Introduction to Teaching with the
Video Production Handbook, Fifth Edition
Goals
I have very high goals when it comes to teaching a basic video production course. I may
even be accused of being a little too idealistic. However, I see the basic video production
class as a “life skills” class. Most of the basics of the video production process can easily
be applied to many other aspects of life. When my students complete the class, I want
them to take new life skills with them, whether they go into a future of television
production or choose another career.
So, as I cover many of the aspects of the video production process, I also look for ways to
expand it to life in general. Concepts such as knowing who your audience is,
understanding the production limitations and setting goals and objectives are part of
every project, whether television production or not. Television classes encourage critical
thinking and problem solving. In a day when many students prefer to work by themselves
in front of their computer, video group projects draw students out and are especially
meaningful as the group responsibilities are rotated among the students.
Since high definition (HD) production is now everywhere, we have tried to integrate it
into each chapter, pointing out the difference HD makes in the production process. New
equipment has emerged since the Fourth Edition of the book, and up-to-date information
on this new equipment (such as DSLRs, 3D, cell phones, and flash memory) has been
integrated. Some of these technologies are called out in sidebars throughout the book.
Distribution outlets are of the utmost importance; knowing where, how, and when your
work will be distributed has important effect on how it is designed.
Interview with a Pro sections are designed to offer students a real-world perspective on
how working professionals operate in the video and television industries. Each chapter
concludes with an interview.
This book is aimed at the beginning video student. The goal is to give the student a broad
understanding of what it takes to put a video production together.
Chapter Organization
It is always difficult to organize a class, especially when it does not necessarily flow in a
linear fashion. After almost thirty years of teaching television production, I still
constantly adapt the order of coverage in the classroom. I understand that each person
adopts what works best for them. That is one of the reasons that we have numbered each
section within the text. It allows the instructor to quickly assign different sections, in
whatever order the instructor desires.
You will see that the chapters move from the overview, which is the big picture, to
slowly moving closer and closer to the small segments of the video production process.
Once the foundation is built, students can add the other information, block by block, to
create solid productions. Also, as already mentioned, each chapter concludes with an
“Interview with a Pro” section.
The book’s table of contents gives a definitive list of the content for each chapter. Below
I will give a couple sentences long review of the chapters to help you see the big picture:
Chapter 1: Overview of Video Production
The intent of chapter one is to introduce the beginning students to the scope of video
production. It helps set the scene for the rest of the book.
Note: There are times that, in light of limited class time, students need to begin working
on very basic video projects before I can cover all of the pertinent information in class.
After covering Chapter 1 in class, I usually go through some of the basics in video,
utilizing a PowerPoint presentation. I have included an example of a PowerPoint
(PowerPoint Introduction) that I use with beginning classes that utilizes a studio project.
Later on in the semester I go into much more depth on each aspect of the PowerPoint.
However, at the beginning of the class, I use a presentation like this to just get the
students moving in the right direction.
Chapter 2: Production Crew
I have a tendency to want to emphasize the human aspects of video production at the
beginning of each of my video classes. Today’s students seem to love the equipment,
sometimes forgetting that it is the people that make the difference. There are photographs
of most of these positions in the image collection to enable an instructor to build their
own PowerPoint presentation.
Chapter 3: Organizing the Production
This chapter begins to tighten the focus from the big picture in Chapter 1 to a portion of
that picture, the production process. Chapter three familiarizes the student with the
process of moving from the idea stage to a final quality production. The goal is that it will
continue to build the student’s foundation for creating quality productions.
Chapter 4: Production Techniques
Once the students understand the production process, they need to determine the
techniques that they will use to communicate their production. This chapter summarizes
the most common techniques.
Chapter 5: Writing for Video
Since most videos begin with a script, we placed this chapter before any of the other
production elements. It is an attempt to emphasize the importance of writing.
The Production Elements
It was difficult to know how to prioritize the order of the remaining chapters since they
all are basically production elements. After all, the audio is just as important as the
camera, and the editing is just as important as lighting. So, this is not an attempt to give
one element priority over another. Instead, we just selected an order and went with it.
Each instructor can choose the order that works best for their teaching style. We began
with the camera since it is a video class.
Chapter 6: The Camera
There is so much “camera” information available that it was difficult to know how to
break it up into manageable segments. Chapter 6 deals primarily with the types and parts
of the camera. It also goes into a little depth on how the camera and its components work.
Chapter 7: Using the Camera
An overview of how to use the camera, and all of its components, to create a quality
video production.
Chapter 8: Shooting People and Objects
The majority of this chapter deals with video’s most popular subject, people. The goal is
to show how to effectively capture people on video. The last few pages focus more on
shooting objects.
Chapter 9: Working with the Talent
This chapter covers how to work with talent in the production. Not necessarily how to
shoot them, that was covered in Chapter 8, but how to work with the talent to get the
optimal performance.
