Activity Pack: Explainer Videos

Graphic with text overlay that says - Plans are worthless, but planning in invaluable. Perter Druker.

^{Image source:}^congerdesign^{via Pixabay}

There are so many great quotes about planning. My favorite is from Peter Drucker who clearly understood that it is the process of planning that has value. The end result is not the plan, rather the end result should be the execution of the the plan. The plan is the box, the planning is the goodies inside. With that in mind, here is one way to go about planning your explainer video.

Before going one step further answer the following questions.

1. What is you topic? What are you going to explain in your video? Pro-tip: Choose something you know a lot about.

2. Who is your audience? Who are you creating this video for? What are your assumptions about your audience?

3. What do you want them to take away from this video? What is the learning goal or objective?

4. What are the 1 - 3 BIG ideas that you will include in this video?

5. How long will you video be? How many minutes and how many words? 1 minute of narration = approximately 150 words.

Here's an explainer video I created for a course about harm reduction and how I answered the questions above.

How Change Works

^{https://youtu.be/wPKPQNq59so}

1. What is you topic? What are you going to explain in your video?

How change works - the transtheoretical model of change.

2. Who is your audience? Who are you creating this video for? What are your assumptions about your audience?

Non-profit housing staff that may not understand the normal process of change.

3. What do you want them to take away from this video? What is the learning goal or objective?

Recognize the stages of change in the transtheoretical model and how it is not a linear process.

4. What are the 1 - 3 BIG ideas that you will include in this video?

Change is not linear or easy. Relapse is normal.

5. How long will your video be? ~ 150 words per minute if you are narrating.

5 minutes.

With is part complete the next step is to decide on a model or template.

Explainer Video Models

Like movies, explainer videos can be grouped into categories or models. There is no real hard and fast rule around this but there are some models that can be used to help structure your video. The most common of these is probably the story model. In marketing these are the pain point model. In education these can be cautionary tales or hero stories.

Check out the videos below. The first is a short explainer video of sorts that features live action (that makes it more of an educational video than explainer video but lets not get too caught up in semantics :-O ) and humorous explanation of some common story models aka shapes.

Kurt Vonnegut on the Shapes of Stories

^{https://youtu.be/oP3c1h8v2ZQ}

These two Meet Bob videos are marketing type explainer videos but do a good job of showing how different approaches can work.

Make note of what you like or don't like about each.

Meet Bob 1

^{https://youtu.be/yMhDB9nJnUY}

Meet Bob 2

^{https://vimeo.com/248212133}

The Analogy Model

The story model is the most common or at least the most recognizable form of explainer video. Another well known and effective model is the analogy. Analogies are great ways to to explain complex ideas.

Here's an article about using analogies and a sample video showing how the folks at CommonCraft use an analogy to explain social media.

How to explain pixels with an analogy: https://explaineracademy.com/blog/2883/how-to-explain-pixels-with-an-analogy

Social Media in Plain English

^{https://youtu.be/MpIOClX1jPE}

Old Way/New Way Model

This is also an effective way to convince and explain.

What is Pinterest?

^{https://youtu.be/oJzD4vF5dFA}

Steps Model

Lastly, here is an example of an explainer video that walks the audience through steps to do something. This would one of the grey area videos that is part how-to and part explainer. (This video will only be available for the duration of this course.)

Termination Next Steps

^{https://youtu.be/23O2OBF82q4}

Explainer Video Planning with Worksheets

Building on the Q&A approach shown (way) above, here are some worksheets to help further develop your explainer videos. I've found that following a planning pathway helps ensure you have all the information you need before jumping into scripting. You are all brilliant and creative adults so you can, of course, just jump in without any planning :-O or use your own planning process.

The worksheets include the basic questions about your topic and audience plus questions that will help you write the script for your explainer video.

Click on the links below to download the worksheets in word (.docx) format.

Explainer Video Worksheet 1: Basic Outline

Explainer Video Worksheet 2: Story Model Outline

Explainer Video Worksheet 3: Analogy Model Outline

Explainer Video Worksheet 4: Old way/New way Model Outline

Explainer Video Worksheet 5: Steps Model Outline

Mission Possible

Image source

Your Mission

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to complete one of the worksheets above and post it (or your very strong feelings about this process) to the forum.

Ok, at least share the basics:

1. What is you topic? What are you going to explain in your video? Pro-tip: Choose something you know a lot about.

2. Who is your audience? Who are you creating this video for? What are your assumptions about your audience?

3. What do you want them to take away from this video? What is the learning goal or objective?

4. What are the 1 - 3 BIG ideas that you will include in this video?

5. How long will you video be? How many minutes and how many words? 1 minute of narration = approximately 150 words.