What is visual communication?

Visual communication is the art of using visual elements strategically to grab an audience’s attention, clearly convey important information in a way that sticks, and usually spark behavior change. Common components of visual communication, especially when used in digital communications, include text, images, data, and video content.

Here are some common examples of visual communication for business communications.

Visual communication examples

Animated videos

Animated videos are a rich multimedia format that can include visual elements like human and animal characters, kinetic (moving) text, and motion graphics.

Styles can vary widely, from a simple, black and white “whiteboard” look to colorful and detailed.

AI-generated videos

Today’s AI-powered video tools can now create videos for you in seconds based on text prompts or static images you provide.

GIFs

GIFs are looping images that often sometimes include a short tagline overlaid on the image. They’re often used to communicate funny content or as a reaction to something. They’re used regularly across social media channels, in email, and on internal communications platforms like Slack.

Screen recording

Screen recordings are videos showing your desktop or a software’s user interface, helpful for demonstrating workflows and processes.

Images

Images are visual representations of something, like a doodle, a photograph, or a diagram.

Infographics

Infographics are visual representations of information designed to make data easily understandable at a glance. They combine graphics, charts, and minimal text to convey complex information quickly and clearly.

Data visualizations

Data visualizations are graphical representations of information and data, meant to provide an accessible way to see and understand trends, outliers, and patterns. An infographic is a popular example of data visualization.

Stock footage

Stock footage refers to photorealistic images and videos that are broadly available for widespread use.

Webcam video

Webcam videos are recordings created using the camera built into your computer. They’re usually “talking head” style, and can capture one speaker or many (like a replay of a meeting).

Benefits of visual communication in business today

Business communication is ultimately about convincing an audience to take action or change behavior: watch out for phishing emails, learn a new skill, enroll in a new benefits program, sign up for a free trial — you get the idea. And the keys to success change with the times.

In recent years, our experience as online consumers has created expectations for visual communication that spill into our professional lives.

We expect communications to be relevant to us (what else should I watch? What do other people like me buy?).

We expect content to be engaging and entertaining, thanks in part to social media — if it doesn’t draw us in, we can easily scroll on to something that does.

And because so much of our online interactions take place on smartphones, we favor more compact, visual forms of communication that pack a meaningful punch: like emojis, memes, and especially videos.

The great news is, you can take advantage of these general visual communication preferences to more effectively change behavior and inspire action in any business audience — whether they’re employees, customers, partners, or prospects. It’s already catching on: About a third of global business leaders surveyed (32%) have an increased desire for communicating using visuals, according to Canva’s 2023 Visual Economy Report.

When we use visual communication well, we get two major benefits:

Better engagement

Good visual communication content catches our audiences’ eyes and draws them in for reflection, because it’s relevant to them.

Improved information retention

Good visual communication imprints information on our audience, so they can recall it and apply it later.

Both of these benefits make it more likely that our content will inspire action and change behavior.

So whether you’re creating content for external communications — like landing pages on your company’s website or assets for social media — or internal communications — presentations, training videos, and GIFs — thinking strategically about how you can apply good visual communication practices will help you deliver better results. Here are a few tips to keep in mind.

Tips for better visual communication

Tailor visuals to your audience

Audiences today expect content and communications to be relevant to them, and visuals are no exception: they want to see themselves and their interests reflected. With the power of AI, it has become easier than ever to segment and customize your content by audience.

The extra time you spend getting to know your audience — through research, surveys, conversations — and tailoring content for them is worth it for the positive impact on engagement. Here are a few examples.

L&D

L&D teams can create content specific to employees’ roles or departments. The L&D and change enablement teams at Whole Foods Market created templates tailored to each of the roles at their stores, down to the uniforms and terminology, so employees see themselves represented.

Including recognizable figures or references from your organization is another powerful way to boost engagement and relevance. At the Administrative Office of the Illinois Courts, training specialist Angie Kanak likes to include characters she created for each of the Illinois Supreme Court Justices that her audience instantly recognizes.

And finally, corporate branding isn’t just for external audiences. Officially branded training content signals to employees this is valuable content, created especially for them.

See how Vyond’s new Brand Management Suite makes it easy to create engaging, on-brand videos.

HR

HR pros can reinforce an inclusive company culture and make visuals more relevant by taking care to reflect the full diversity of your employee base in your content. Choose imagery that suits your geographic footprint, like your office sites and regional landmarks. Build in time and budget to translate, localize, and caption materials like videos.

Similar to the training examples above, ask yourself: where could you tailor content by role and department? Where could you include stories from recognizable employees or leaders to help bring policies and processes to life?

Marketing

In marketing, demonstrating you understand your audience is the whole point. At the brand level, it starts with asking what your competitors are doing visually — how can you stand apart?

On your website, tailoring your visuals could mean ensuring your “ideal customers” see themselves reflected in the imagery: solving problems they relate to, in settings they recognize, with your products or services.

In your email program, tailored visuals might show up as messages and email banners segmented by industry or job level, speaking to each audience’s real pain points.

From a channel perspective, it might mean you’re including captions on all of your social media video content to help ensure viewers scrolling by with sound off can read along and still grasp your message.

Sales

When you’re presenting to a customer or prospect, it’s already standard to include their company name and logo in your materials (triple-checked for accuracy, of course!). And if you’re not already, creating custom demos that address specific pain points your audience has mentioned, or you’ve found via research, can be especially effective.

Even before you get to the meeting, during outreach you can introduce yourself and showcase your product’s value proposition with a personalized overview video. Keep yourself top of mind after your conversation by sending a video message starring your own custom, self-voiced character to help prospects and customers remember and honor scheduled meeting times.

Reduce your audience’s cognitive load

No matter your department, one of the biggest challenges with communicating visually is the constant strain on our audience’s working memory, according to Connie Malamed, author of Visual Design Solutions and Visual Language for Designers.

We’re flooded with sensory information. All. Day. Long. For any information to make it into our long-term memory, it has to make its way through our limited, temporary working memory.

Anything we can do to help ease this “cognitive load” for our audience gives them a better chance to grasp and retain the information we’re presenting, Connie says.

Here are a few of Connie’s suggestions for reducing your audience’s cognitive load when you’re creating presentations, videos, website pages and more.

Make your graphics and text easy to process

Your content’s readability matters. Overly intricate font styles and text with low contrast (like gray text on white background) put more strain on a viewer’s cognitive load.

Using simple fonts with high contrast makes information easier to process, reduces demand on working memory, and creates a positive affect in the viewer.

Remove visual distractions

Visuals can either increase meaning and understanding for viewers or distract and confuse them. A few simple ways to dial down visual “noise” in business presentations or videos:

• Avoid placing a logo on every slide and putting text on busy backgrounds
• Remove irrelevant text, like dates and slide numbers
• Remove cutesy but irrelevant graphics

Reduce realism in your graphics

There’s a misconception that photorealistic imagery is always best, especially in learning, Connie says.

But research shows that often, reducing the realism of a graphic can help people learn more quickly: by decreasing the time it takes the viewer to visually scan, it minimizes load on the viewer’s working memory.

This means that an illustration, icon, or symbol might convey information more effectively than a photo or 3D rendering.

This is one reason animated videos — which by nature reduce realism — are such a powerful form of business communication.

Don’t split your audience’s attention

When you force your audience to process two or more different sources of information at the same time, neither of which can be understood in isolation, you’re falling prey to the “split-attention effect.”

In HR, this might show up, say, in your benefits overview video: showing an explanation on one part of the screen and a visual, such as a diagram or animation, on another. Your viewer’s attention can’t be in both places at once.

Deliver information piecemeal and guide your audience along

According to Mona Chalabi, Pulitzer Prize–winning illustrator and data visualization expert, effective visual communication delivers information bit by bit and guides your audience along, from start to finish. Applied in different business areas, this lesson could mean creating content that builds gradually (think presentations that change on a click or interactive websites) to give audiences an opportunity to digest what they’re seeing and let insights build upon each other.

Get creative about visualizing data

Data can be an influential part of your business content, helping you tell a powerful, memorable story. But a wall of numbers isn’t helpful: it’s crucial to point out why your audience should care and put numbers in context.

• Rather than writing out data and insights as text, get familiar with different types of charts and graph options available beyond the typical pie and bar.
• Consider where you can use dynamic charts and graphs to bring your data to life and let your audience interact with it at their pace.
• Take care to ensure you’re not misleading with data — even the most reputable sources have some data-viz lessons learned.
• Per Mona‘s earlier advice, consider revealing data in steps, whether in slides you click through, or by adding clear visual markers that lead you through a static collection of information.

Bonus tip: Mona swears by the power of doodling when you’re ideating on how to communicate something — whether it’s a data set or a big idea. It doesn’t have to look good, she says: in the act of doodling something may come out — even if it’s just a more accessible title for your Excel chart or a different analogy for your presentation.

Refresh visuals regularly

In sales and marketing, it’s a common refrain that audiences need to hear the same message seven times before it starts sinking in. But on the flip side: if your content is forever static, it fades into the background. How can you get the best of both worlds, especially with content audiences may only see annually?

Try repeating the same message with different visuals and examples.

For L&D, eLearning expert and Bloomsburg University Professor Karl Kapp suggests annual compliance training is a perfect candidate for a regular visual refresh.

“The more pathways in our brain we have to a piece of content or information, the faster and more efficiently it will be retrieved,” Professor Kapp says. “By investing in changing your most important training on a regular basis, it makes that training more meaningful, more relevant, and sends a message that you care about this.”

In HR, you might think about this for benefits videos: what tweaks would help set them apart year over year? In marketing and sales, what go-to visual assets — like website images, ads, and social media assets — are your customers and prospects seeing regularly that you could update (or even A/B test) to stop them in their tracks?

How a visual communication platform can help

There are tons of helpful tools out there to help you act on these tips and step up your visual communication strategy. But many of them have a learning curve, even for beginners. Look for tools that are easy to use, but versatile and powerful enough that teams across your company can use them to deliver different formats and styles, all within your brand’s look and feel.

Vyond is beloved by 65% of the Fortune 500 for helping them communicate better visually and making a stronger business impact, while making their lives easier, whether they’re working in L&D, HR, marketing, or sales.

If you haven’t tried Vyond yet but want to see what the buzz is about, get your free two-week trial. (The trial includes access to Vyond Studio and Vyond Go, our AI-powered script and video generator.)

The post How Better Visual Communication Can Help Your Company Win: Benefits, Tips, and Examples appeared first on Vyond.

That’s why we recently partnered with Shutterstock to provide our customers more flexibility and choice, in their Vyond video making with nearly 4 million stock video, audio, music and photography assets.*

If you were in the market for a stock library, good news: now there’s no need to add a standalone account. If you have other stock imagery accounts, this means no more annoying platform-switching or added cost: now you can search for — and integrate — Shutterstock assets directly in Vyond. And if you haven’t considered integrating stock content into your animated videos before, there’s no better time to explore the possibilities. 

Here’s how easy access to new stock assets can help you create more engaging and relevant video content for any audience.  

*Currently Shutterstock is only available to Professional and Enterprise users. Learn more about our pricing plans.

The benefits of using stock content in your animated videos

As Vyond users know, animated videos are a powerful form of business communication. They’re ideal for storytelling and reflecting diversity because of their unlimited possibilities for creating characters and scenes. And they’re uniquely effective at conveying complex ideas in a simple, visual way. 

