5 Tips to shoot video so people can watch it at a faster playback speed and understand it

I was pressed for time the other day, and I needed to learn something quickly from a 15 minute YouTube video. I decided to try to increase the playback speed to twice the speed. Your probably thinking this is a great productivity tip. Watching a video at 2X playback speed is a little bit like trying to speed read. Fast playback can help you quickly watch and learn from a long winded video. If you have not tried it, click the settings icon on a YouTube video then choose the Playback Speed menu and select 2.

There is just one problem with fast playback. You miss a lot of the details on fast playback. I kept having to rewind the video to rewatch a portion. You end up wasting time instead of saving it. Most video is shot with the assumption that people will watch it at a normal playback speed.

I want to cover 5 tips you can use to improve your videos so they work well for fast playback speed.

Aristotle is attributed to a simple idea of teaching that is used in most courses today. First tell the audience what going to tell them, tell them, then tell them what you told them. If you provide an overview of what you will cover at the beginning of your video and a summary at the end of your video, your audience can watch these short parts at a normal speed and grasp the main points of your video.

I was reading a book How to Shoot Video that Doesn’t Suck by hollywood director Steve Stockman. One of his tips on displaying text on the screen is to only display it slightly longer than it takes to read. If people are going to watch your video at twice the speed, you will have to break this rule and display it twice as long as it takes the average person to read it.

If you video contains more than one or two key ideas or if your video describes a process of steps on how to do something, you should have a written version that summarizes the ideas or steps. Post a link to this written version in the video description. If you are describing a how to process, it often helps to make the written version printable so your audience can use it to follow along as the do the process.

Audio quality must be even better for fast playback. If you are not using an external microphone to record your video, the quality will not be great in many cases. The fast playback will amplify the poor quality and will make it almost impossible for your audience to understand what you are saying. Invest in an external microphone if you want your video to sound better in fast playback.

Finally, you can have the best microphone in the world, but if you do not pay attention to your voice, it will not matter. How you speak and how you pronounce words matters a great deal when a video is played at faster speed. If you speak too fast or slur your words, the effect will be amplified when the video is played back at a faster speed. People will not be able to understand what you are saying. One simple thing you can do to improve your voice is to work on your crisp consonants. There are videos and posts out there on how to do this, just search for the term “crisp consonants”.

If you found some value in this post, I would love to hear from you. You can find me on Twitter @tysonmaly or working on programming courses for kids at nextlesson.com