We’ve found that the relatively inexpensive Microsoft LifeChat LX-3000 provides good audio in quiet recording spaces.

Capture Settings

• Resolution: 1920 x 1080 (Ideal) or 1280 x 720 (Minimum)

• Ratio: 16:9 (Standard)

• Frame-rate: 15 - 30 fps.

• In some cases (high motion situations, showing a final animation, etc) capture can be done at a higher frame rate. If you record at a higher frame rate be sure to adjust your export settings to match, otherwise you negate the effects of the higher capture rate.

Some authors have had difficulty recording at 1080P or 720P on MacBooks, especially those with Retina Displays. We recommend a App called “Quick Res” to set your screen to non-standard resolutions. It costs $4, but is well-worth the money for the added convenience.

Editing Videos

Video Settings

• Format: .mp4 or .mov

• Codec: H.264

• FPS: 30 fps.

• If there is a lot of faster motion you will need to use higher values

• Keyframes: Every 3 seconds (15 fps = keyframe every 45 frames)

• Encoding Quality: Best

• Quality: Between 85 - 95% (review output to watch for compression errors)

• File Size: < 200mb (ideally)

Audio Settings

When setting the audio try to match these settings as close as possible, as incorrect settings will cause the uploads to fail.

• Codec: MPEG 4 Low complexity ACC

• Rate: 44.100kHZ

• Bit Rate: 96kbits/s (Camtasia should set this automatically for you)

• Fast Start: Enabled

Recording Notes

• Try to cut out “umm"s, “ahhh"s, and dead air - if you are not too sure what to say for a certain section just talk through what you are doing.

• Add the title card to the beginning of each part of the tutorial. It should be visible for 5 seconds.

• Use zoom / pan effects to help direct the viewer’s attention.

• Try to keep the length of each part to around 4-7 minutes. Longer is acceptable if there isn’t a logical break in the content, but much longer than that and users won’t be able to get the answer they need in a timely manner. Videos should be absolutely no longer than 10 minutes.

• Keep your energy level up and consistent from beginning to end of each tutorial. Avoid recording a bunch of tutorials in a row without a break - if you’re feeling tired or bored so will your students.

Intros/Outros

• At the beginning of each video, tell the listeners what you will be covering in this tutorial. Make sure you include your name and what tutorial series this tutorial is in.

  • Ex: Hello, this is Chris, and we will be continuing making a boat on the ocean. Today we will be covering how to create the waves.

• At the end, recap what they have learned, and what they will be learning in the next tutorial.

  • Ex: This concludes how to make waves using xyz. The next tutorial we will cover how to put the scene together with the boat rolling over the waves.

• Make sure you save 5 seconds for a title card to be placed, usually just the introduction will be long enough. You will be sent formatted title cards that you can place at the front of your videos. You will need to put title cards on the front of every video.

Procedure for Flubs

• Stop moving your cursor

• Pause for a couple beats.

• Say a keyword, like “Rather” or “Rephrase” so you won’t miss the flub when you’re editing later.

• Rephrase the thought from the beginning of the sentence

• Calling out cross-platform keyboard shortcuts

Update File Format

Once you have created the .mov duplicate it and change the extension of the duplicate to .mp4 (If you skip this step to files will not populate to to the streaming network)

Category:Cineversity Author Information

Categories:

• Cineversity Author Information