Filming Simulation Training Videos: Filming Habits For Easy Editing
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There are several things you can do while filming to make your editing life much, much easier:
- Use a tripod: Stationary shots are much easier to smoothly edit together (and much less disorienting to trainees experiencing them in an immersive simulation). You’ll often use a moving camera during the Approach (the first portion of the scenario; using a handheld camera here emulates an officer’s point-of-view arriving on the scene). But once you’ve framed up the first scene, place the camera on a tripod.
- Film “heads and tails”: Pad both the beginning and end of each shot with about 30 seconds of the actors standing in their first or final position. This makes it much easier to match shots from different shoots and set the in-point (where the clip starts), out-point (where it ends), and loop points (the section of the clip that loops while your trainee is making their decision) in your immersive simulation editing software.
- Use your notes: While planning you made a detailed storyboard, noting critical details about settings, training objectives, dialogue, and base position blocking. Refer back to these notes frequently. You’ll thank yourself later.
This final point is truly the key to creating high-impact immersive training videos: You’ve done thorough planning; don’t toss it all out the window once you pick up a camera.
But what does it take to plan properly? Download your free copy of the latest ebook from MILO Studios–Training with Impact–and learn how to plan and film training scenarios that pack a punch.