Recorder Workflow Tips

Now that you have familiarized yourself with the basic functions of the Camtasia Recorder as well as experimented with customizing the program’s interface, it’s time to give you some additional tips to make your recordings flow as smoothly as possible. Following these basic guidelines will save you many hours of retakes, thus sparing your sanity and reducing your total production time. And who could say no to that?

Work from a Script

I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating: If you’re not recording using a roadmap such as a storyboard or narration script, then your video is likely to be a meandering, disorganized mess. If you really care about delivering the content in a professional way, follow a script. After all, you can’t arrive at your desired destination when you don’t know where you’re going half the time.

The same goes for audio narration. Even if you know your content backward and forward, something happens when that little Recorder icon starts a-blinkin’. You stammer, groping for the right words (yet seldom actually finding them), and the final result just isn’t good enough for prime time. I know you have a deadline to meet, but trust me when I tell you that an hour of preparation will save you three on the production end.

Take the Time to Set Up Your Shot

Just as a videographer scouts a location to determine its fitness for filming, so should you plan ahead to get the best possible footage. Preferably, all your shot information should already be detailed in your storyboard, so that when we get to the recording phase, all you have to do is follow along.

Open your needed application windows for the clip and get them set up, making sure that all essential elements actually fall within the recording area. Don’t be afraid to make bold choices in terms of laying out your application windows. Overlap them or place them side-by- side. Try to make as much use of the space provided by your recording area as possible.

If you’re only recording a single application, you might want to resize it so that it fills up as much of the recording area as possible. Fortunately, there’s a freeware utility on the companion CD called Sizer that can resize any window to an exact set of dimensions. Then, just do a window capture to record the application at the exact size you need it.

Also, make sure that your captures are clean. By this, I mean setting your preferences and visuals to mimic what users are likely to see on their own systems. Take care to leave out any unnecessary actions, windows, or other distractions that will detract from your message. If part of the desktop will be visible in your recording, use a solid-color background (I use white) and get rid of any superfluous icons. Also, while the Camtasia Recorder’s special effects are great in certain situations, they too can become a distraction if overdone, so try to make your special effects implementation meaningful (in other words, thematically related to the actual content) rather than using them just because you can.

Don’t Mess with Your Windows

Provided your application has been programmed to adhere to standard Windows conventions, its window has the convenient ability to reap- pear in the exact same place you left it, at the exact same size, even if it’s been months since you last opened it. Likewise, Camtasia Recorder has the ability, utilizing its Fixed Region Capture feature, to record a given capture area over and over. Same size, same location.

This can afford you a great level of consistency when recording multiple clips and then combining them into a single video project. Using Fixed Region, you can splice together 10 different clips recorded on 10 different days, and it’ll still look like you managed to do everything perfectly in a single take.

So don’t go screwing it up by moving or resizing your windows! If you record a new clip where the window size or placement is off, even by a few pixels, you’ll notice a rather disconcerting shift when splicing your clips together. It looks amateurish and crude. Should you ever happen to find yourself victim of this phenomenon, you’ve only got a few options:

• Live with it.

• Meticulously move and/or resize your windows to match the old settings as best you can. Then record a test clip, import it into Camtasia Studio next to one of your other clips, and observe the transition from one clip to the next to see what, if anything, needs adjusting. Repeat as necessary (and since this is a precision art, it’s likely you’ll need to repeat often to get it perfect).

• Cover up the discrepancy during editing by placing a transition or title screen between the clips, which sometimes works, but is often just as conspicuous as leaving it be.

As the old saying goes, nothing is as expensive as regret. All of the above options either compromise the video’s quality or waste your valuable time. Better to avoid this situation altogether.

Timing Is Everything

If you’re like the vast majority of us who write a script before recording your video, yet record the actual narration after your video capture is complete, you want to make sure that you give each action appropriate breathing room. An action is defined as one step in whatever multi-step process you’re attempting to document in your video. Since you’re going to be narrating the action as it unfolds, it’s important to keep one eye on the script so that the timing of your piece remains consistent. If you proceed too quickly from action to action, you won’t have enough time to squeeze in the commentary without sounding like the announcer from the old MicroMachines commercials.