Chapter 10: Audio for Video
The audio chapter reviews the most common microphones used in video production and
then discusses audio techniques.
Chapter 11: Lighting for Video
The lighting chapter discusses techniques, tools and lighting instruments.
Chapter 12: The Background
While the chapter does deal with building sets, it also deals with the background that
occurs in other locations. The chapter includes standard sets, virtual sets, outdoor sets and
many variations.
Chapter 13: Television Graphics
The graphics chapter includes goals, techniques, equipment and the basic graphic
guidelines for video.
Chapter 14: Recording and Viewing the Video
This review of the most common recording media has dramatically changed from
previous versions of the book. Besides tape, the chapter now covers DVDs, flash
memory, hard drives and HD formats.
Chapter 15: Editing
This chapter primarily deals with the basic principles and guidelines of editing. There is
also a review of the various types of editors. It does not deal with a detailed explanation
about how to use a linear or nonlinear editor. Since editing systems differ quite a bit,
supplemental material will need to be used to teach the specifics of the editing equipment
being used for the class.
Chapter 16: Distributing Your Production
This is a brand new chapter; distribution has dramatically increased in importance.
Distribution often becomes part of the role of the production personnel. This chapter
covers various forms of distribution outlets, including: traditional televisions, large
screens, tablet computers, computers, cell phones, and multiple forms of online
distribution.
Teaching Video Production
A beginning video production course has different connotations to different faculty
members. For some faculty, a beginning video class is composed of a student with a
simple camcorder and nonlinear editor. The entire class can be constructed around those
two tools. Usually the students are broken into small groups to work on a number of
projects. Other faculty prefer their beginning class to start off in the studio. Lighting,
audio and directing skills can be honed in controlled studio atmosphere. The students,
working as the large crew on one project at a time, help each other move through the
studio productions, learning together. A third option is some type of mix between field
production and studio production.
Bottom line, all of these plans work. The goals in teaching a beginning or basic television
production class are to teach the television production process, explain the techniques,
help the students understand the equipment and coach them to work well together to
create meaningful relevant productions.
Video production is not an easy subject to teach within the constraints of the class
structure at many schools. Ideally, the instructor would cover the majority of the material
in this book within the first half of the semester. The second half of the semester could be
used for the actual creation of video projects, critical analysis and then back out to the
studio or field to shoot/create another production.
However, the limited amount of lab time, large number of students required to take the
course and class limits of time spent in the classroom each week, requires us to begin
teaching the process right away while at the same time pushing our students into
production by immersion. While students first feel as though they are only half ready,
they learn fast. As they work through the projects, they learn more and more from the
weekly lectures. Many times I hear one of my students say “I wish I had known that for
my last project.” While that is unfortunate, it is the way it is. Faculty generally continue
to add more and more information to the field of knowledge each week, allowing
students to continually increase the quality of their productions.
Suggestions for Teaching Video Production
• Emphasize that it is people, not equipment, who make award-winning productions
• Allow students to start working with equipment as soon as possible. The goal is to get
over the novelty of the equipment so that they can concentrate on capturing good images.
• Limit the number of students in each class or lab based on the amount of available
equipment and time. Too many students will result in students not having a good
production experience.
• There is nothing wrong with making a variety of reading assignments from all over the
book, requiring the student to jump around the book. You have got to give students a
broad foundation to work from. As the semester moves into the final weeks, you can fill
in the blanks in reading areas.
• Require students to follow the proper crew etiquette. This means that the producer and
director are in charge during a production, not the faculty member.
• Enforce production deadlines, reducing the project grade if deadlines are missed. The
goal is to simulate a real production experience as much as possible.
• If it is a studio type class, make sure that each student is rotated through all of the
positions. If it is a single-camera class, make sure that each student gets experience in
each of the areas. Otherwise, they will graduate not having experienced each segment of
the production process.
• Enhance the classroom presentations with PowerPoints as much as possible. I found
that I could add almost a third additional content to the class when I began to visualize
the lessons each day. That is the main reason we have included photos from each chapter
of the book.
• Most of the time I only cover as much as 40-50% of the text material in the actual
course lectures. The remaining material is required supplemental reading.
• Obviously, it is important for students to keep up-to-date with their reading
assignments. I give an occasional short quiz on reading due dates to let students know
that I think the readings are a priority.
• Clear evaluations are imperative for enhancing student performance. Within the last
year, I have begun requiring that each student or group schedule an appointment with me
in my office so that we can view and evaluate the project together. While this is more
time intensive, I am finding that it is more valuable for the students and allows me to
build a better student-faculty relationship.
Supplemental Material
• There are a number of PowerPoint presentations that can be adapted to fit the
instructor’s style.
• There is also a PowerPoint file for each chapter. These PowerPoints include
photographs that can be used when covering that specific chapter.
• There is a set of video clips that illustrate specific areas covered within some chapter.
These files are located in folders with the chapter number on them.
• Test bank of questions.