But in some business communication and learning contexts, there can be benefits to incorporating photorealistic elements as well. For example: 

Your company brand guidelines may require using photorealistic content for certain communications

Some companies have strict brand and style guidelines, especially for external-facing content. Having a wider range of assets to choose from can help you both communicate better and stay on brand in every context. 

Certain departments may prefer using stock content

L&D, HR, Sales Enablement, Compliance and Internal Comms teams love being able to use animated characters, objects, and backgrounds to create engaging scenario-based training, announcements, and explainer videos. 

But their colleagues in finance may prefer using more buttoned-up photorealistic elements when creating videos for certain audiences. Having a full suite of animation options and Shutterstock assets in-platform makes Vyond relevant, engaging and cost-effective for employees companywide looking to communicate better.  

Example of a mixed-media video for a financial services audience

Representing specific locations or landmarks is easier — and faster — with stock photos

If representing a specific, recognizable location is important for your video — like a particular sports stadium or national landmark — you might opt to use stock imagery or video as a background rather than creating its animated equivalent. 

Your audience will probably recognize it more easily that way — plus, just dropping in a photo saves time. (Many Vyond users love creating mixed-media worlds featuring animated characters against photorealistic backgrounds, like this educational series from the City of Roswell, Georgia or this Dutch language tutorial.)

In some cases, sensitive topics can benefit from photorealistic assets

L&D and HR teams are routinely tasked with communicating about important but delicate topics like sexual harassment prevention, mental health awareness, and racial inequity, to name a few.

As Vyond users know, animated characters and scenarios are hugely effective at both driving home the most important ideas related to these topics — and bringing difficult situations to life.

However, in some cases, video creators may feel that using stock photos or footage of real people are more tonally appropriate or emotionally impactful. (For example: photographs of real Black families instead of animated characters in a series about the legacy of Martin Luther King. Or evocative video clips of real people meant to capture the impact of anxiety or PTSD.) 

Whatever your video-making needs and challenges are, we hope these use cases — and our new Shutterstock assets — inspire you to try some new techniques and help you create the content you need for all your video projects.

Don’t have a Vyond license yet but you’re eager to see this Shutterstock library for yourself? Start your free two-week trial and you’ll be browsing the library in a few clicks (no credit card needed – our treat)!

The post How Vyond’s New Shutterstock Partnership Helps You Create More Relevant and Effective Videos appeared first on Vyond.

We often hear from customers that the hardest part about creating videos is getting started. It’s the perfect kind of challenge for generative AI. Enter Vyond Go, the industry’s most versatile AI-powered script and video creator.

In 2024 alone, Vyond users made 487,000 videos in Vyond Go — everything from animated explainer videos to mixed media social media videos to short scenario-based training videos. Whether you’ve had a chance to take it for a test drive yet or not, we wanted to give you a look under the hood and offer some tips on getting the most from this powerful tool. 

To create a video with Vyond Go, you’ll either enter a text prompt or upload a script or reference document to describe your topic, then click on options in the interface to choose the vibe, format, layout, and location you’d like for your video. Within seconds, you’ll have a fully editable video and script that you can tweak on the spot with Quick Edit, or else bring into Vyond Studio for deeper customization.

The benefit of integrated AI

If text-based AI tools are the ignition, prompts are the keys. 

If you’ve experimented with standalone AI tools like ChatGPT to create video scripts, you know that your outputs are only as good as the prompts you provide. And great prompts require adding a significant amount of detail.

With Vyond Go (which is powered by ChatGPT), we’ve streamlined and simplified the prompting process by conveniently building a number of important factors directly into our platform. 

Let’s take a look, starting from the top.

How to get the most out of Vyond Go

Topic

This is where you’ll give the most detailed, text-based input. The prompt you enter will affect the draft script you get. (Don’t enter details here about the vibe, format, or layout/location you want – you’ll select those later, via the interface.) 

There are two ways you can use Vyond Go here.

1. You can enter a general description of what you’re looking for and rely on AI to deliver a result based on its vast internet training data, or 
2. If you’ve got specific details you’d like included in your video — say, talking points or steps in a procedure — you can paste those into your prompt, or upload a document with that information for Vyond Go to digest, along with the general description of what you’re looking for.

Either way, we’ve found that adding at least 50 words for your topic prompt gets the best results.

Keep these tips in mind: 

• Language: Enter a prompt in your preferred language to get a draft script in English—or choose among 70+ languages if you’re a Professional or Enterprise user
• Length: You can enter as many as 4,000 characters, or about ~700 words; however, note that longer, “stream of consciousness”-type prompts may yield a lower-quality result.
• Structure: Structured prompts are helpful to the AI model and get better outputs. For example: “Create an L&D video based on the below text: [paste in source material for the model to base your video on]”. 
• Duration: specifying a duration in your prompt ( e.g. “write a 60-second video”) doesn’t work…yet. However, including longer sets of talking points in your prompt will yield longer videos.
• Data points: if you have authentic stats and facts about your topic handy, cut and paste them into your prompt. This helps reduce the chance that the AI will pull in an unverified internet stat (or make something up).
• Edit and verify: always run a quality check on your script (are these facts accurate? Is this content tailored appropriately to my target audience? etc.)

Vibe

The vibe you select — formal, informative, casual, playful — will affect your video’s background music, as well as the characters’ personalities and way of speaking. 

Vyond Go features four vibes, which translate to the following speech and character personality outputs:

Keep these tips in mind: 

• Each vibe has its own list of options for background music — a track will be added for you at random. If you’d prefer a different track, you can always adjust that in Vyond Studio.
• If you’re including specific talking points in your topic prompt, make sure they fit with the vibe you select. For example, if your prompt includes details about a major organizational change at a bank, choosing a “Playful” vibe probably won’t give you the results you’re after. 
• On the other hand, if you enter a very short, generic topic prompt, Vyond Go will rely on the vibe you choose for more guidance on what to include in the script. So with a “Casual” vibe, entering a simple prompt like “reorganization” might give you a script draft that opens with, “Hey, guys! I have some exciting news to share about our company!”—which may or may not suit the tone you’re going for.

Format

At the time of writing, you can choose one of seven formats for your video. All formats can work as either Talking Head (1 character), Conversation (2 characters), or Narration (Kinetic Text and Mixed Media Design) layouts. 

Here’s an overview of each format type, along with suggestions for key things to include in your topic prompt to generate the best results.

Keep these tips in mind: 

• If you’re including specific talking points in your topic prompt, match them with the type of format you select. For example, if you choose “Announcement” for a product launch, you’ll want to include a date/time, details about what’s launching, where people can go for questions, etc. Or if you choose “How-to,” be sure to include details about what process you’ll explain and the steps you want included.
• If you enter a very generic topic prompt like “birds,” then Vyond Go will look to the format you choose for more guidance on what to include in the script. So for “birds,” had you chosen “Anecdote,” it will create a personal story related to birds; if “Debate,” it will come up with arguments for and against something related to birds: like how they’re amazing creatures with incredible abilities.

Layout

At the time of writing, Vyond Go supports three layouts: Conversation (two characters in dialogue), Talking Head (one character addressing the audience), and Narration (kinetic text and mixed media).

These video types define the number of characters to feature, whether characters should have a conversation between themselves or talk to the audience, or whether the video will feature an AI narrator and on-screen text.

Each layout offers its own templates, with different combinations of locations and characters, so you don’t need to include those details in your topic prompt. 

We’ll continue to add new locations for more variety – just as we do with other templates and assets in Vyond.

Keep these tips in mind: 

• Right now, you can’t specify a different number of characters in your topic prompt in attempt to override the format settings
• If you need a location that’s not available in Vyond Go but is available in Vyond Studio, it’s currently possible to edit your video using the alternate location. You can replace every scene with your desired template and relink the text-to-speech clips to the correct characters. 

Writing AI prompts for Vyond Go: best practices summary

• Prompt length: For topic prompts, enter at least 50 words (and up to ~700 maximum).
• Prompt structure: Structured prompts are helpful to the AI model and get better outputs
  • For example: “Create an HR video based on the below text: [paste in source material for the model to base your video on]”. 
  • Longer, “stream of consciousness”-type prompts will have a lower-quality result
• Duration: Don’t try to specify a duration for your video — the model can’t yet heed duration as a parameter ( e.g. “write a 60-second video”). But adding lengthier talking points in your prompt will yield longer videos. 
• Number of characters: Don’t try to specify a different number of characters in your topic prompt attempting to override the format settings — it’s not effective yet.
• Data points: Include authentic stats and facts about your topic in your prompt, if you’ve got them. This helps reduce the chance that the AI will pull in an unverified internet stat (or make something up).
• Match talking points to format and vibe: If you’re including specific talking points in your topic prompt, match them with the type of format and vibe you select. For example, if you choose “Announcement” for a product launch, you’ll want to include a date/time, details about what’s launching, where people can go for questions, etc. — keeping in mind the appropriate vibe you selected for what you’re announcing. Or if you choose “How-to,” be sure to include details about what process you’ll explain and the steps you want included, aligned to your chosen vibe.
• Format dictates direction where needed: If you enter a very generic topic prompt like “birds,” then Vyond Go will look to the format you choose for more guidance on what to include in the script. So for “birds,” had you chosen “Anecdote,” it will create a personal story related to birds; if “Debate,” it will come up with arguments for and against something related to birds: like how they’re amazing creatures with incredible abilities. 
• Edit and verify: always run a quality check on your script (are these facts accurate? Is this content tailored appropriately to my target audience? etc.)

Sample topic prompts and videos by content type

We tried out a few sample topic prompts to illustrate the guidance above. Here’s how the output videos turned out – plus the parameters and topic prompt we used to get there.

HR 

Vibe: Formal

Format: Anecdote

Layout: Conversation

Prompt:

• Lessons from a First-Time Manager with an Underperforming Team Member
• Grace was a first-time manager at HipTech, a tech company in Austin
• In her new role, she inherited a team of accountants, and one of her team members was not performing well.
• Grace learned: she should have addressed performance issues right away, that it’s OK to ask for help from her peers who are managers, and to trust her instincts even though she’s new to managing.

Raw video output:

hi

Notes:

The characters, location, and flow worked well. Vyond Go added relevant details we hadn’t included, such as offering the employee resources, and an ultimate outcome: that the employee turned things around.

L&D

Vibe: Casual

Format: How-to

Layout: Conversation

Prompt:

(language cut and pasted from a Vyond Resource post)

How L&D professionals can create digital media that is accessible and inclusive

1. Add closed captions

Closed captions—a textual display of what’s being said, with the ability to be toggled off— help people with hearing and visual impairments understand and enjoy the video content you create. The captions are also necessary for making 508-compliant video content. If you’re making any content for a government agency, the content must be 508-compliant.

Closed captions are an overlay on top of a completed video, as pictured above in this video from Virtual Care for Kids. If captions are built into the video itself, they are called“open captions.” There is no way for viewers to turn off open captions and it’s not possible for screen-reading software to understand them.

With a third-party tool, you can add proper closed captions to any video. Research your options for captioning apps and keep in mind that some programs are platform-specific. For example, Clipomatic or iPhone Clips work well for Instagram Stories.

