Adobe Premiere Pro
How to make training videos.
Premiere Pro is the ideal non-linear editing (NLE) software for creating engaging training videos. Enhance your videos with high-quality Adobe Stock video clips, edit faster with AI-powered tools and collaborate with stakeholders more easily with simplified review and approval.
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What is a training video?
Training videos teach a viewer how to do a job, use a product or perform an action. Like explainer videos, training videos present complex information in a clear way for a beginner audience.
“A training video is basically instructions,” says training video producer Mohammed Alkhadher.
It’s common for organisations to use video content or e-learning materials to train new employees or get existing employees up to speed on new rules or business practices.
Here’s how you can create video content that effectively supports an organisation’s training programme.
Different training videos for different audiences.
There are three main types of training videos, all of which speak to different audiences and are distributed in different ways.
Marketing training videos.
Aimed at customers, these assets illustrate how to use a product or service and are often public-facing. They usually live as online videos on Vimeo or YouTube videos and can be a powerful tool for marketers focused on customer retention and relationships.
Internal training videos.
Typically, these are videos designed to instruct members of your team. Employee training videos are generally not public-facing and most often live on a learning management system or LMS, where an organisation keeps training materials such as employee handbooks, onboarding materials and other online training resources.
Partner training videos.
Similar to internal videos, this learning content is aimed at an organisation’s business partners. Like internal training videos, these are often stored and distributed via an LMS, along with other B2B or partner resources like webinars or PowerPoint presentations.
Each type of training video has different needs. “Understand your audience, the intent and the distribution,” says digital producer Matte Monnin. “Am I training somebody on information or on action to perform? The purpose can influence how you approach it creatively.
What goes into a good script.
The first step to a great training video is to distil the information and craft it into a script that will be the backbone of your content.
Read the manual.
Training videos are always based on some preexisting information that a company wants to give the audience. That information can come from a product manual or specifications document, an employee handbook or bylaws or local laws and regulations.
When you make a training video, the first person you need to train is yourself and you need to know the target material inside and out. “With a training video, you have to quickly become a subject matter expert,” says Monnin. “Otherwise, it’s going to be obvious that you don’t know what you’re talking about.”
After you’ve outlined the material to the best of your abilities, make it conversational. “I don’t want it to sound like I’m reading straight out of the manual,” says Alkhadher. “If people wanted that, they’d read it themselves.”
Make the lessons seem real.
Good training videos often put issues in a real-world context. Usually this is conveyed by actors that dramatise the kind of situation an employee or customer might encounter, often with a voice-over that adds commentary. Training videos can dramatise customer service scenarios, the installation or upgrade of software or a regular task workers must perform.
These situations need to be relatable and in the world of corporate training videos relatability can be fragile. If the dialogue is off or the scenario is unlikely, it can distract the audience. Your characters need to talk like real people in real circumstances.
“When I see a bad tutorial, it tends to be based on situations that aren’t really realistic,” says Alkhadher. “Something where they’re reiterating the product name three times in the same sentence.”
One of the best ways to be effective is to keep an eye on video length. “Cutting through the fluff makes you more relatable,” says Alkhadher. “Don’t put a two-minute intro on a thirty-second tutorial.” Respect your audience’s time, whether they’re customers or fellow team members.
Training video production.
With your content nailed down, now it’s time to produce your video. Follow these tips to make the video production process more smooth.
Approval is a process.
After you’ve written a script, you’ll need to get approval from all of the stakeholders about what you’ve written. Those stakeholders can include managers and owners, department heads, business partners or a legal department. Expect to go through multiple rounds of revisions and rewrites and make sure everyone who needs to see the material can collaborate easily. “You want to get as much as possible approved before you start moving,” says Monnin.
Training videos can look like nearly anything. They can be everything from a simple slideshow with a voice-over to ornate whiteboard animations. Live-action training videos are the most common, though. Most often, you’ll be getting a camera crew and actors together to make the script come to life.
Shoot the whole script.
During a shot, make sure you record every word of the script as it’s written. Due to the approval process most corporate training videos have to go through, it’s key to have someone keep track of what parts of the script have been recorded and how many takes each section has required.
It’s possible that you might have stakeholders or people in charge of approvals (like subject matter experts or legal personnel) on set during a shoot. If you do, be prepared to be flexible based on their expertise and input.
Edit your training video in Adobe Premiere Pro.
After the cameras stop rolling there’s still a lot of work to do. “Post-production is when you have a bunch of raw material. You do all your cuts, get your selects and assemble what’s called a rough cut,” says Monnin. AI-powered tools Premiere Pro can help you to work faster.
Use automatic transcripts to search through hours of footage quickly.
Use Speech-to-Text to automatically transcribe your training videos in 18 languages. With Text-Based Editing, you can read through long clips, highlight text and insert it into your sequence. Quickly shape your training video by creating a rough cut without having to listen to any audio first.
Emphasise accessibility with captions.
To make your training videos more accessible and easier to follow, generate captions from your transcripts and transform them into on-screen graphics. This ensures that all viewers can understand the content, enhancing the overall effectiveness of your training materials.
Complement your training with high-quality b-roll.
Training videos can be a little boring. Access thousands of Adobe Stock video clips inside of Premiere Pro so you can enhance content with professional, relevant footage without needing to shoot everything yourself.
Emphasise important points with motion graphics.
Motion Graphics Templates (MOGRTs) provide customisable templates for lower thirds, titles and other graphics. Media replacement within these templates allows you to quickly update visuals without creating new animations from scratch. Access templates you can use straightaway from inside Premiere Pro with no expertise required.
Clean up voice recordings and create a great sound mix.
It’s critical that your audience understand and digest your training. Auto Ducking will automatically reduce the music levels under voices by adding the appropriate keyframes. With Enhance Speech, you can quickly clean up voice recordings that might have been made in challenging environments. Use Loudness Matching to make sure all the dialogue levels are consistent throughout your video.
Get stakeholder feedback in one place.
Make it easier for stakeholders and team members to review and comment on your work throughout the process. Frame.io allows you to share your edits and feedback, consolidating the process in one place. They can leave comments directly on the video, making it easy to understand and implement changes and ensure the accuracy of your training material.
Be efficient and multi-task across multiple projects.
Send to Media Encoder allows you to queue and batch export multiple projects or versions. This ensures that your final videos are encoded properly for various formats and platforms while freeing up Premiere Pro for active work.
See more Premiere Pro features.
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Questions? We have answers.
What is a training video?
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