How to Make Great Training Videos in Under an Hour

Companies need great training content to equip their teams with the skills and knowledge they need to succeed. Video content is one of the best delivery systems for learning and training—the need to develop fast, professional video training materials continues to grow. 

The interactive nature of explainer content and tutorial videos significantly enhances the learning experience, which makes them a preferred teaching tool. However, production costs are climbing as demand surges and quality expectations increase. Creating high-quality videos involves expenses such as scriptwriting, filming, editing, and animation—all of which require skilled professionals. Maintaining the technological infrastructure to deliver content adds to these costs (as much as $1,000–$5,000 per minute of video production).

AI-enhanced video training offers many opportunities to quickly build informative, professional materials. This article will give you all the knowledge and tips you need to build a great employee training video in just an hour by leveraging AI. Here is what we'll cover in this article:

• The challenges of traditional video production
• The benefits of AI training video production
• Steps to create an AI training video
• Tips and best practices for building an AI training video

Five challenges in traditional video production

Traditional video production faces five significant challenges: high costs, time constraints, sourcing expert presenters, filming and production setup, and post-production editing and delivery. These hurdles make it difficult for organizations to meet demands for regular content.

Production costs

Finding the budget for traditional video production can be daunting. Costs of skilled labor, equipment, editing software, and technological infrastructure maintenance can make it difficult to predict expenses, which leads to budget constraints and overruns. Since many organizations cut budgets for training and marketing costs, producing high-quality content as often as necessary may be out of reach.

Time investment

Traditional training video production is a time-consuming process. Activities like scriptwriting, pre-production planning, filming, post-production editing, and final review stages often require work from various stakeholders and teams over weeks or even months. This investment has implications for optimizing labor budgets, and it can delay training rollouts and impact operational efficiency.

Subject matter expert (SME) selection

Who wants to be a movie star? When it comes to filming training videos, it turns out that not too many staff members are interested. Securing an SME who excels both in their field and on camera adds another layer of complexity. Finding such individuals internally or externally is challenging, as not all experts are comfortable being in the spotlight. This can prolong the video training production process, increase costs, and introduce delays.

Script and material development

Creating a script and storyboard for an instructional video is a demanding task. It requires meticulous planning, creativity, technical knowledge, and an understanding of the learning and training objectives. The process can be time-consuming as it involves drafting, revising, reviewing, and finalizing content that effectively conveys the intended message while engaging the audience.

Production challenges

Video production is a science and an art. Most often, organizations hire outside teams to produce training videos because the production process introduces some challenges best addressed by a professional:

Lighting and staging: The lighting conditions and filming environment in video production require optimal visibility, mood, setting, and spatial utilization without compromising quality.

Recording: Videos come out best when the videographer has meticulous attention to detail. A professional videographer balances the technical aspects, such as lighting and staging, with creative storyboarding, multiple camera angles, and clear communication to deliver engaging content.

‍Editing: Post-production editing in a training video is a complex task that fuses presenting visual and audio elements with fine-tuning for clarity, coherence, and timing. This intricacy often prompts organizations to engage a professional video editor who has mastered these skill sets.

AI training videos: What are they, and how do they work?

AI video technology has revolutionized how we approach elearning and online training videos by offering significant time and cost savings. With an AI avatar and a script at your disposal, any organization can produce high-quality, relevant training materials in as little as an hour.

In contrast to the challenges of traditional filming, AI training videos offer faster turnaround times and reduced costs. AI democratizes access to content creation, giving organizations the time and technology to produce high-quality videos without the need for elaborate staging or lighting, professional videographers, editors, or production costs. 

AI also eliminates the need to convince busy SMEs to participate in filming sessions. Instead, a point person can collect data from internal and external SMEs, create a simple script, and let an AI avatar present the training material. AI video production platforms make it easy to select custom avatars, match your brand image, sync scripts to speech, include captions and transcriptions, and deliver the right message for consistency across all your training material.

Global companies will find AI video training especially helpful. AI translation features allow you to produce content in different languages simultaneously. Build the script and create the video in AI, then use the platform to localize the content for each audience.

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How does an AI video avatar work?

An AI avatar is a brilliant piece of technology that allows a live-captured AI assistant to deliver your message and training with ease. The avatar leverages machine learning and algorithmic processes to personalize content and enable text-to-speech video generation.

The most sophisticated AI video platforms offer a variety of advanced features to deliver training that works well for staff and makes production easier. While an AI avatar is still distinguishable from a human presenter or lecturer, it delivers content that offers the same educational benefits as a live speaker with clarity and accuracy.

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Key steps to create and deliver great AI videos

With a few easy steps, even first-time video creators can quickly begin producing training materials. 

Once you have a script, choose the most relevant avatar and develop your presentation. Once complete, the video will be rendered with an AI avatar presenter, ready for distribution to the team and centralization for future use. 