2. Be mindful of video design

The design of a video itself is a huge factor in how accessible the content is. The wrong design choices can exclude audiences with certain disabilities. For example, if someone in your audience has a visual impairment, an overly-busy video could be difficult to interpret. But there are a couple of ways you can ensure that your video design is friendly to your entire audience.
Keep text away from where closed captions will be. Cluttered screen text can be difficult to read for those who require closed captions. When placing text, keep in mind where closed captions will appear in order to prevent this from occurring.
Ensure that your videos are safe for those with photo sensitivities by avoiding the flash threshold. If videos have quick transitions or bright flashes in succession, they can cross the general flash threshold and cause epileptic seizures. Avoiding flashing effects is also helpful in consideration of people with ADHD, autism, and those in concussion recovery.
Be mindful of your color choices.
Consider representation in your content. Can you cast or include disabled people or animated characters? This won’t make your content inherently more accessible, but it will help disabled viewers see themselves represented in your message.

3. Use alt text on thumbnails

Alt text is copy that both supplements and even replaces an image when necessary. Alt text makes it possible for those with vision impairments to enjoy images and fully digest your content. A screen-reading program will read alt text where the image should be, giving a visually impaired listener an idea of what the image represents. This is equally true for video thumbnails that might be placed on an article.

Alt text also helps with general readability if the image doesn’t load. If a user has an outdated browser or poor connection, the alt text will display in place of the image and ensure that the overall experience isn’t affected.

4. Transcribe visual or auditory media

For those with any kind of visual or learning impairment, videos on their own may not be enough. A transcript of what is said in the video makes it possible for people to slow down and learn at their own pace.

Use a third-party app or integration to transcribe your recorded videos. Transcribe, Rev, and Express Scribe are three great options to start with.

5. Make the right color choices in video
Color vision deficiency affects nearly 7.4% of the population in the United States.
Those with color vision deficiency are often unable to clearly distinguish between red, blue, and green. Avoid layering red, blue, and green in visuals where the colors aren’t pertinent to understanding the message.
Use a contrast checker to make sure your text and background combinations are readable by those with color vision deficiency.

Raw video output:

Notes:

The script did a fine job of translating the talking points into a conversation between the two characters. It didn’t create a conclusion, so it currently ends abruptly after the last tip — we’d want to adjust the script to add an ending.

Sales Enablement 

Vibe: Informative

Format: Overview

Layout: Talking head – Circles

Prompt:

(talking points based on a Vyond template video)

Create an example video for sales development representatives at Zodio, showing how they can talk to prospects about Zodio’s employee engagement platform. The speaker’s name is Brad Jackson, a sales representative at Zodio.

• Brad introduces himself
• Employee engagement has a huge impact on your organization’s success.
• Engaged and connected employees help nurture a collaborative work culture, which results in innovative outcomes. 
• Zodio believes employee engagement can be fun, which is why we baked fun right into our internal communications platform.
• Zodio is a unique employee engagement tool that personalizes each employee’s experience based on their zodiac sign.
• In addition to all the features you expect of a robust employee engagement system, Zodio offers the fun sense of self that comes from astrology.
• You can participate in weekly mindfulness activities based on your zodiac sign.
• Create engaging surveys.
• Organized virtual events and games and more.
• Zodio also provides an engagement tracking feature that analyzes how employees are connecting and engaging over time.
• Want to learn more?
• Schedule a personalized demo with me to see how your company and Zodio are a match made in the stars.

Raw video output:

Notes:

Good result and usable as-is, though we might want to bring it into Vyond Studio to add screenshots of the product, Zodio. The template nicely added chapter titles.

That concludes our tour of Vyond Go! We hope these tips help you save time on video creation — and inspire you to get in there and start experimenting! 

Marketing (Social Media)

Vibe: Playful

Format: Announcement 

Layout: Narration

Prompt:

(Actual script)

• We’re heading to LearnCon!
• And we can’t wait to see you at Booth 213. 
• We’ll be showcasing our new instant video creation platform. 
• And customer support experts will be making amazing videos on the fly, just for you. 
• Plus, on Sunday at 6 PM, join us for adult beverages and music at our mixer. 
• Hope to see you there!

Raw video output:

Notes:

A good foundation. To make it more engaging and relevant, would bring it into Studio, add a title card with the company logo to start and add photos of the company’s actual booth and a visual that syncs with the mixer. Start to finish, a 10-minute job. 

Embrace the future of video creation with Vyond Go

As AI continues to shape the landscape of content generation, the key lies in integrating the tools that help create business-relevant, customizable, and on-brand videos Vyond Go leads the charge by seamlessly integrating AI with creative control, transforming your ideas into captivating visuals.  Dive into the possibilities with a 14-day free trial of Vyond Go.

The post Prompting AI: Getting the Best Results from Vyond Go appeared first on Vyond.

The month marks the anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Signed into law in July 1990, this piece of legislation was a major step toward achieving equal access for those with disabilities. The act specifically focused on making public transportation and spaces, employment, and government services more accessible.

More than thirty years later, we’re focusing on making another area more friendly to those with disabilities: digital media. The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines offer a set of standards to help ensure accessibility. To honor Disability Pride Month and help you create content to be enjoyed by all, let’s take a look at a few steps you can take to create accessible video content.

1. Add closed captions to videos

Closed captions—a textual display of what’s being said, with the ability to be toggled off—help people with hearing and visual impairments understand and enjoy the video content you create. The captions are also necessary for making 508-compliant video content. If you’re making any content for a government agency, the content must be 508-compliant.

Closed captions are an overlay on top of a completed video, as pictured above in this video from Virtual Care for Kids. If captions are built into the video itself, they are called “open captions.” There is no way for viewers to turn off open captions and it’s not possible for screen-reading software to understand them.

With a third-party tool, you can add proper closed captions to any video. Research your options for captioning apps and keep in mind that some programs are platform-specific. For example, Clipomatic or iPhone Clips work well for Instagram Stories.

Vyond’s 2023 Spring release introduced fast and efficient closed captioning for all your Vyond video projects. You can also read this guide on how to add closed captions to your Vyond videos.  

2. Be mindful of video design

The design of a video itself is a huge factor in how accessible the video’s content is. The wrong design choices can exclude audiences with certain disabilities. For example, if someone in your audience has a visual impairment, an overly-busy video could be difficult to interpret. But there are a couple of ways you can ensure that your video design is accessible-friendly to your entire audience.

• Keep text away from where closed captions will be. Cluttered screen text can be difficult to read for those who require closed captions. When placing text, keep in mind where closed captions will appear in order to prevent this from occurring.
• Ensure that your videos are safe for those with photo-sensitivities by avoiding the flash threshold. If videos have quick transitions or bright flashes in succession, they can cross the general flash threshold and cause epileptic seizures. Avoiding flashing effects is also helpful in consideration of people with ADHD, autism, and those in concussion recovery. Use tools to prevent this from happening.
• Be mindful of your color choices. More on this in #5 below.
• Consider representation in your content. Can you cast or include disabled people or animated characters? This won’t make your content inherently more accessible, but it will help disabled viewers see themselves represented in your message.

The above changes are easy to implement, but make a world of difference. 

3. Use alt text on thumbnails

Alt text is copy that both supplements and even replaces an image when necessary. Alt text makes it possible for those with vision impairments to enjoy images and fully digest your content. A screen-reading program will read alt text where the image should be, giving a visually impaired listener an idea of what the image represents. This is equally true for video thumbnails that might be placed on an article.

See below how the image of a woman at her laptop has alt text in the website code to describe the details a screen reader couldn’t understand:

Alt text also helps with general readability if the image doesn’t load. If a user has an outdated browser or poor connection, the alt text will display in place of the image and ensure that the overall experience isn’t affected.

While the example above applies to images on websites, various video players offer alt text options for video thumbnails as well. 

4. Transcribe visual or auditory media

For those with any kind of visual or learning impairment, videos on their own may not be enough. A transcript of what is said in the video makes it possible for people to slow down and learn at their own pace.

Not only are transcriptions useful for those needing assistance with a video, but they’re also great for creating additional content. For example, a transcript can be cleaned up and turned into a supplemental article that pairs with your video content on your company’s blog.

Use a third-party app or integration to transcribe your recorded videos. oTranscribe, Rev, and Express Scribe are three great options to start with. It’s also possible to transcribe live videos, such as webinars or conferences, to ensure that your content reaches as many people as possible.

5. Make the right color choices in video

Color vision deficiency affects nearly 7.4% of the population in the United States, meaning your choice of colors could keep 7.4% of people from fully enjoying what you create.

Those with color vision deficiency are often unable to clearly distinguish between red, blue, and green. While you can’t rebrand to cut certain colors, you can avoid layering red, blue, and green in visuals where the colors aren’t pertinent to understanding the message.

It’s also a good idea to use a contrast checker to make sure your text and background combinations are readable by those with color vision deficiency. Contrast requirements vary depending on the size of the text, so be as specific as possible when using a contrast tool.

6. Include video descriptions on social media

Include descriptive breakdowns of videos shared on social media to ensure that those with impairments can understand your posts.

Much like alt text on a website, video descriptions on social posts are typically read by a screen-reading program to help people who are visually impaired experience the content. It’s important to be as clear and as detailed as possible when writing video descriptions so your audiences can fully understand what is happening in your content.

Video descriptions can go in various places, depending on the social media platform. For example, Facebook has a video description area, whereas Twitter requires that you enable video descriptions under options first. If you can’t find an area to enter a video description on a certain platform, it’s possible you need to enter the description as the first comment on the post.

7. Remove autoplay from videos

Auto playing content on sites is distracting and downright impeding for people with certain disabilities. Someone using a screen reader will be unable to hear the page being read because the video will play at the same time as the screen reader. Those with focus problems can find themselves distracted and overwhelmed. It’s also possible for videos to trigger seizures in people with epilepsy, making autoplay videos a possible health hazard.

Whenever you upload or embed videos, be sure they’re set to play only when clicked. This ensures that your viewers get the experience that best suits them. It’s also a good idea to avoid having ads with audio on your site, because these will be equally distracting for people. Fortunately, many social platforms keep sound off on ads by default. But this is something worth double-checking.

Learn more about top web accessibility resources.

Tips for Getting Started on Creating Accessible Videos

We reached out to Vyond customer and accessibility advocate Liz Schumacher, Engagement Manager at Rivermark Community Credit Union, for her advice on creating accessible video content. According to Liz, “universal design is right for everyone. In addition to those protected by ADA, you or I can benefit when we’ve had too little sleep, or have an environmental issue—using a mobile device underground or when we require ease of access due to a temporary injury like a broken arm.” Here are a few of Liz’s recommendations for creating accessible content:

• Create a company style guide that incorporates accessibility considerations as part of mandatory brand guidelines for both internal and external communications. This way, content can be presented with accessibility for all as the default and nobody will need to take extra steps to access the content.
• Use personas with varying abilities.
• Accessible content doesn’t mean graphic design is out. Learn more here.
• In the case of interactivity, use shapes with high contrast to differentiate the choices. 
• For eLearning courses, enable keyboard shortcuts. This helps avoid scrolling or requiring a “click and drag” interaction. 
• Color and font are an easy place to start. Simple changes can give you an immediate accessibility lift. For fonts, be sure to use ADA and WCAG-compliant font types for accessibility. This can benefit everyone when it comes to comprehension and accessibility for individuals in the following communities:  English as a second language, Deaf, limited sight, Dyslexic, Epileptic, and ADD/ADHD.

