Create and Share Your Own Hand-Crafted Explainer Videos #170

Explainer Videos in E-Learning #170: Challenge | Recap

Common Craft videos have been around for more than a decade. You’ve seen them, right? Of course you have. A lot’s changed since they were first released. The audio, video, and graphics have a more professional feel today. But you know what hasn’t changed much? The scriptwriting.

It’s All About the Script

If you go back and watch the original videos, you’ll find that they’re just as engaging as the ones created last year.

Here’s a good experiment: Try playing each of the following videos but only listen to the audio. Minimize or hide your browser so you’re not tempted to peek at the video.

RSS in Plain English (1st video) | View The Common Craft Way

Spend more time on your scripts and storyboards than your graphics and you’ll begin to craft more meaningful learning experiences.

Sounds easy, right?

It is easy. But it’s also easy for course designers to neglect the scriptwriting process and lose time with the course visuals and presentation design.

This week, we’re trading our mouse and keyboard for some paper and markers to create the popular Common Craft–style graphics and explainer videos. And that’s what this week’s challenge is all about!

The Common Craft Explainer Toolkit

Cut-out graphics are simple and fun to make. Here’s an interactive image of the simple tools Common Craft uses to create their graphics.

Click here to view the Common Craft toolbox

Challenge of the Week

This week, your challenge is to create an explainer video or interaction using hand-drawn graphics, paper, and video.

You can digitize your hand-crafted graphics to animate in tools like Storyline, but create the graphics using analog tools.

NOTE: I know there are software tools that can automate the graphics and animation process. While I’m not saying you can’t use those tools, the primary objective this week is to create an explainer video or interaction using your own handcrafted cut-out graphics.

Last Week’s Challenge:

Before you drop mouse, check out the scrolling panel examples your fellow challengers shared over the past week:

Scrolling Panels in E-Learning RECAP #169: Challenge | Recap

Wishing you an uncommonly good week, E-Learning Heroes!

New to the E-Learning Challenges?

The weekly e-learning challenges are ongoing opportunities to learn, share, and build your e-learning portfolios. You can jump into any or all of the previous challenges anytime you want. I’ll update the recap posts to include your demos.