After Effects Tools You Should Use by School of Motion
thisLayer.name;
Apply to source text expression
Will automatically update on screen text by changing the name of the layer
Sketch and Smooth
Go to Window > Motion Sketch/Smoother
Allows you to freehand a path, and then simplify it to easy beziers
Pen Tool
You can create a path for one object, copy and paste it to another
Convert to Paragraph Text
Converts freeform text box to paragraph text box
Easier to later edit, center, etc.
Masks and Compositing
You can apply blurs to masks as well.
How To Write Awesome Scripts for eLearning Storyboards by Ant Pugh
Aim for as natural as speech as possible; sounding artificial, or like you’re “reading”, can kill somebody’s ability to connect with the material
Despite being considered not “professional”, contractions can help sell this
Bridging words can help with sounding natural (so, now, then…)
There’s always going to be a gap between the tone and emphasis you imagine in the writing and the tone and emphasis the VA is going to read it with. You can include notes to help fill that gap. Lots of commas also help!
Always read it out loud to check how it sounds
How to Write Your First E-Learning Storyboard by E-Learning Uncovered
Try to start with a written storyboard (is a bit of a preference thing)
This lets you focus on the instructional design, your subject matter experts don’t get stuck on rough visuals and can focus on their strengths
Fewer things to edit if you start with words first
Storyboards are as detailed as you want them to be
Typically include narration script, programming notes (functionality), slide numbers, learning objectives, interactivity notes, graphic suggestions, slide to slide flowchart
Five Step Storyboarding Process
- Gather Content — meet with subject matter experts, keep in mind why your learners are here and don’t give them info they don’t want/need, meet with your learners, review best practices
- Organize Content — identify main topics, sub topics, must have slides (intro, conclusion)
- Draft — start creating, try to write in a conversational tone, specify programming notes (if needed), never storyboard anything you can’t communicate visually
- Review — educate subject matter experts (or other reviewers) how to read the storyboards, control the attention of your reviewers (what to focus on*), get everyone in the same room
- Finalize — develop course prototype (a sample of 5-6 slides that includes style elements)
3 and 4 can cycle, so just keep refining until you end up with something that’ll really work
*you don’t put images in your wireframes, right?