Learn more about accessibility basics at usability.gov and for more information on disability categories and deliberate strategy in content design visit webaim.org.

Creating Accessible Content for All

The preceding steps for creating accessible video content are just the beginning. The fight for true inclusivity is ongoing. Take it upon yourself to champion this cause by creating accessible and representative content, and push to make your company, as a whole, more inclusive. A world that’s accessible to all is a world we can all aim for.

At Vyond, we strive to empower creators with the ability to make content that’s consumable by everyone. Our animations can be paired with closed-captioning and video creators can include characters with disabilities—to name a few options. If there’s something missing in this post or if you have suggestions for making Vyond more inclusive, please let us know at inclusion@vyond.com.

Create your own accessible animated videos:

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The post How to Create Accessible Video Content: Best Practices for Inclusive Digital Media appeared first on Vyond.

Existing and emerging text-to-video AI tools are making it easier than ever to create video content. And they’re only getting better. Here’s a look at the types of AI tools that exist now and what’s coming soon, the leading players, and the benefits of text-to-video generators.

What is text-to-video AI software?

A few years ago, software advertising itself as “AI-powered” and capable of transforming text to video entered the market, promising faster and easier outputs. These offerings generally fall into two categories:

The first are video makers that match keywords in a text prompt you provide to a random assortment of stock photos, music, and video clips that are tagged with similar keywords. The result: videos–usually geared for social media—that can feel stylistically inconsistent and generic.

The second are platforms that allow you to create videos narrated by a selection of human-like avatars that will say whatever text you provide. The result: “talking head” content that, despite advances in the technology, still comes off as stiff and less than genuine.

However, as of 2023, a new, far more powerful category of AI video creation tools is emerging. Unlike keyword matchers and avatar creators, this software is powered by generative AI (think ChatGPT and DALL-E 2) that has the potential to help companies create high-quality video content that’s both original and easily edited.

Let’s take a look at how these exciting AI-powered text-to-video makers work; which are available now and which are coming soon; and how they promise to change the way you make professional-grade videos.

Learn more about AI powered video

Leading AI text-to-video generators

Emerging text-to-video AI tools are being developed by both well-regarded brands adding generative AI functionality to their platforms and new companies working to bring their first product to market. Here are some of the main players. 

Vyond Go 

Even before the launch of Vyond Go in June 2023, Vyond’s animated video creation software was loaded with AI-powered features like Instant Video Translation, Photo to Character, Visual Content Search, and Speech Enhancement that help users automate time-consuming tasks and create content more quickly.

With the release of Vyond Go, the company became the first in the video creation industry to offer an AI-based script and video creator, capable of creating a script and high quality, editable video content, based on a text prompt, within seconds.

Once a first draft has populated, users can quickly polish the video within Vyond Go using a simple text-based editor, or take it into Vyond Studio for fine-tuning.

How Vyond Go Works

1. Enter a prompt or drop in content you want it to respond to.

Vyond Go creates video scripts with the help of ChatGPT, which is integrated with the platform. ChatGPT draws upon its vast Internet-based learning model to generate a script based on your prompt. 

Or, if you include a sample of information in your prompt you want it to incorporate, it will generate content based primarily on that sample. 

Learn more about ChatGPT video scripting from Vyond’s CEO

2. Choose the vibe, format, and location you want for your video

The Vyond Go platform allows you to choose from a multitude of locations (like Home, Abstract Background, Open Office), vibes (like formal, informative, casual, or playful), formats (like announcements, rants, and overviews), and layouts (like conversation or talking head). 

3. Edit the video with Quick Edit—or refine it in Vyond Studio

After typing in your prompt and making your other selections, Vyond Go delivers a script and a starter video in seconds. You can then adjust text and voice-over content within Vyond Go. Or by clicking on the edit icon, you can fine-tune it within Vyond’s standard video creation platform, Vyond Studio–for example, swapping out characters, changing backgrounds, and instantly translating the video into 70+ languages.

Pros:

• Vyond Go is the only product like this on the market, and it’s available as of June 28, 2023. 
• The script and video output created with a text prompt is editable and in a unified style
• All the AI tech exists right in the Vyond platform; there’s no need to use multiple tools to generate or edit content

Cons: 

• Vyond Go doesn’t yet have the ability to generate brand-new animated content based on a text prompt–but that functionality is coming soon
• Thus far, you can use Vyond Go to create content in Vyond’s Business-friendly style, but not their Contemporary or Whiteboard styles

Watch Vyond Go’s Launch Webinar

Adobe Firefly

For more than five years, Adobe has been integrating Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) technology across its platform to automate tasks and boost creativity–technology they call Adobe Sensei. 

In April 2023, Adobe entered the generative AI market with the launch of the beta version of Adobe Firefly, its new suite of creative generative AI models. As of June 2023, their offerings include the ability to generate original images, color variations, and other visual effects with a text prompt—elements producers can use to create videos. But soon Adobe hopes to also offer video producers the ability to make edits to already-recorded video, like changing color schemes, time of day, and even the seasons with a simple text prompt.

Pros: 

• Like Vyond, Adobe Firefly offers a variety of AI and generative AI functionality all in a single, already popular content creation and editing platform.

Cons: 

• Though the goal of Firefly is to make design projects simpler, Adobe products are still targeted towards designers. So non-designers may still face a learning curve. 

Text-to-video AI tech still in R&D

A handful of tech companies are developing models that will soon make it possible for companies to create high-resolution video clips of scenes based on text prompts. While they’ve not yet brought a product to market as of June 2023, the research papers and sneak peeks they’re providing online make clear the huge potential for this technology. 

Nvidia, a longtime leader in AI computing, is sharing its research on generating high-resolution video clips with latent diffusion models. Their website features samples of short, funny video clips they’ve been able to generate from text prompts, including ones of a polar bear playing a bass, a lion surfing, and a koala playing the piano.

Meta is previewing their Make-a-Video tool, which aims to create short video clips from both text-based prompts and static image prompts. 

Newcomers like Runway.ml and Opus.ai are also sharing their research, and providing glimpses into what may be available in the near future. 

Pros: 

• Once this class of text-to-video AI technology is more refined and user-friendly, it will be possible to create high-quality video content more easily than ever before. 

Cons: 

• None of these companies are yet offering a viable product. 
• Most of the video clips these tools can create thus far are very short, lower-resolution GIF-length clips. As is, these outputs aren’t likely to be useful to companies looking for video content that fits their brand style. 

Business reasons for using generative AI text-to-video tools

Faster video production 

Generative AI text-to-video makers make it possible to create business-friendly, first-draft video content faster than ever before. Specifically:  

• L&D teams tasked with creating a high volume of training video content can turn around requests in less than half the time they’re used to
• HR teams can use text-to-video tools to ensure they’re communicating effectively about policies or business changes in a timely manner
• Sales departments can use generative AI text-to-video tools to keep up with the demand for creating highly personalized, tailored versions of general sales video content to share with prospects 
• Marketing teams can use generative AI text-to-video tools to respond immediately to urgent news or trends with right-time, right-place video content 

Cheaper, more accessible video production 

With these text-to-video AI tools in place, companies will be able to dramatically reduce their reliance on expensive video production vendors, and make it possible for anyone who has a good idea to create engaging video content, not just the design and video production teams on staff. 

More imaginative content 

Very soon, this technology will make it possible for an infinite number of creative ideas to be realized in seconds, simply by typing in a text prompt. 

The future of text-to-video AI tools for business

This cutting-edge tech category is undeniably exciting. But what will ultimately determine the commercial success of these text-to-video AI tools is their ability to create business-friendly content that’s relevant, editable, and brand-compliant. 

As of June 2023, only a few companies have brought such a product to market. But in the months and years to come, as the technology evolves and improves and the market provides feedback about its needs, more is sure to follow. 

And video creation as we know it will never be the same. 

To take Vyond Go for a spin: sign up for a free 14-day trial today. 

Try Vyond for Free

The post The Best Text-to-Video AI Software for Creating Professional Videos appeared first on Vyond.

AI is changing the way companies create video content. Find out which categories of AI-powered tools can help you create videos faster, the pros and cons of each, and the many ways using this technology can help you meet your business goals.

Table of contents

What is AI powered video?

Examples of AI video maker tools

Generative AI video tools: the pros and cons

The business benefits of using generative AI

The future of AI video maker tools

What is AI powered video? 

While smartphones, webcams, and simple video editor apps have made it incredibly easy in the past few decades to create simple video content for personal use, creating professional-grade videos at scale has remained, for many companies, a serious logistical challenge.

Fortunately, that’s about to change. With the arrival of powerful new generative AI technology—including advanced AI chatbots, text-to-image and text-to-video generators, AI avatar makers, and AI-powered animated video creation software, content creators have more tools at their disposal than ever before to help them create business videos quickly and affordably.

There’s a difference between what AI tools and humans can create, of course. Generative AI models are able to mine the gigantic datasets they’re trained on to create content that reproduces linguistic and visual styles that people have spent centuries perfecting. However, AI text generators are still unable to come up with original ideas, reason through difficult puzzles, and often serve up answers that are categorically false. And image and video generators often struggle to translate text-based prompts into content that both reflects the requester’s intentions and is of a high enough quality to use as is. 

Still—even in its infancy, Generative AI tools are already making it much easier for professionals with limited video production experience to create professional videos. You don’t need years of design, directing, and editing experience to get started: all you need is an idea…and a prompt.

Examples of AI video maker tools

From text-to-audio synthesizers to video generators that transform visuals from one style to another, there’s a huge range of AI tools out there. Here is a quick breakdown of the types of tools that today’s content creators can take advantage of. 

Text tools for creating AI videos

To create an engaging video, first you need a great script. Text-based AI tools like ChatGPT and Bard are advanced LLMs (Large Language Models) that can quickly generate scripts based on text prompts you provide. The prompt is processed by the AI’s deep learning algorithm which formulates a response for the user based on the Internet-sourced data set it’s been trained on–-or based on proprietary information the user feeds it.

As an AI video tool, ChatGPT can help with research, creating a script’s structure, writing on-screen captions, and even suggestions for visuals (though that’s not one of its strengths–yet). Whatever tool you use, it’s now possible to generate a script in a fraction of the time it used to.

Watch “Write Better Video Scripts Faster with ChatGPT” On-Demand

Image tools for creating AI videos

Video creators can use AI-generated static images to quickly create storyboards, or even use the elements directly in their final videos.

AI image generators like Dall.E 2, or Stable Diffusion Online and MidJourney draw on the internet’s rich source of photos, illustrations, and graphics to produce new imagery in response to a user’s prompt. Dall.E 2 also allows you to fill out or extend the area around your preferred image (outpainting) and fill in missing or incomplete areas by evaluating the existing imagery and formulating content that matches the content and style (inpainting). While this feature isn’t offered within MidJourney and Stable Diffusion Online as of mid-April 2023, you can import images created on those platforms into Dall.E 2 and manipulate them there.

Also, both Dall.E 2 and Midjourney now allow you to upload your own images and include them as a reference in your prompt. This allows you to also ask for variations of existing, preferred reference images, instead of having to only work with outputs created based on text prompts. 

