The Making of the Innovation in a Box Test Video

One of the things I love about DVD's are the extras, and particularly the "Making of..." background documentaries on  the films themselves.  I remember watching the BBC's Planet Earth Series, and each episode had a background doc on making that episode, and they were often as interesting as the episode itself.

I won't claim our little test video, nor the "making of it" is in the same category as Planet Earth, but hopefully you will find it interesting.

The video started with the content.  I've been running Innovation in a Box programs for several years, and having been working on the Graphic Guide for over six months, so there was lots of content.  Also, the programs are highly visual, employing a lot of graphic facilitation.  Since the goal of this video was to provide an introduction to the world of Innovation in a Box,  we knew we wanted to animate it, i.e. live drawing.  So I pulled out some 11x17 paper and a pencil and started do a visual mindump.  The illustration below is the second version that I did.  It's admittedly very rough (and hard to read) but it will give you an idea of the process - and particularly how my mind works.  The globe in the video is in the upper left portion of the video.

This next illustration is a larger version of the globe.

We decided not to use whiteboards because...well, I wanted more control of the line, texture, and colour.  And because although I love whiteboards, I love drawing on paper more.  In order for that to work, our video team at Highrise Studios set up a glass table with lights underneath, and camera above.  Here is a picture of the set-up.    

The lighting rig: there's a light to my left, and another bounced up through the table.  The tripod is between me and the monitor in this shot with the camera mounted pointing down on the paper.  The positioning was a bit awkward, forcing me to draw from the side instead of head on.  The tape on the table was the frame I had to stay within.

I wrote and recorded the voice-over, and then we shot the video.  Both the voice-over and the video required three takes.  The video is a minute and 57 seconds long.  The actual shoot was closer to 20 minutes.  It was then sped up...a lot...to match the voiceover.

And a link to the actual video:

http://vimeo.com/18770235

About the Author

Rick Boersma

Rick has been in the field of education and training since 1985 working with dozens of Fortune 500 corporations, as well as hundreds of smaller companies, designing and facilitating experiential training programs. Rick's energetic personality and contagious enthusiasm will leave audiences inspired and mezmerized.