It’s far better to err on the side of too much lag time between actions, as you can always easily trim out part of that pause during editing if you find it too lengthy. While it is possible to extend a frame at production time to accommodate longer narration, it’s a hassle to have to fix something in post that you should have gotten right at record time. Also, frame extensions tend to clutter your editing work, taking what should have been one clip and turning it into three. So take your time, keep your script in plain view, and the pacing of your video will drastically improve as a result.

If there is a complicated set of actions that need to be explained in great detail, consider using time-lapse capture to slow things down. Likewise, if you want to gloss over a long set of features in your program, you can also utilize time-lapse to speed through it, showing off everything in just a few seconds. You can read more about how to perform a time-lapse capture in Chapter 7, “Recorder Tools Options.”

Avoid Cursor-Jump

Here’s a point that relates to the previous one, and it’s a huge pet peeve of mine. Say you’ve made multiple clips featuring the same application window. While editing, you try to splice them together.

During playback of the final video, the cursor appears to teleport from place to place like magic. Sometimes it just mysteriously disappears. Or magically reappears. Just as with the placement of your windows, you have to be cognizant of the placement of your mouse cursor when one clip ends and another begins. One handy tip is to rest it in the middle of a button or some other spot where the placement is easy to replicate. Another higher-tech option is to use the GetMouse utility (which is on the companion CD). As soon as you pause, press Ctrl-G to “get” the current location of the mouse cursor, and when you’re ready to resume, press Ctrl-P to “put” it back where it was. Many thanks to RoboHelp guru and TechSmith forum denizen Rick Stone for this gem.

Since it’s always in motion anyway, the placement of your mouse cursor needn’t necessarily be a pixel-perfect match to the clip that came before it, unlike your application window. Just get it close enough so that it doesn’t look like the USS Enterprise just “beamed” your mouse cursor from one side of the screen to the other.

Of course, you may end up working on projects where the order of your clips in the final project is uncertain. In that event, try moving the mouse cursor into the shot at the beginning of the clip, and then back out of the recording area when the clip concludes. It’s not ideal, but at least your audience will be better able to track the mouse cursor rather than having it jump around on them.

One final thought: When clicking links, keep your mouse cursor on the link until the link action (page changing, application window opening, etc.) finally occurs. This will help you “trim the fat” later in the editing process by cutting out the pauses between the mouse click and the corresponding action.

Avoid the Scroll Wheel

Very often, you don’t even think about it because that little wheel has become so ingrained in our collective work processes. But bear in mind that your audience can’t see your mouse or what you’re doing with it. All they see is the content inexplicably shifting around on your screen. Try to be cognizant of this while recording. Use the scroll bar instead of the wheel in order to give the good folks at home a visual cue as to what’s happening. Of course, if the audience can’t see the scroll bar, then they still won’t have a visual cue, so remember to actually include the window’s scroll bar as part of your recording area.

Pause when Needed

When recording a clip that features multiple processes, all of which have multiple steps, it’s insanely easy to get lost or mixed up, and suddenly you have no idea what’s coming next. Be sure to make liberal use of that F9 key. It’s such a simple thing, I know, but it’s easy to forget it’s there amid the chaos of recording. Pausing the action will allow you to quickly consult your script or storyboard to see the next action or procedure you wanted to cover. Once you’ve gotten your bearings, simply hit the hotkey again to keep going.

Finally, you may want to pause often if you’re ever creating a tutorial of an application with a lot of text fields to fill in. Nobody wants to sit and watch you painstakingly type each letter. It’s usually better to pause, type in the field, and resume. To the user, it will look like the fields are just filling in automatically, which isn’t entirely “natural,” but I find it preferable for the sake of saving time. Some people accomplish the same thing by pasting their text, but I prefer the former solution simply because it’s more relaxed - just pause, and fill in fields at your leisure.

Oh, and remember to take your hand off the mouse when you pause to avoid the dreaded “cursor-jump” I just mentioned.

Split Things Up

If you have the task of creating a two- to three-minute tutorial video, you might be tempted to do it all in a single take in order to keep things simple. Try to resist this temptation, because the final result is usually anything but simple. For one thing, by splitting things up into more palatable chunks, you’ll more easily be able to work through the content. Nothing is more frustrating than meticulously creating a five-minute clip, only to screw it up right at the finish line. For another, recording multiple clips means more opportunities to set up interesting shots. After all, there’s a reason why film directors shoot their movies from multiple angles. It gives you choices. Having your screen set up in a particular way may work wonderfully for one topic, but could actually obscure your point when moving on to the next.