

How To: Making a great screencast - csavage
http://wistia.com/blog/how-to-5-steps-to-making-a-great-screencast/

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jamesbritt
Thumbs up on Screenflow. It does quite a bit for $99. I especially like how
easy it is to swap in alternate takes of things.

I've been using it to develop live presentations with slides, and was very
helpful in working out a talk for Ignite Phoenix, where timing is extra
crucial.

I tend to write down some notes, then do a recording more or less ad lib, see
how much I screwed up and flubbed things, and gradual get a feel for what
phrasing feels most natural, what steps are needed, what I have to explain.

The end result is a sort of pre-recording of your talk, which you can watch as
an aid to practising and getting the whole thing into our head.

Also, good point on keeping screencasts short. I hate having to jump around in
some 20-minute recording trying to find where one or another item was
explained. Better to break things down to a set of tighter presentations.

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VB6_Forever
The tip about recording the audio first is a gem

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petercooper
That said, people I've discussed screencasting with (nearly all in the Ruby
community) have typically recommended video first _then_ a voiceover - this
includes Geoffrey Grosenbach of Peepcode (he also shares this technique in his
screencast about screencasting).

I tend to do everything in one take then edit out the mistakes so I haven't
got an informed preference, though doing the audio first does seem to make
sense from a pacing and "maintaining interest" perspective.. you can always
edit down/speed up the video parts, after all.

I suspect that merely being detailed enough to _think_ about these processes
and how they work (or not) for you is enough to put you above average in the
screencasting stakes.

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mhartl
The Rails Tutorial screencasts (<http://zfer.us/EKm97>) always combine audio
and video from the same take (using ScreenFlow, natch). I can't imagine
achieving a good teaching cadence any other way. I also love the
verisimilitude of hearing mouse clicks and keyboard clacks synchronized with
the action on the screen.