Audio tools for creating AI videos

Need a voiceover but don’t have the budget to hire voice talent and book a recording studio? Some AI tools can step in to generate a realistic sounding voiceover in a variety of languages by collecting text input and delivering a synthesized audio stream in a process known as “text-to-speech.” 

Other AI tools can remove background noise from recordings, or even create background music from scratch. Simply choose the genre, mood, length and tempo for a video with a unique, royalty-free soundtrack.

AI video generation software

Some AI video tools apply a similar approach to those for text, image and audio, taking either text or visual input and generating an output of original video content. 

Meta’s Make-a-Video creates video from both text-based prompts and static images. Phenaki uses proprietary technology to create longer videos when given a sequence of textual prompts. 
 

Other AI-powered tools offer the ability to use human-like avatars to deliver scripts directly to the camera. While these tools allow you to generate content at volume, it’s worth noting that most deepfake human avatars suffer from the ‘uncanny valley’ effect: people register that what they’re seeing and hearing is close to, but not quite human, which can be off-putting.)

Lastly, AI-powered animated video software platforms like Vyond provide a more holistic solution, using multiple AI-driven features (like Photo-to-Character avatars, Text-to-Speech generator, Visual Search for assets, and Speech Enhancer) to help teams quickly create engaging, professional-looking animated videos that never suffer from the “uncanny valley effect,” since most animation isn’t meant to look photorealistic. 

Try Vyond for Free

Generative AI video tools: the pros and cons

AI powered video tools are revolutionizing the workplace but they aren’t without their faults. Here are some of the benefits and limitations of AI tools used to create text, video, images and audio.

Benefits of AI-powered text tools 

• Helps you brainstorm ideas. When you’re staring at a page with no idea where to start, an AI chatbot can be a lifesaver. While these won’t produce the final copy, they’re great at providing you with a first draft to play around with.
• Saves serious time. Writing good copy takes time, and with research, writing, and editing, that time quickly adds up. With an AI text generation tool, simply enter a prompt and you’ll have output to start editing and developing in seconds. 
• Can imitate a wide range of styles. In your text prompt, you can add direction on style and tone and include proprietary copy you’d like it to learn from and imitate. This capability can help you with creating “on-brand” content, and can help spark ideas for new ways to solve creative problems. 

Limitations of AI-powered text tools

• ChatGPT is only trained on information found on the Internet prior to October 2021. As a result, its responses don’t reflect the most up-to-date information on topics, especially those that evolve quickly. This is another reason to always review its output before you hit publish. 

• They don’t understand your audience like you do. AI will never be able to understand your audiences’ needs and preferences the way you do – what makes them tick, or pushes their buttons. This is another reason it’s so important to review and adjust their output. 

For more information, check out our guide on how to use ChatGPT to create business video scripts.

ChatGPT Prompts for Business Videos

Benefits of AI-powered audio tools 

• Generates narration quickly and affordably. There’s no need to hire a voice actor, source expensive equipment, or book recording time. With a high-quality AI-powered audio tool you can generate realistic audio with a quick turnaround. 

• Many include instant translation features. Sending copy to translators before you can get your video to a global audience is now a thing of the past as AI tools can instantly translate audio in a huge selection of languages and dialects. 

Limitations of AI-powered audio tools 

• Some AI-generated narration sounds…off. Emotions can be hard for an AI audio tool to replicate. While output is constantly improving, humans generally still possess more range. 
• Accent choices are often limited. Many AI audio tools can’t offer you as many accents and dialects (spoken by people of various genders and ages) as you might like. 

Benefits of AI-powered image and video tools

• Anyone can be a creator. Whether you’re a professional designer or someone who can’t draw a stick figure, you’ll be able to generate useful images and video content quickly.

• Inspires fresh ideas. When you’re struggling to visualize an idea, AI image generators can provide options that help you clarify what you want. 

• Easy to replicate visual styles. From Van Gogh to Andy Warhol to [fill in your favorite artist here]—with a simple prompt (containing either text or a combination of text and image references) you can imitate an incredibly diverse set of styles

Limitations of AI-powered image and video tools

• Their output doesn’t always hit the mark. When the visual delivered to you doesn’t match what you were imagining in your mind’s eye, you have the option to keep prompting for other alternatives. And if you’re using Dall.E 2–you can try adjusting its output with its inpainting or outpainting tools. Even so, these efforts may not give you exactly what you wanted. 

• They’re not reliable for creating “on-brand” visuals. For the reasons above, you’re likely not going to be able to lean on these tools to create visual content that perfectly aligns with your company’s brand style—yet. 

• There are ethical concerns around copyright. While an artist’s work may be accessed freely on the internet, it’s unlikely they gave permission for their art to be used in the AI’s learning model. Currently, in the US, AI-generated work isn’t copyright protected because it isn’t technically made by a human. 

The business benefits of using generative AI 

Companies of all kinds can reap the benefits of using an AI tool to create professional videos. Here are a few of the most common:

Support your company’s employee retention goals

The simplicity and time efficiency of AI video helps L&D professionals keep up with industry changes and internal demands for new or updated training materials for their entire workforce. 

This is especially valuable because timely, effective training is proven to have extremely positive effects on retention. According to a LinkedIn study, 94% of employees say that they would stay at a company longer if it invested in better training.

Create mission-critical content more quickly 

While we know that L&D teams regularly create videos to engage their workforce, they aren’t the only department that can benefit from the speed of AI-powered video tools.

• HR teams can use AI-powered video tools to ensure they’re communicating effectively about policies or business changes in a timely manner
• Sales departments can use generative AI video tools to keep up with the demand for creating highly personalized, tailored versions of general sales video content to share with prospects. (As we know from both academic and industry research, personalized strategies are more effective.) 
• The speed of AI-powered video tools can help marketing teams keep up with the demand for engagement-boosting video content for blog and social media posts–and respond instantaneously to urgent news or trends with right-time, right-place video content. Additionally, the time saved in creating videos from scratch also frees up marketing teams to spend more time A/B testing their video content and making tweaks to boost engagement.

Empower all your employees to communicate better (and have fun doing it)

AI-powered video tools are becoming so easy to use, even employees with no writing and design capabilities now have a way to create engaging video content quickly. 

Not surprisingly, when creating videos is easy, it’s also more fun. In fact, many of our customers have said that using Vyond has made creating videos one of the most enjoyable parts of their job, instead of a time-consuming and intimidating chore.

The future of AI video maker tools

Sure, today’s generative AI video tools still have some kinks to work out. And as always happens when a new kind of technology hits the market, some tools will hit big and flourish, while others will drop off the radar. 

But as the landscape continues to evolve, one thing is for sure: creating high-quality business videos has never been easier, and the world of content creation will never be the same again.

To get started making great animated business videos quickly and easily, join 20,000 companies already using Vyond. Sign up for our 14-day free trial or book a demo to get access to 200+ fully scripted templates, 200+ starter templates, more than 2,300 scene templates, and all of our time-saving AI features. 

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The post The Ultimate Guide to AI-Powered Video: What It Is and How to Best Use It appeared first on Vyond.

Table of contents

• What is ChatGPT for business?
• Pros and cons of ChatGPT for business videos
• What makes a good ChatGPT prompt?
• 20 ChatGPT video script prompts
• How to improve ChatGPT-generated scripts
• Sample ChatGPT script makeover
• Some final (Vyond-generated) thoughts

 What is ChatGPT for business?

Few new technologies in recent memory have shaken up the business world as dramatically as ChatGPT.

Developed by the startup OpenAI and launched in November 2022, ChatGPT is a large language model (LLM) machine learning system that can understand spoken and written prompts and generate new, conversational responses based on the billions of pages of (pre-October 2021) Internet content it was trained on. Not only is the current GPT-3 model capable of analyzing vocabulary, context, and syntax to create new content and make predictions and decisions, but it’s also able to refine its answers when given more information and acknowledge its mistakes. 

As you know if you’ve taken ChatGPT for a spin, the interface is able to respond intelligently and imaginatively to just about any prompt. Within seconds, it can deliver everything from a silly rhyming poem about Taylor Swift to Internet-sourced advice on improving your finances or a how-to script based on company information you feed it yourself. 

AI is actually augmenting human creativity and productivity. Instead of replacing human workers, AI is being used to assist and enhance their abilities. By taking on repetitive and mundane tasks, AI allows humans to focus on more complex and creative endeavors.

Reid Hoffman
Founder of LinkedIn

A few months in, ChatGPT is already proving to be a useful tool for many content creators, including professionals in L&D, HR, Internal Comms, and Sales Enablement roles who are tasked with producing employee and marketing communications. 

However, figuring out how to most effectively use this powerful new tool isn’t totally obvious, even for early adopters with a head start. That’s why we created this guide. 

In it, you’ll get:

• Clarity on the pros and cons of using ChatGPT to make video scripts based on both Internet-sourced information and text you provide directly
• 20 ChatGPT prompts to use to generate scripts for common L&D, HR, Internal Comms, and Sales Enablement video content
• Tips on how to transform ChatGPT’s output into a more engaging, relevant, and effective final product
• And finally, one sample ChatGPT script makeover, courtesy of Vyond’s writers and video producers

Pros and cons of ChatGPT for business videos

ChatGPT has both great potential and noteworthy flaws. You should consider both as you’re experimenting with it. 

As of the writing of this article (February 2023), here are some of its most significant benefits and limitations.

ChatGPT benefits: 

• ChatGPT is great for brainstorming and first drafts. Fear of the blank page and lack of inspiration can be paralyzing. Using ChatGPT to quickly brainstorm new ideas, explore potential themes, and generate starter copy can help you get unstuck and move forward.
• ChatGPT can create content based on the information YOU feed it. Beyond producing responses to prompts based on the pre-October 2021 Internet data it was trained on, ChatGPT can create content based on the information you provide in your prompt. (We’ll explain how to do that in a bit, and cover whether sharing proprietary information with ChatGPT poses a security risk.)
• ChatGPT can mimic a wide range of writing styles and tones. Prompting ChatGPT to produce content in various styles allows you to get a quick read on which approach to a concept is most appropriate and effective.
• ChatGPT generally produces clear and grammatically correct copy. ChatGPT writes in a direct, concise style that many writers aspire to, and its output is largely free of grammatical mistakes.
• ChatGPT frees you up to focus on editing and refining. With ChatGPT assisting with brainstorming and early draft creation, you’ll have more time to carefully revise its starter content into more engaging and relevant final products.

ChatGPT limitations:

• As previously mentioned, ChatGPT is only trained on information found on the Internet prior to October 2021. As a result, its responses don’t reflect the most up-to-date information on topics, especially those that evolve quickly.

• ChatGPT sometimes gets it wrong. When prompted to use the Internet data it was trained on, ChatGPT will sometimes generate fabricated answers, create false citations–and produce biased responses. This is why carefully reviewing its output is always critically important. 
• ChatGPT doesn’t understand your content’s target audience nearly as well as you do. Yes, you can plug in some details about your audience into your prompt. But ultimately you know what makes your clients and employees tick–their pains, needs, and concerns–in a way that ChatGPT doesn’t—and can’t. This is why we included a section in this guide on transforming ChatGPT scripts into something great—because human touch is necessary. 
• ChatGPT isn’t great at offering suggestions for visuals. It understands how language works. It does not understand how images work. In the scripts we generated, the visual descriptions were generic and needed significant improvement.
• ChatGPT won’t steal your information, but you might still want to take precautions. ChatGPT isn’t capable of digesting your inputs and using them to answer other people’s questions; by design, your interaction with it exists in a vacuum. However, between you and ChatGPT, there are many Internet services, vendors, and API providers that could potentially steal or read any information you upload. For this reason, if you feed ChatGPT proprietary information as part of your prompt, consider redacting any sensitive or classified details, just to be safe.

