Lights! Camera! Still Photography?

The dramatic video is a staple of corporate training, but adapting it for use in e-learning courses has proven to be difficult. Many companies simply don’t have the bandwith to host video vignettes on their Intranets when thousands of users may be trying to watch at the same time. So how do you retain the benefits of dramatic video without actually using video?

Having faced this question a number of times, we've come up with an answer: use still photos. Producing dramatic scenarios with stills presents a few challenges, but done well, it can be just as effective as video.

Perhaps the most important element in making stills work is to hire the right photographer. A stills photographer who specializes in portrait style shooting won’t understand how a dramatic scene is put together. It’s much better to hire someone with experience in shooting scenes on video and let that person adapt to still photography.

It’s also good to hire actors who are used to performing in dramatic scenes rather than models who usually just pose for photos. You’ll want to have the actors perform the scene multiple times just as you would if you were shooting on video. You can also save time and money by having the actors record their lines on the same day you shoot the stills.

Post-production is similar to video, although we do our editing in Flash rather than a program like Final Cut Pro. And in fact, it’s possible to give some scenes a feeling of pace and movement with quick cutting and the right music. The resulting dramatic scenes can help spice up even the most dry, instructional e-learning courses. So when your e-Learning course calls for action, you might find yourself telling everyone to hold still.