Guidance for your video (and other visual components)

<aside> 🗺️ Why a video specifically?

Humans are storytellers. We have been telling stories since the start of civilisation, and it is an incredibly effective way to convey your thoughts and ideas to people.

Because they are a powerful mode of storytelling, videos can be incredibly effective tools for both conveying a lot of information and emotionally/psychologically motivating an audience. Effective videos engage many of our senses, and will give the concept that you are presenting narrative and character in a short amount of time.

<aside> 👀 HINT: Your video should tell a story!

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Of course, you can always write a good story; so what else does a video provide? Well, the combined visual and audio components enable you to convey more than just the narrative of your ideas. They also enable you to convey emotional and psychological content – in other words your passion for your ideas – through simple aspects like your facial expressions and/or the tone of your voices, and through more dynamic ones like the graphics and imagery you show to emphasise certain points.

<aside> 👀 HINT: Your video should convey emotional (passion, concern, etc) along with the tangible and well developed ideas you are presenting.

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Done well, your video can make your concepts much more memorable and engaging… which, if you ever want to get your ideas mobilised into action, is incredibly important!

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<aside> 🗺️ Tips for creating any and all visual components

To start with, here are some general, high level tips on preparing the visual component of your team deliverables. These apply across each of the video, the Summary, and the Detailed Explanation sections of your Proposed Solution Memo:

Use images and infographics that support your messages to convey information in multiple formats.
Be conscious of the order of images & text (top-down, left to right reading).
Do not add too many images or graphics. Visual media can be a great way to convey information in a more interesting format; but it can also be overwhelming or confusing when not used effectively.

<aside> ⚠️ Please carefully consider your use of images

Most importantly, please be considerate with any photos you use.

We encourage you to consider carefully what images to use to represent the problem you are working on.
In particular, please be mindful not to accidentally stereotype a community or group through your choice of images.

Please also remember that you DO need to provide references for every photo (and graphic) that you use. These are best provided in the caption for the photo or graphic.

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<aside> 🎬 How can you create your video?

<aside> 💡 You are NOT judged on your cinematography or video editing skills!

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Every student will have different levels of experience when it comes to video creation. If you are nervous about never having edited a video before, do not worry. There are easy solutions available for every team to be able to tell their visual story.

You can always use the “Record to your computer” function in Zoom to capture simple, effective video.

For those who work on PCs, this page provides detailed guidance on using the latest free tools to edit quality videos.

For those who work on Mac, on this page you can download and find supporting resources for the free iMovie software for editing quality videos (and it comes on most Mac systems by default).

There is also a wide range of freely available short video creation and editing software online, such as Loom or Canva (almost all of which will require you to setup an account on their platforms).

Finally, some of you might also have access to more advanced video creation tools, such as the Adobe suite of video production and editing tools.

For each of these – and many, many other options – your can search for guidance videos that will give you tips and tricks for quickly creating the story you want to create.

<aside> ❗ General Warning

Be sure to spend much more time on the content of your video, rather than the stylist delivery. There will be no Academy Awards given in this bootcamp!!!

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Additional Guidance [Optional]

<aside> 🗺️ General tips when designing and preparing for recording your video

📋 Start by writing your story (i.e. your video script)

Simply recording a talk through of your ideas is unlikely to convey the information you want to get across clearly and concisely.
Whenever possible, try to tell a story!

<aside> 💡 We’ll provide more guidance on Storyboarding your ideas for your Proposed Solution Report later in the bootcamp.

For now, just consider how you’d explain the problem you’re working on to a friend or family member with an engaging 60 second story!

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🔢 Plan your key messages and focus on those

As you will know from watching TV shows and movies, it is not always about using a lot of words to convey powerful messages. Think carefully about the main messages you want your audience to take from your short video, and focus on pacing and delivering those.

<aside> 👀 HINT: A short video can only deliver a few key messages. We recommend three being the target number; and definitely not more than five!

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👔 Dress the part

If you are going to appear visually in the video (which isn’t required), then business casual dress code is still strongly recommended. That conveys the professionalism of the work you are doing.

🎙️ Record in a quiet place

Background noise is a pain to get rid of in video editing. The best way to avoid that is to record in a place where this is little to no background noise.

▶️ Pace your recording

When you are narrating, be sure to pace your delivery so that the audience can clearly understand.
This relates to the point about key messages above. If you try to pack too much in, you will have to talk very fast, which can actually reduce the impact of your video if your audience finds it too fast to follow!

🎭 Be expressive

You should be focused on a problem you are passionate about tackling. Let that passion come through in your narration or presentation!
You can use intro, outro and background music to support the emotional impact you are looking to create. Just be sure to credit the music source(s)!

🛑 Stick to time

The reviewers will stop watching at the end of the allowed time!

🎬 Do not expect to get it right on the first take!!!

It takes a lot more than a minute to create one minute of effective video!!!

<aside> 🔁 Professional video production (i.e. for corporate advertising) can take between one and two days (yes days!) for producing one minute of video. And Hollywood… well, how long did it take to make Avatar or it’s sequel??? A half dozen years??? You can calculate the days invested per minute of the final movie (even for the Director’s cut it’s lots and lots!).

We do NOT want you spending that much time!!!

We do, however, encourage you to:

record a first full take (after the scripting and setup above);
ask someone to review it and critique your first take; and
integrate identified improvements into a second full take.

We advise that you do not repeat this loop too many times. Two or three times through across a couple of days – taking a total of a couple hours – can lead to a very power short video!

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<aside> 🎨 Additional resources

You are welcome to use – with appropriate citations – free online stock photos or video clips from free resource libraries such as Unsplash or Pexels.

For those keen on the little details, you can also use UN Sustainable Development Goal and How to Change the World themed resources:

UN Sustainable Development Goals
How to Change the World </aside>