AI algorithms trained on huge amounts of images or text can be capable of impressive feats. But because they mimic human-made images and text in a purely statistical way, rather than actually learning how the world works, such programs are also prone to making up facts and regurgitating hateful statements and biases — problems still present in ChatGPT.

Will Knight
Business Correspondent, Wired

What makes a good ChatGPT prompt? 

No matter your job role, or what you need to write, the starting point with ChatGPT is the same. To get output from the algorithm, you need to give it a prompt. 

ChatGPT writes convincingly, but it doesn’t have ideas of its own. It’s neither sentient nor omniscient. Instead, it repurposes what it has found on the internet. So the quality of your prompts is all-important. 

A prompt can be as simple as “write me a script for a recruitment video” and it can be written in any way you like. But for the best results, we’d recommend including the following elements as a baseline:

Who: What kind of person do you want ChatGPT to act as—and who is the target audience for the video? 

What: What’s the deliverable you want? And what’s the intent and topic of the content? 

How: What kind of tone should ChatGPT use? 

(Optional) User-sourced data: You can also provide ChatGPT with specific words or phrases you want ChatGPT to include, or feed it large chunks of text to digest and use to create a response. In the prompt, indicate the specific language you want ChatGPT to incorporate or process by placing it within quotation marks. 

Here’s what a prompt with these elements might look like:

Act as an employee training manager. Write a two-minute script for an animated video with a voiceover telling junior engineers what to do in case of an emergency shutdown alarm. Set the video in an oil refinery. Write in an informative and reassuring tone. Include the following information in your response: “Emergency Shutdown steps: Safely store and secure all hazardous materials. Close gas valves and secure gas cylinders.  Ensure cryogenic liquids are properly vented. Check moisture-sensitive materials and equipment”

20 ChatGPT video script prompts 

Now that you understand the anatomy of a good video script prompt, spend some time playing around with variations on the ChatGPT webpage. If you’d like more ideas on what to include or how to phrase your request, try using one of these 20 sample prompts as a template. 

They’re each around 100 words long and can be easily adapted to include both language you’d like included verbatim and proprietary information you’d like ChatGPT to respond to in its output. (To be clear, the language within brackets and quotation marks isn’t to be typed in as is; it indicates where you’d add information you want ChatGPT to integrate into its response.)

Three notes before you dig in: 

1. It’s worth repeating that the default results ChatGPT delivers will be based only on Internet data from before October 2021 (which, as of this writing is 17 months ago). Therefore some of the results you get may provide a workable structure for your video but contain details you’ll need to change out with more current or company-specific information. 
2. We kept these sample prompts short on purpose, but ChatGPT can accommodate prompts that are much longer. With models like this, input data is measured in units called “tokens,” not words. And as of February 2023, the limit for a single prompt was 2,048 tokens, which is about 1,500 words, according to OpenAI. This means that you can feed ChatGPT your own information, up to about 1500 words at a time, and prompt it to create outputs based on that information. 
3. That said, keep in mind that the longer the deliverable you request, the more likely GPT-3 (and LLMs in general) are to veer off-topic. Therefore, you’ll likely get better results if you break long projects into sections, create a prompt for each one, and then stitch together the responses into a unified whole after the fact.

ChatGPT Prompts for Learning & Development:

1. New manager training 

Act as an L&D specialist. Write a training video script for someone who has recently been promoted to manager. Their new job is in the tech industry for a company called CreateIT which strives to solve your IT problems with the most innovative solutions. Write in a professional, clear, and friendly tone. Include narration and directions for the visuals. Include the following information in your response: “[User enters preferred best practices for meetings here]”

2. Job skills tutorial

Act as a food hygiene specialist. Write a one-minute training video script for a restaurant called “The Sandwich Haven.” Include two characters, Dave and Erika, who interact with each other. Erika is teaching Dave how to make their best-selling sandwich while explaining important food hygiene guidelines. Include sandwich puns and jokes. Write in a friendly, knowledgeable tone. Include the following information in your response: “[User enters preferred best practices, details, and guidelines here]”

3. Accessibility Awareness

Act as an accessibility expert. Write a 90-second accessibility awareness video script featuring two characters—an office manager and a wheelchair user—who work for Write Right, a communications agency based in Chicago. Communicate the main points with dialogue. The script must mention accessibility adaptations for individuals who are neurodiverse, practical accessibility needs such as wheelchair access, as well as other necessary accessibility requirements. The tone should be friendly, clear, and approachable.

4. Importance of DEIB explainer 

Act as a diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB) specialist. Write a one-minute video script that explains the importance of DEIB and how a DEIB workforce can benefit a company named Real IT. The video will explain the importance of DEIB to current employees and the company’s shareholders. Include information on the benefits of DEIB and how it will benefit Real IT’s service offerings. The tone needs to be clear, personable, and confident.

5. Soft skills explainer 

Act as a professional development trainer. Write a 5-minute video script for a soft skills workshop that explains how to improve decision making, communication, and problem solving skills. State why these skills are important to the product design industry. Characters should include a trainer and a class of students learning the skills. Write in a friendly, professional tone.

ChatGPT Prompts for Human Resources: 

6. Open enrollment benefits summary

Write a 90-second video script explaining HealthCo.’s open enrollment benefits. Explain that there is a limited open enrollment period and employees have until March 6th to submit their benefit choices for the year. The tone needs to be clear, friendly, and approachable. I will provide benefits details. My request: “Benefits details: 10% increase in premiums on PPO plan, the new dental provider is SmileRight, pet insurance benefits increased 50%, life insurance plans for smokers no longer available, childcare voucher up 25%, gym membership now free for all full-time employees”

7. Data security compliance training 

Act as a security compliance expert. Write a 90-second video script for a compliance training video for staff at a large marketing firm based in California. They have a database with more than 500,000 contacts and must be compliant with CCPA guidelines on data privacy. Include information about what employees need to do to be compliant, how to adhere to these guidelines, and what happens if any of these guidelines are broken. The audience is the marketing agency’s employees. Use this quote directly: “Our customers’ data must be protected at all times.”

8. Job openings announcement 

Act as a senior recruiter working for Eola Pharmaceuticals, a company that specializes in products for women going through menopause. Write a 45-second video script for Clara who is looking to hire three new scientists to join the lab in Denver. The audience is potential new employees who will want to know what the company does, its main values, company benefits, and how to apply for the job. Include the steps in the recruitment process. Write in a friendly, enthusiastic tone. Include the following information in your response: “[User enters job details here]”

9. New hire onboarding 

Act as a member of the HR team at a construction company based in Carson City, Nevada. Write a two-minute video script for a new hire onboarding video. The new hires are all construction workers who need to know the best practices and regulations of being on a building site in Nevada. Write in a knowledgeable, friendly tone. Include the following information in your response: “[User enters company information details here]”

10. Sexual harassment prevention video 

Act as an HR manager. Write a 3-minute video script on sexual harassment in the workplace for managers at a clothing manufacturer. Include a definition of sexual harassment, information on how to report harassment, and the policies in place to protect employees. It must comply with harassment laws in California. The tone is authoritative, sensitive, and clear. Follow this style: Caption: What is sexual harassment? Voiceover: Sexual harassment is any kind of unwanted behavior of a sexual nature that makes you feel humiliated or intimidated, or that creates a hostile environment.

ChatGPT Prompts for Internal Communications: 

11. Annual report highlights 

Act as a Chief Financial Officer. Write a 60-second script for an annual report summary video that celebrates the company’s success. The tone should be upbeat and encouraging. Include the following information in your response: “[User enters information about the company’s top salesperson, net profit, most profitable product, sales targets that were hit and missed here]”

12. New family leave policy 

Act as an HR director. Write a 60-second video script explaining the company’s new family leave policy to all employees. Include the quote “We know that both parents need the time to bond with their new baby.” The audience is all company employees. Write in a casual, empathetic tone. Include visual suggestions for an animated video. Include the following information in your response: “[User enters policy details here]”

13. Employee Appreciation 

Act as a CEO grateful for the hard work your employees have put in this year. Write a 45-second long video script to send to employees in appreciation of their efforts. Write in an energetic, enthusiastic, friendly tone.

14. Monthly sales update 

Act as the VP of Sales for a car dealership called Car Hub. Write a script for a video that can be used each month to update the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) on the company’s monthly sales figures. The script must be able to be reused each month. The tone needs to be clear and formal. Include the following information in your response: “[User enters details here]”

15. Company culture and values 

Act as if you work in HR. Write a 90-second video script describing your company’s culture and values. Audience: potential new employees and customers. Describe the culture in a positive way. Include “compassion for the environment” as a company value and include placeholders for 3 more values. Write in an energetic, informal tone. Include 3 characters interacting in the script. Include a story about an employee named Alice who recently joined the company.

Chat GPT Prompts for Sales Enablement: 

16. Product explainer (for prospects)

Act as an account executive. Write a video script for a 60-second explainer video that explains how to use your new product—a self-cleaning microwave. Explain to the user how to use the product and leave placeholders to highlight four key special features of the product. The audience is potential buyers of this new microwave who have visited your website and attended a webinar. In the script, include an interaction between a sales rep and a potential buyer. The tone is friendly, casual, and persuasive.

17. Competitor comparison

Write a 45-second script for an animated video that compares Salesforce and Hubspot. The audience is any company deciding which platform to use. Analyze both Salesforce and Hubspot, give the pros and cons of each. The script should be conversational and contain humor. Include visual descriptions throughout that reflect the narration.

18. Customer case study 

Write as a successful marketing agency that is showcasing the success of their work. Produce a 90-second script for a case study video that demonstrates how you helped a client, StuffCo, that was struggling to grow their e-commerce business. Talk about how retargeting ads and a funny social media presence made a big difference. At the end of the script, include a call to action to the marketing agency’s website. The tone should be positive, enthusiastic, and friendly. Include the following information: “[User enters increased sales data and specific testimonial quotes here]”

19. Cold call best practices

Act as an expert in cold–calling. Write a script for a video detailing five best practices. Your audience is a group of sales reps struggling to make successful cold calls, who are trying to increase their success rate by at least 15%. Include a metric detailing how you can measure the improved success of the reps. Write the script following the traditional storytelling structure: a beginning (set the scene and describe how the rep is struggling to cold call); a middle (the rep learns new tricks) and an ending (the rep’s success rate has increased). Write in a positive, casual tone.

20. Data security overview 

Act as a data security expert. You work for Vyond. Write a video script that sales reps can use to reassure potential buyers of Vyond’s enterprise-grade standards for data security. Include a brief description of Vyond and what data security is. The script should be 90 seconds long. Write in a persuasive, knowledgeable, and friendly tone. Include the following information in your response: “[User enters details here]”

How to improve ChatGPT-generated scripts

Whether you’re using one of our suggested prompts as a template or writing your own from scratch, you’ll likely find that the first script that ChatGPT offers leaves room for improvement. Here are some ways to improve that first draft. 