Follow these step-by-step instructions to produce your first AI video: 

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Step 1: Pick a topic

Choosing a topic for your AI video training is crucial. Start by identifying the subject matter you want to cover or the knowledge gaps in your team. Consider areas where training can improve performance or introduce new skills. 

Gather input from the team members and leaders about what they want to learn or improve. Analyze and prioritize these needs, aligning with the business objectives you have in mind. The topic should be specific, relevant to your business, and beneficial for improving workplace productivity or competence. This careful selection ensures that your video training is informative and impactful for your staff's development.

Step 2: Develop your script

A script helps set the agenda and flow of information in your video. With an AI video creation tool, the script also serves as the basis for building the AI presentation. Start by outlining key points to address, then expand into a well-researched, detailed presentation that's engaging and easy to understand. Then, jot down the first draft of a script. 

Keep in mind that most people process conversational speech at about 150-160 words per minute. For video scripts with more pauses and cuts to slides or visuals, a script of about 200 words per minute is ideal. 

Be sure to keep your audience's knowledge level in mind and, where needed, break down complex ideas into easy-to-understand parts. Many video producers choose to construct a storyboard—a visual representation of your video—to set transitions between talking direct-to-camera to sharing a slide or visual. 

Sketch or list what each frame will display alongside its corresponding portion of the script. Doing so helps to visualize the final product and identify gaps in the script. 

Step 3: Choose the best AI avatar

With an AI avatar video platform, creators select from a library of diverse avatars that best reflect their brand and audience. 

Colossyan offers around 100 options for AI avatars that can narrate in over 70 languages. You can also filter your search based on style, gender, ethnicity, and more. 

Colossyan also offers customizable presentation templates to build the best type of video for your needs. Much like a traditional PowerPoint template, these video templates allow you to create content quickly without starting from scratch. 

Once you’ve selected an avatar and templates to your liking, you’re ready to bring together all the elements of your project into a professional, polished AI video. 

Step 4: Create and launch

With a script and an AI avatar ready, it’s time to record. Insert your script text into the platform, select the AI avatar, build the presentation, and generate the video. This process produces high-quality results without extensive editing to remove filler words, splice scenes together, or correct issues. 

Colossyan also offers collaboration tools for gathering feedback and suggestions directly within the app. The commenting feature allows SMEs to review the finished video, offer suggestions, and add context to integrate prior to launch. This feature lets all your best minds share their knowledge without distracting from other important work.

Colossyan makes enhancing and editing video with background music, transitions, annotations, screen capture, and camera angle changes easy—all to ensure your content flows naturally and looks professional. 

When you’re satisfied with your AI video, Colossyan makes it effortless to deliver your files to your teams through virtually any channel (such as email, Slack, social media, internal wikis, or learning platforms) and centralize your corporate training video for on-demand use in the future. You can create a video once and present it time and again as employee onboarding, online course building, or a quick refresher. 

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5 tips and best practices

If your organization is starting its journey into AI video production, there are a few ways to make the process easier and deliver your best results. Follow these tips and best practices when building new content to ensure your training program is compelling and memorable: 

1. Set expectations with your audience: When teams or audience members encounter AI avatars for the first time, they might not know what to expect. Set the expectation before the training session that the video features an AI avatar. Explaining how AI live capture works can help team members get accustomed to this type of training material faster so they can reap the benefits of training.

2. Avoid the infodump: Often, video training fails because it presents too much information at once, which reduces viewer retention. Use the same guidelines you would use to prepare a traditional presentation using Keynote or PowerPoint. Stick to one topic, organize the information well, keep slides tactical, and don’t try to incorporate too many facts or overwhelming data in one video. With Colossyan, it’s easy to present a series of engaging videos that cover all the topics you want to introduce in smaller, easily digestible pieces. 

3. Use narrative style and creativity: Whether they use a live speaker, a pre-recorded human, or an AI presenter, all great videos tell a story. Incorporate a narrative style and visual variety into videos to keep the audience engaged throughout the presentation. 

4. Keep videos short: Attention spans are growing shorter. Studies in the early 2000s tracked continuous attention at an average of 2.5 minutes. In more recent studies, that average dropped to as low as 45 seconds. Effective corporate training videos should match the viewer’s attention span by breaking up learning materials into useful, engaging segments. Ideally, create a short video series and keep individual training videos to about five minutes of footage, including a brief introduction, three or four salient points about the topic, and a call to action (CTA) at the end. This CTA could prompt learners to submit questions, read further, or move on to the next video segment.

5. Hone your video creation skills: Look for resources to help improve the video production process and make future videos even more engaging. One great resource is the Colossyan Bootcamp. This free course gives actionable tips and guidelines for making great training videos with the help of AI. 

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Make great AI training videos faster with Colossyan

AI training videos offer all the benefits of visual training without the expenses or drawbacks of producing traditional videos on-site. With the right script and AI video tool, new content is just a few clicks away and can be ready in as little as an hour.

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To start creating high-quality, engaging training materials with the help of an AI presenter, try Colossyan for free. 

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