I’ve been focussed on putting together a load of video demonstrations for this online training course I’m writing. Time has just flown by.

I’m gradually figuring our an effective (and increasingly efficient) workflow so my hope is that I will continue to increase the speed with which I produce each part of the course. (The good news being that all the writing is pretty much done.)

For those interested I’ve outlined my current workflow below.

With each page written on the website I have placeholders showing where the various media files will appear.

For each video I create a running order. This is a page per video in Notebook, with each instruction I am going to execute, notes on why I am running it and what points need to be made in the final video. These pages form the shot-list for each video.

Then I use SnapzPro to capture video of the on-screen activity as I run each page of commands. I’m using a virtual PC running VMWare Fusion for the execution. Using the virtual machine has big benefits for being able to recover to a known state, but more importantly most potential students for this course will have access to Windows, so the course is run on Windows XP (which runs in the VM).

Once I have all the raw screen capture, I process it with Apple’s FinalCut Pro to remove any mistakes and make each sequence into one seamless shot sequence. These sequences are very short as all the pauses in the original captured material are removed.

These shorter sequences run through the examples very quickly, often only a few frames of each command are shown. Obviously useless for a demonstration, but lightweight material for the next step.

Referring back to the Notebook shot-lists I process each of the reduces screen sequences to make one longer sequence with animated graphics explaining what is happening with each command. These sequences are longer than the reduced screenshot material but still run through far too quickly for demonstration purposes.

The Motion sequences produced in the previous session are not rendered, but left as motion projects. Leaving them as Motion project makes them easier to adjust later.

Next, I record the voice over using Apple’s Soundtrack Pro. Again, the Notebook shot-list and notes are used to ensure I cover the relevant material.

Using Soundtrack Pro to record the voiceover is a bit of an overkill, but it allows me to record and edit the voiceover in one seamless workflow. As I record the audio I manually step through the Motion sequence to make sure the voiceover makes sense with the graphics. I make notes of any additional information the sequence requires using Notebook, tagging it with a keyword to make it easy to find. Most of the additional material is, at this point, things like additional slides, ‘tip’ boxes, and other material that will be overlayed onto the Motion sequence, rather than changes to the Motion sequences themselves. If I spot a mistake in the Motion sequence while recording the voiceover I edit it there and then.

Once I am happy with the voice over I render the audio out from Soundtrack Pro to a new aiff file. I do this because the Soundtrack project can be pretty busy at this point and producing one consolidated voiceover track makes it easier to handle in subsequent steps (it also means I do not have to worry about the temporary capture files produced by Soundtrack).

I now have the Motion sequence and a full length voiceover, but the two do not match up.

Returning to FinalCut Pro the final assembly can begin. Each Motion sequence contains one or more teaching units. For example, one sequence might show two or three ways to use one particular command. The voiceover for each unit is cut into its own sequence and the Motion sequence is then retimed using freeze frames so that it coincides with the voiceover. Any additional information identified during the creation of the voiceover is overlaid onto the resulting sequence. (These overlays are often Motion sequences too, so these are create now.)

The result of the workflow to this point is a FinalCut project with a collection of sequences each representing one teaching unit. These individual sequences are now assembled into various combinations depending upon the target output. For example, a sequence may be used in a show ‘Show Me’ style video, as part of a longer video that aggregates all of the information for one particular command, and also as part of a promotional/tutorial video to be posted on YouTube. The individual sequences are joined with transitions to ensure a smooth flow to the final product. Where appropriate title sequences are added to the start and end of these aggregate sequences.

Finally each of the aggregate sequences is output to Soundtrack Pro for audio finishing. This involves adding music, stings and sound effects as well as smoothing out audio transitions and sweetening the audio to get the best results I can. Once this sweetening is complete the whole project is re-exported back to FinalCut.

A final check in FinalCut and any changes required after the final audio changes, then each aggregate sequence is rendered to HDV720p using Compressor. Selected sequences are also rendered for other formats such as H264 podcasts. The HDV720p material can be uploaded straight to the training course and sites like Vimeo and YouTube. It can also be used as source material for assembly into a DVD format, more an this later.

Each sequence is checked and then uploaded to the appropriate service for use.

And that is why producing this stuff takes time!

It’s been a long, but ultimately satisfying day today. Managed eleven hours straight through on one task; preparing a video showing the various methods of accessing a Subversion repository and the options available for securing communication between the client and server.

Working with Apple’s Studio Pro is  a joy. I’m currently using Motion for all the main animation work and assembling the final cut in, well, Final Cut. It seems to take about one hour to prepare one minute of video, although obviously this varies a lot depending on how dense the animations are and how much fine tuning I do. Tomorrow I will be working with Final Cut and Soundtrack Pro to assemble the sound in the final edit.

While waiting for scenes to render I got more work done editing the course material. The course material is shaping up nicely now that the site style has settled down I’m rather pleased with the results. It is, however, turning out to be an interesting challenge transfering information from the book form into an on-line course. There is quite a difference in how the information needs to be structured between the two.

I need a few weeks of this kind on intensity to make some serious progress, and that is going to be tough. That said, if I don’t get stuck in then I’ll starve before this makes enough money to make it worth while. So, it’s heads down tomorrow and Friday, then a weekend with my son and back at it on Monday for a full week.

Meanwhile, I’ve been working on my professional blog. This is forming a part of the promotion material for the course so I need to keep adding to that to maintain reader interest.

I’m in the process of developing a lot of video demonstrations. To do this I am using SnapzProX on Mac OS X to capture screen video at HDV720p25, which provides 25fps at 1280×720 resolution, ideal for my purpose. These screen capture videos are then assembled with titles, voice over, music, etc. into the final product using Final Cut Pro (with some Motion work thrown in for good measure). The final video is then rendered to various formats using Compressor and the excellent CRAM library of Compressor settings.

This workflow works very well but for one step. When loading SnapzProX capture (SnapzProX claims to be writing Apple HDV720p25) into a Final Cut project with an HDV720p25 timeline the video is chopped off early. The problem, it turns out, is caused by the way SnapzProX records video. The framerate in the video is recorded using a variable rate and is not properly encoded as 25fps when written out, despite the codec being set to HDV720p25. Long story short, the captured video is complete (plays back fine in Quicktime) but Final Cut is more picky and always reads the framerate as 10fps (the default constant framerate used by SnapzProX) even though the actually recorded video may have a variable frame rate. Confused? So was I.

The solution, it turned out, was to re-encode the SnapzProX produced video using Compressor set to produce HDV720p25 video. This additional step corrects the framerate information in the video (making the video slightly larger as a conseqence). With this corrected encoding Final Cut is satsfied and all is right with the world again.