• First, try out a few more ChatGPT prompts. Before you start editing the script yourself, consider adjusting your ChatGPT prompt and regenerating a few more responses first. Add more details, change the tone, and clarify the structure you had in mind. Then use whichever elements you like the most. 
• Differentiate the characters. If your script features multiple characters interacting with each other, take the time to give them distinguishing traits or dialogue that an audience will have an emotional reaction to. Audiences respond to stories. And good stories require distinct, relatable characters and conflict, however minor. 
• Improve the visual descriptions. The visual descriptions ChatGPT serves up in its video scripts are usually generic and uninspired. (At this point, ChatGPT is a far better script writer than production designer.) The on-screen text and visuals you choose for your videos are just as important as the narration or dialogue. So strive to create visuals that are unexpected, engaging, and that pair well with your narration and dialogue. 
• Cut repeated or redundant elements. ChatGPT will sometimes say the same thing in different ways, adding unnecessary words. Look for instances of this and cut them.
• Be more tactical about length, pacing, and transitions. You don’t want your videos to drag. So ask yourself: Is every scene or line of dialogue accomplishing something important–or is some of it window dressing? Are there more interesting ways to jump from one section to the next? Could you jump into a scene sooner? Might your three-minute video be better if it was half as long? And so on.
• Watch out for contradictions. In one script ChatGPT generated for us, visual directions were included (“a shot of a quiet office”) which was at odds with the dialogue (“our office is always busy, filled with a buzz”). Be on alert for these inconsistencies. 
• Check and refine the language. ChatGPT’s output can sometimes sound clichéd. If you find your copy includes too many industry buzzwords or overused expressions, tweak your script accordingly. 

Sample Chat GPT Script Makeover 

We thought it would be instructive to edit some ChatGPT-generated content. So we prompted ChatGPT to create a short recruitment video and asked a few of our scriptwriters and video producers to both edit the results and explain why they made the changes they did.

ChatGPT Prompt:

Write a 45-second recruitment video script for a junior finance officer for DDP Logistics, a global logistics company based in Florida. Responsibilities include basic accounting, data entry, reconciliations, data verifications, and variance analysis. Need to be good with computers. Include “Very proficient in excel, salesforce, and powerBI.” Benefits include a competitive salary, health insurance, annual bonus, pension plan, and gym membership. Do not mention any financial decision-making. They will get regular training and mentorship. Applications are now open, include a placeholder to add the web link for applications and an email address you can contact about the applications. Write in an enthusiastic, friendly, and approachable tone.

Chat GPT Output:

[45 seconds video starts playing]

[Intro music and company logo]

[Narrator speaks in an enthusiastic and friendly tone]

Attention all finance enthusiasts! Are you looking to join a dynamic and fast-growing global logistics company? Well, look no further! DDP Logistics is seeking a Junior Finance Officer to join our team in Florida.

[Cut to images of a finance department at work, data entry, reconciliations, etc.]

As a Junior Finance Officer, you’ll be a valuable member of our finance team, where your responsibilities will include basic accounting, data entry, reconciliations, data verifications, and variance analysis. Plus, you’ll need to be proficient in Excel, Salesforce, and PowerBI!

[Cut to a shot of someone using a computer]

We’re looking for someone who’s good with computers and has strong attention to detail.

[Cut to images of benefits such as a gym, training room, mentorship etc.]

In return for your hard work, DDP Logistics offers a competitive salary, health insurance, an annual bonus, a pension plan, and a gym membership! Plus, regular training and mentorship will be provided to help you grow and succeed in your career.

[Outro music and company logo]

[Narrator speaks in an enthusiastic and friendly tone]

So, what are you waiting for? Take the first step in your finance career and apply now! Simply visit our website [INSERT WEB LINK HERE] or email [INSERT EMAIL ADDRESS HERE] for more information. Join the DDP Logistics team and make your finance dreams a reality!

Our assessment:

The ChatGPT script provides a decent foundation to build on. It uses a standard structure for hooking a viewer; covers common responsibilities and benefits; and has a call to action. That said, we felt the script was lacking in a few areas, which prompted us to make these changes:

• Replaced some terms related to the role and audience that weren’t exactly right
• Cut down the copy to quicken the pace
• Fixed a few minor grammatical errors
• Added the word “you” more often, to more directly appeal to the viewer
• Significantly revised the visual suggestions, which were very generic
• Replaced them with visuals that played off the information conveyed in the voice-over, added a consistent main character

After we edited the script, we decided to actually create it in Vyond. Here’s the final result:

Some final (Vyond-generated) thoughts: 

ChatGPT, while imperfect, is a powerful tool to be celebrated and embraced, not feared or ignored.

Prompted with intention and used with care, ChatGPT is already helping thousands of content creators push past writer’s block, generate fresh ideas and first drafts, and produce high-quality finished products more quickly than they could otherwise. So if you’re hesitant about leaning in, don’t be. Understanding its capabilities and getting comfortable using it will make you better at your job. 

In the months ahead, we’ll keep an eye on how OpenAI and other companies producing Generative AI tools navigate concerns around intellectual property, citation, and privacy. And as newer versions of ChatGPT emerge, and the model improves, we’ll continue to test out new prompts, identify evolving best practices, and update this guide as needed. 

And to see for yourself why millions of users love using Vyond’s AI-powered video creation technology to bring their wildest script ideas to life, sign up for our 14-day free trial.

The post How to Use ChatGPT to Create Great Business Video Scripts: 20 Prompts and Editing Advice for L&D, HR, and Sales appeared first on Vyond.

In this guide, we’ll teach you the seven types of camera movement, show you an example of each, and explain how to recreate each type in Vyond Studio. For a short introduction to camera movements in Vyond watch this tutorial in our help center and this video from Rued Riis on YouTube.

Jump to each type of camera movement to learn more:

Pan camera movement

A pan is a movement where you rotate your camera horizontally from a fixed position (like when a camera is attached to a tripod) to capture the scene from right to left or left to right.

During a scene from season 1 of Stranger Things, the series uses a pan to reveal more of the town’s streets as the narrator speaks.

How to pan in Vyond

1. 1. Click the Camera icon on the top right of Vyond Studio, and then on “Add Camera” in the panel.
   2. An orange rectangle will appear on the stage, representing the camera’s framing.
   3. Reduce the rectangle’s size and position it at the right or left of your scene, depending on where you want your shot to start.
   4. After scaling and positioning the orange rectangle, click on “add camera movement” in the camera panel. This will add a yellow rectangle to the stage, which indicates where your camera movement will end
   5. If you want the camera to pan from left to right, place the orange rectangle on the left side of your scene and the yellow one to its right.
   6. Hit preview and you’ll see your camera pan from left to right.

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Slide (or Dolly or Tracking) shot

A slide (also known as a dolly or tracking shot) is where you move the physical camera from left to right or right to left. These shots allow you to direct the viewer’s attention to the movements of a specific character, object, or event. A slide is different from a pan in that a slide physically moves the camera and allows more motion to happen on the screen than a pan would. This creates a parallax effect, where objects closer to the camera appear to move faster than objects in the background.

Famous director, Wes Anderson, is especially known for using dolly shots in his movies. In this video below you can see dozens of examples from Wes Anderson movies over the years.

How to create a slide in Vyond

While it is not possible to physically move a camera like this in Vyond, by using the camera tool along with motion paths, this look can be easily achieved.

1. To pull off a slide in Vyond you must have at least a foreground and background; however, having a mid-ground will help sell the effect even more.
2. Add a Camera Movement to create the same movement as a pan.
3. To finish your slide, you must now add motion paths to your foreground and mid-ground, which will create the parallax effect. First, group all of your foreground assets together, and then group your mid-ground assets.
4. Once you have your foreground and mid-ground groups, add motion paths to both. If the camera is moving left to right, you’ll want your motion paths to go the opposite way. You’ll also want the motion paths to be short; a little bit of movement goes a long way. The foreground motion path should also be about twice as long as your mid-ground motion path, as objects closer to a moving camera will appear to move faster than objects further away. You can play with the length of the motion paths in conjunction with the camera movement to get the movement that feels right to you.

For additional inspiration, watch this example to see what you can create with camera movement and motion paths.

Tilt

A tilt is a movement where you rotate your camera vertically from a fixed position to capture the scene from top to bottom or bottom to top.

Like with a zoom, the camera position does not change, so, objects in the frame hold their same relative position to one another.

In this clip from the movie Little Miss Sunshine, the camera tilts up to show the family’s destination, then tilts back down to show where they’ve arrived.

How to create a Tilt camera movement in Vyond

1. Click the Camera icon and add a camera.
2. Make the camera’s orange rectangle smaller and position it at the top or bottom of the stage, depending on where you wish your shot to start.
3. Open the Camera panel to add a camera movement, and position the yellow rectangle at the desired end position.
4. If you want the camera to move from bottom to top, place the yellow rectangle higher than the orange one. Do the opposite for a top to bottom tilt.

Crane (or Boom) camera movement

A crane shot (also known as a boom shot) is where you move the camera up or down using a jib or crane to capture more elements in your frame. A crane also creates a parallax effect with the objects or people on screen and gives your scene more movement. These shots work best when there are foreground, midground, and background elements.

During this movement, your foreground and background appear to move at different speeds, once again, caused by the parallax effect. For example, if your camera goes up, your foreground would seem to move down faster than the background.

Overall, the boom shot’s purpose is to add style to your video as you reveal a subject or scene. Disney+ used a boom shot during a trailer from The Mandalorian to add more context to The Mandalorian’s surroundings.

How to perform a crane camera movement in Vyond

1. Add a tilt camera movement to your scene.
2. Group your foreground elements, then apply a Line Motion Path to move your foreground in the opposite direction of where your camera is heading.
3. If your camera is moving up, add a Line Motion Path to your foreground that goes down, to make the foreground move faster than the background.
4. If your camera is moving down, add a line motion path to your foreground that moves up.

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Zoom camera movement

A Zoom is when you adjust the camera’s focal length, which changes the visual depth of field – or visual distance between objects – to give the illusion of the subject being closer to or further from the camera than it is. For example, you can use a zoom-in effect to “crop out” elements you don’t want on the screen, emphasizing your subject. Or you can zoom-out to include more scenery in your frame.

In one of the last episodes of Breaking Bad, the camera zooms in to the main character’s face to emphasize the shock of what he had seen.

How to Zoom in Vyond

1. Click the Camera panel and add a camera.
2. Add Camera Movement. You should now have two rectangles on your screen. The orange rectangle is your starting position, and the yellow one is your ending position.
3. To zoom in, make the yellow rectangle smaller than the orange rectangle; do the opposite to zoom out.

Push & Pull

A push and pull, also known as a dolly in or out, physically decreases or increases (respectively) the distance between the camera and a subject. These camera movements are different from a zoom because they require you to physically move the camera without zooming the lens. A push moves the camera in, or forward; whereas a pull moves the camera out, or backward.

When you push the physical position of the camera forward it can tie characters together with other people, props, or places without the need for dialogue. A push is great for scene or character introductions and directs attention to what’s on the screen. It gives more importance to what’s on the screen compared to if the camera was static. When you pull the physical position of the camera backward it can signify the separation of characters from other people, props, or places, without the need for dialogue as well.  It can invoke feelings of leaving, conclusion, or abandonment. A pull or a zoom-out can be a great way to end a video.

