Having quality training videos can save your business thousands of man hours every year. Automating your employee training process can remove a large amount of pressure from managers and team members. The problem is, creating training videos for your restaurant is a daunting task.
How do you know if the company you are hiring to produce training videos is capable of creating quality training content? What kind of questions should you ask a potential training video production company to determine if they are worth the money? What matters most when making a training video?
Let's first go over what we at Havany™believe is the most important aspect of a training video.
AUDIO QUALITY
Now this may sound counter intuitive. We are talking about training videos right? Then why is the most important aspect of a training VIDEO the audio quality? Studies have shown that people are more likely to pay attention to a video with poor video quality and high quality audio than the other way around. This means a video shot on a smartphone using a high quality microphone will get more watch time and audience retention than a video shot on a professional camera with a poor quality microphone.
Audio quality matters. There are a few obstacles for restaurants when it comes to recording high quality audio.
1) HVAC
2) Hard Surfaces That Reflect Audio
3) Background Noise
A high quality video production space is usually silent. It's not uncommon to see hundreds of dollars of sound foam on the walls. And the likelihood of a group of people having a loud conversation in the corner of the production space is highly unlikely.
HVAC is a tricky variable to deal with. The way most video production teams will deal with a constant noise like HVAC is by using software to eliminate a large portion of this noise. These software programs dramatically vary in their price and efficacy. But as a restaurant owner looking to create training videos, you will want the video production team you hire to use some kind of noise reduction software if you are filming in the restaurant.
Hard Surfaces That Reflect Audio can be extremely difficult to deal with when creating video content. If someone is washing dishes 30 feet away, those sounds may be heard loud and clear if they can reflect off of hard surfaces in the kitchen. When a person is talking, their voice may bounce off of a reflective wall and create a fast echo effect which can be distracting to the person watching the video.
The best way to combat this problem is by using a dynamic microphone. A quality lavalier (shirt mounted) microphone should generally only pick up sound in the direction it is being pointed. Although some lavalier microphones are omnidirectional (pick up noise in all directions). Make sure the company you hire uses UNIDIRECTIONAL lavalier microphones. The use of the correct microphone type will greatly increase the likelihood that your training videos will have a high quality audio track.
Background Noise is the final audio hurdle that you will need to overcome. This type of noise can range from employees or guests talking, music playing, cooking sounds, or cleaning sounds. This can be the most difficult audio issue to tackle. The use of a unidirectional lavalier microphone is key in eliminating background noise.
Another tool that is commonly used in audio production is a COMPRESSOR. The purpose of a compressor is to make the volume swings of an audio track more consistent. It does this by turning loud sounds down and quiet sounds up. The use of this tool is mostly positive in a quiet recording studio environment.
But in a restaurant, compressors turn down the loud sound (the person talking into the microphone) and turn up the quieter sounds (customers talking or background noise). Understanding how to best use audio tools like compressors is another thing the video production team you hire must be aware of.
What questions should you ask a video production company before hiring them to create training videos?
Does your video production service include audio enhancement or background noise cleanup and reduction? If not, what is the fee to have the audio tracks cleaned up?
What type of microphone is used to record audio for the training videos? (Remember you want to only use unidirectional lavalier microphones in noisy spaces)
Is your video production team familiar with audio production as well? How often do you do video production in noisy spaces like kitchens?
Hopefully this was helpful. If you have any questions about what makes a quality training video or how to approach creating training videos for your restaurant please leave them down below!
Thank you for checking out this article and stay tuned for PART 2 of this article series on 'How to create a high quality restaurant training video'.
-Timothy Maholic-
Head of Product at Havany™
