Sketch, Script, and Slide: Making the MVP Demo Video

By the end of my first week with Wednesdays.com, I helped put together a 1 minute demo video that would be on every individual group’s landing page. It may not be super fancy, but it definitely does the trick if you’re pressed for time and it is more way likely to be seen than an attached document.

Six Simple Steps: Let’s Go Make a Movie!

1. Take or design some product screenshots
Our features are working for our private beta membership, so Hugh and Andy just went in and took screenshots of what the landing page looks like, what an email invite would look like, and what the reminders would look like.
If you’re still in the idea stage, try some of the prototyping and wire-framing online tools out there to design what your product would look like.

Bay Area Interns Lunch Club page

2. Use the user experience flow to draft a script
This is when the order of the sketches of how the product works come into play. Rick was super helpful in making sure the script matched up with what would be logical to mention first, so I’d recommend having someone else look through the script and slides to make sure it would make sense to someone unfamiliar with the product.

3. Create an awesome slide deck
Put it all together and get feedback from someone who would be a target user. Does it make sense? Do they understand the call to action? Do they have questions that should be addressed in the video? Then go back to your script draft and edit, edit, edit.

4. Record narration on your slides
For Powerpoint: Go to the “Slides” tab, then the “Slide Show” menu, and click “Record Narration”. Speak as you click the right arrow button to advance to the next slide.
For Keynote: Open “File” and click “Record Slideshow”. Speak as you click the right arrow button to advance to the next slide.
Note: You won’t be able to see your script as you record, so you’ll either have to pull it up on another computer or memorize it.

5. Save and export as a video file
Press the “Escape” button and Click “Save As…” to save it as a movie file.

6. Post it online!
If you use Youtube or Vimeo, you can easily create shortlinks to track traffic and embed the video in blog posts and pages.

And voila, you’re done!

UPDATE:
Almost everything we do is a work in progress. Just had a great meeting with Dave, who offered some suggestions. Thought they’d be helpful to mention in order to clarify that we’re nowhere near perfect, so here goes:
-Try using a specific landing page, not a generic one. There may be some people who don’t like the organization whose landing page you choose to feature but a generic one is kind of confusing.
- The call to action here is to email us since this video is targeting staff at university alumni offices and career centers. Make some videos specifically for consumers in case end users stumble upon the video and clarify which videos are for which audience.

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