Talking head videos are often used to introduce a series of lectures or a module and are generally quite short. They serve as an ideal way to introduce yourself to the students and your upcoming topics, while putting a little more human presence into otherwise fairly distant, remote teaching.
Ordinarily we would recommend that talking heads are not used throughout a video lecture, as this can distract from the content of the slides.
Quick methods and Quality production methods are described below.
Quick
Using Zoom to record your webcam and voice, uploading and sharing using the Video Portal. This method gives you the option of editing a transcript on the Zoom website (cloud recordings only).
Overview
Follow the Basics guide to set your scene, lighting and other considerations first, then:
- Use the desktop Zoom client and record a meeting while sharing your webcam to either your hard drive or to the cloud.
- (Optional extra) Enable Zoom auto transcript generation (one time enable, always on after).
- If using the cloud (required for auto transcripts), download the resulting recording and transcript from your account, under ‘Recordings’ in the website zoom.us.
- Upload your video and .vtt transcript file to the video portal and embed into your course.
Detailed instructions
Audio and video quality depends on your internet connection and is generally of a lower standard than local recordings. However, for many purposes this will be acceptable. The main advantages here are having a familiar application to work with, and the editable audio transcript.
Example from Clinical Bioinformatics
A simple ‘Meet the Team’ video made using Zoom that has been embedded into a Community Space – very simple to do using Zoom and a pre-agreed script.
A simple ‘Meet the Team’ video made using Zoom
Extras
Use Zoom auto-captioning for editable captions / transcripts
Check, edit and download the transcript on Zoom.us, and upload the .vtt file to the Video Portal alongside the video (under advanced options).
Enable this before recording.
Edit in ShotCut
Add logos, text overlays or welcome slides – before uploading to the Video Portal.
Quality
Recording from your webcam directly for higher quality. This relies on the Video Portal for auto generation of closed captions, which aren’t always accurate (but can be edited).
Overview
Follow the Basics guide to set your scene, lighting and other considerations first, then:
Windows 10
- Use the Camera app to record from your webcam at its highest quality
- (Optional) Use ShotCut or similar to add in some text, graphics, or images
- Upload your video to the video portal and embed into your course, turning on closed caption generation.
OS X
- Use Quicktime Player to record a new video using your webcam, adjust the quality to the highest setting and record your piece.
- (Optional) Use ShotCut or similar to add in some text, graphics, or images
- Upload your video to the video portal and embed into your course, turning on closed caption generation.
Detailed instructions
Record video using Windows Camera
Record video using Quicktime (OS X)
Extras
Generate automatic closed captions on the video portal
Accuracy with technical language is not consistent but captions can be edited (time consuming!)
Edit in ShotCut
Add logos, text overlays or welcome slides – before uploading to the Video Portal.
Pro Quality
The Media Services team offers a service where they will record you in their studio. They will take care of editing and any extra inserts (text, graphics, or images) to produce the final product for you.
There may be charges associated with this service.
Media Services