Write Your Script
An effective video starts with careful planning. Consider these tips and remember that our learning experience designers are happy to review your script and help you shape it for the camera.
- Define the learning objective. Start by identifying the main topic, learning outcome, or goal of the learning experience. What do you want students to walk away with? What is most critical for them to know?
- Identify what content will work well in this format. Some types of content that work well in videos: step-by-step processes like solving an equation, clear visual aids like maps and diagrams, examples and anecdotes that illustrate ideas, and complicated concepts students might want to review multiple times.
- Keep it short and simple. Instructional videos usually work best if they’re less than six minutes long (Guo et al., 2014). You can think of a video as a highlight reel or a close look at one important topic. Extra information can distract from learning (Ibrahim et al., 2012), so stick to the essentials. If your content runs longer, consider splitting it into several short videos, or adding a quiz or thought exercise where students pause the video and try something before continuing.
- Start with a hook and wrap up with a summary. Capture your audience’s attention from the beginning with a provocative question or an interesting real-world example. Then help consolidate their learning with a quick recap of the topics you’ve covered.
- Make it accessible. Describe what’s on screen rather than pointing at it. Instead of “as you can see here,” try “this chart shows revenue by quarter; Q3 was the highest at $4.2 million.” And don’t let color carry meaning by itself. These habits help viewers with low vision, and they make your captions more useful for everyone.
- Read it aloud. What reads well on paper often doesn’t speak naturally. Read your draft out loud and revise until it sounds like you.
- Think about context. How will this video fit into your class? Pairing it with an activity, like a short Canvas quiz or a flipped classroom discussion, helps students process what they watched.
In the studio, your script scrolls on a teleprompter that follows your voice as you speak, so you can read while looking directly into the camera. The studio operator can make small adjustments to your script between takes.
Create Your Slides
In most finished recordings, your slides fill the screen and you appear in a small circle in the lower right-hand corner, so leave the lower right of your slides empty and use large fonts.
If you have a different look in mind, like the whiteboard or another studio scene, talk it through with our team and we’ll help you plan your slides to match.
Here are a few tips to get you started:
- Prioritize visual content. In Multimedia Learning, Richard Mayer’s research-based guide to multimedia instruction, the Multimedia Principle states that “People learn better from words and pictures than from words alone” (2009). Include images that illustrate key points, make sure every image clarifies meaning rather than decorating, and use simple graphs and charts to convey complex ideas.
- Keep it simple. Less is more when it comes to slides for studio presentations; learners do best with streamlined content free of extra material (Mayer, 2009). Use a clean layout with plenty of white space, limit text to key phrases, use a large font size, and where possible, make the text on your slide mirror what you say out loud.
Our learning experience designers can review your slides and suggest adjustments for the video format. Slide design and layout should follow MIT Sloan’s brand guidelines.
Choose Your Outfit
Review our Choose Your Outfit page to pick clothes that will look great on camera.
Practice Your Presentation
Practice at home and during your studio orientation, where you’ll make a test recording and try the teleprompter. Keep these tips in mind:
- Be expressive and energetic.
- Remember to enunciate.
- Use your normal speaking voice and volume, at a slightly slower pace than conversation.
- Feel free to use hand gestures if they feel natural.
- Use good posture and open body language.
- Look directly at the camera lens as often as possible.
- Pretend you’re talking to a friend who’s behind the camera.
Send Your Files
Email your script and slides to our team at least one hour before your session. Send slides as PowerPoint (.pptx) files and scripts as Word (.docx) files; USB drives can’t be connected to studio equipment. If you arrive without your materials submitted, your session will typically turn into a planning conversation, and we’ll book a second visit when you’re ready to record.
Attend Your Studio Session
A member of the studio team runs your session from start to finish. They’ll set up your microphone, load your script and slides beforehand, cue you to begin each take, and manage the teleprompter as you go.
A recording session includes up to 3 takes. Each take is one full run-through of your script. If you make a mistake, don’t start over: just stop, say where you’d like to return to in the script, and we’ll roll it back so you can resume. Countdown from 5 seconds at the start and end of each take (and after any restart) so the editors have clean cut points. Many presenters use their first take to shake off nerves.
When you arrive, put your phone on silent and mute notifications on your laptop. During the session, try to pace yourself. Keep your energy up by drinking water or going for a quick walk between takes.
After Your Session