Pushes and pulls are a good alternative to zooming in or out and can add a higher level of production quality to your video. Additionally, these two movements separate foreground and background elements, causing a parallax effect, exactly like the slide camera move.

For the first four seconds of the trailer for The Trial of the Chicago 7, the film crew performs a push-in, moving the camera closer to the subject without zooming in.

How to Push or Pull in Vyond

To achieve a push or pull in Vyond you’ll need to have foreground and background elements in your scene, so add some components behind most subjects and others close to the camera.

 Push

1. Add a camera and camera movement.
2. Create a zoom shot by making the secondary, yellow rectangle smaller than the orange one.
3. Select your foreground elements and group them so you can apply a Line Motion Path to slightly increase their size.
4. Make the length of the motion path the same duration as your camera movement.
   • By increasing the foreground size at the same rate as your camera zoom, you can imitate what happens if you push in the camera in real life: your foreground elements move past the camera faster than the background elements, appearing to also become larger as the camera moves toward them.

Pull

1. Add a camera and camera movement.
2. Create a camera move that zooms out by making the yellow rectangle larger than the orange one.
3. Decrease the size of the grouped foreground elements through a Line Motion Path.

This video demonstrates how to build a push camera movement in Vyond.

Zolly or Zolly zoom

A dolly zoom, also known as a zolly, is a camera movement where you do a standard zoom, either in or out, and then dolly or move the camera in the opposite direction. The idea behind a dolly zoom is to make it look as though the subject never changes in size while everything else in frame is changing size. So, while you zoom in, you dolly out to maintain the character’s relative size to the frame. And while you zoom out, you dolly in to preserve the character’s relative size to the frame.

Dolly zooms transmit unease, intrigue, tension, and claustrophobia, which explains their popularity across suspense and horror films.

The movie Jaws features a classic example of a dolly zoom, showing how the film crew zooms out from the subject while moving the camera towards him.

How to do a Dolly Zoom (or Zolly) in Vyond

Although you can’t dolly a camera in Vyond, using a motion path on your main subject in conjunction with a zoom camera movement is an easy way to create the dolly zoom effect!

1. Add a camera and camera movement to your scene.
2. Zolly out: position the cameras to zoom out, that is, making the yellow rectangle larger than the orange one.
3. Click on the character
4. Add a Line Motion Path.
   • Motion Paths let you choose a subject’s ending position. To complete your zolly out, make the character’s end position larger and try to match the framing as closely as possible from the start positions of both the camera and character. Since you are zooming out from the subject while increasing its size, it will seem as if the character remains the same size while the background appears to get wider.
5. To do a zolly in, that is making the background appear smaller while maintaining the character’s size, make the ending camera position smaller than the main one, and decrease the character’s end state with a Line Motion Path so that it shrinks in unison with the camera.

Make scenes engaging with camera movement

With Vyond, you can execute all your video ideas without worrying about camera angles or equipment. Our tools can help you vary your shots to tell more detail-rich stories, whether through easy-to-implement camera techniques like a Zolly to more well-known techniques like a Zoom.

See where your creativity can take you with a free 14-day trial of Vyond.

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The post 7 Types of Camera Movement and How to Create Them in Vyond Studio appeared first on Vyond.

This year, we’re dealing you in to better ways of communication with a full deck of ideas for using Vyond. Here are four ideas for using animated videos in human resources to communicate in a more engaging way:

1. Explaining Benefits
2. Onboarding
3. Introducing Processes & Tools
4. Employee Appreciation

Read on for examples and templates for creating HR videos in Vyond Studio!

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Animated Human Resources Video Ideas

1. Explaining Benefits

Benefits information is important but often dry and confusing. By adding a video summary to your job posts, onboarding materials, and open enrollment communications, you can serve up an effective primer of what your company offers.

Beyond being more engaging, videos that explain benefits and policies can go a long way in reaching employees who might otherwise be too uncomfortable to ask. By tackling sensitive topics—like mental wellness and parental leave—with on-demand video, you can better ensure the right employees are seeing it at the right time.

The example above—created in Vyond Studio—is available to Vyond customers as a customizable video template.

CUSTOMIZE THIS BENEFITS EXPLAINER

2. Onboarding

80% of employees say video would have a positive impact on the onboarding process, and it’s no wonder why. Video is one of the most effective mediums for explaining complex ideas in an engaging and focused manner. That clarity counts during a process like onboarding, which hits new hires with a ton of information at once. With video, you can provide your new employees with the critical information they need to know in a more engaging, easy-to-understand way.

The example above—created in Vyond Studio—is available to Vyond customers as a customizable video template.

CUSTOMIZE THIS ONBOARDING VIDEO

3. Introducing Processes & Tools

Instructional videos are often associated with more comprehensive training programs, but you can bring video-based learning into your organization without making a huge project out of it.

Sometimes, even a quick skill-building clip can go a long way in getting everybody on the same page with common practices and tools. In the video above, the speaker uses an annotated screen recording to show how their company uses Google Calendar to schedule meetings.

You can create your own version of this video if you already have a Vyond account.

CUSTOMIZE THIS TRAINING VIDEO

4. Employee Appreciation

Employee Appreciation Day falls on the first Friday of every March. Odds are, though, that your team is worth celebrating year-round.

Show your appreciation at special events (or everyday!) with videos like the one above. You can create custom animated characters that look like your co-workers, or take a mixed media approach that incorporates your favorite photos.

If you’ve already got Vyond Studio, you can use this video as a template to swap in photos of your own team.

CUSTOMIZE THIS EMPLOYEE APPRECIATION VIDEO

Create Your Own HR Videos

There’s an infinite number of ways to use video for Human Resources. All you have to do is get started. By creating your own videos for HR, you can tailor the information to your context while unleashing your creativity. Vyond Studio makes it easy for anybody to create media that moves. Give it a try with our 14-day free trial.

TRY VYOND FREE

The post 4 Animated Video Use Cases for HR Teams appeared first on Vyond.

With rich, sensory details, video is uniquely suited to storytelling. It captures viewers’ attention on a visceral level by replicating a face-to-face human connection.

You can use Vyond to create animated videos for your business using thousands of props, assets, and characters representing hundreds of industries. To help you get started, we’ve bundled the savviest Vyond resources from our team to form a comprehensive guide to video-making in Vyond Studio. Here’s an example of what you can create with Vyond. In this post, we’ll cover everything you need to know to create a great Vyond video, from brainstorming ideas to adding advanced effects.

Click to jump to each section:

Start a 14-day free trial of Vyond.

Step 1: Plan and outline your ideas

Before you jump into Vyond’s platform, you have to start by planning your video. The more you think ahead, the smoother your actual video-making will be.

Here are four planning steps to create an outline of your video that details how it progresses:

• Set goals. Identify the objective of your video for your organization and how you plan to measure success.
• Identify the scope. Figure out your video length, budget, a timeline for making it, etc.
• Pick the type of video. Will your video be completely animated or will it include some live-action parts? Consider your video goals and scope when making this decision.
• Brainstorm and outline. Based on your video goals, scope, and type, think about what types of characters and storylines you will need for your film. Then, write out in bullet points how you envision the video progressing from start to finish.

With an outline ready, you have a clear framework for efficiently creating a video.

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Step 2: Turn your outline into a script

Once you’ve laid out your initial thoughts, you’re ready to start scripting. Scripting your video before you start a Vyond free trial will give you more time to explore our video maker. We also recommend that our customers have at least a basic script in mind before attempting to make a video in Vyond Studio.

Use your original outline as the basis of your script and begin to expand it into a video script.

Scripting for video, especially animated video, is different than writing for any other medium. With visuals and audio available to help you tell your story, not every word needs to be spoken. Try to think in pictures as you’re writing your script — this is an important exercise that many new video creators overlook. It’s also best to be brief and conversational. Generally, video will not be as formal as written text.

Here are some of the most important script elements for you to consider, from Vyond’s CEO, Gary Lipkowitz:

• Setting: Where should your story take place? At home? At the office? At the airport? Where is the magnitude or urgency of the pain point at its highest?
• Characters: Who should tell the story? A manager? An employee? A narrator?
• Narrative Style: Are there characters? Should the characters speak to each other like they’re in a TV show? This dialog enhances storytelling but is often slower. Should there be a narrator, talking about the characters from a top view? This allows you to be more efficient and precise, but often at the expense of identification with the characters.
• Structure: Should you start at the beginning? This is the most simple. Or should you start at the end, showing the good (or bad) outcome and tracing back to the start? This shifts focus toward the “how” and away from the result.
• Metaphor: Metaphors can help bring difficult concepts to life, especially with animation. Metaphors help us understand new concepts by attaching them to concepts that we already know. A little boy using a leaky bucket to bring water back from a well can illustrate poor cost control or a faulty process. These metaphors can be spoken or visual.

Watch the video below, and read this detailed post for more scripting tips.

Here at Vyond, we use a simple Google Docs template to lay out our scripts. Visuals are detailed on the left side of the doc, while the dialogue is covered on the right. The format is simple and easy for anyone to fill out, regardless of their scriptwriting experience. Here’s one example of ours:

Once you’ve written your script, read it aloud. Then read it again, and again, and again. Edit as needed to make the language sound natural and conversational. Think about where you can cut out unnecessary words or turn them into animated visuals, or on-screen text that can be excluded from the voice-over.

With the first draft of your script ready and your video planned, it’s time to start using Vyond.

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Step 3: Start a 14-day free trial

We offer a free 14-day trial for anyone interested in trying Vyond before committing to a subscription.

 Start a 14-day free trial of Vyond.

Once you’ve started your free trial, you can begin exploring the platform immediately. Click “Make a Video,” and choose from one of our three styles.

• Contemporary has a modern feel with easy-to-brand design customization abilities.

• Business Friendly has industry-specific templates to create videos for a wide variety of professional scenarios.

• Whiteboard Animation draws out your video piece-by-piece, so viewers are eager to see what will be revealed next. They stay engaged while you break down the core ideas of your video.

After choosing a style, play around with templates. Their pre-set scenery, characters, and more make it easy to create a complete video in minutes.

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Step 4: Learn Vyond

People always ask us how long it should take to create their first video, or to become a pro at using Vyond. The honest answer is that it’s different for everyone. It’s easy enough to drag a few templates onto the timeline, make simple adjustments, and create your first video in less than a minute. Some of our customers are able to jump in their first time, teach themselves, and create an excellent custom video within their first few hours. Other people, the majority, take a few days, weeks, or months to become proficient Vyond video creators.

If you want to learn by teaching yourself, take a look at how Vyond Studio is laid out, follow the guided tour when you sign in for the first time, then explore all of our scene template options. If you want to learn from our team, watch our top resources for learning how to use the videomaker.

Video Tutorials

Our step-by-step tutorials are the perfect resources for learning technical Vyond skills. You can find a library of introductory tutorials with our Getting Started video tutorial page.

These introductory tutorials cover everything from animation styles to adding voice to your videos. Watch this video, and those linked below, with the Vyond Studio open to follow along.

• Animation styles overview
• Using Vyond scene templates
• How to create a custom character
• Character animation
• Enter and exit effects
• Scene transitions
• Adding voice to your video
• Advanced audio editing
• Keyboard shortcuts

Webinars

Beyond tutorials, you can build your knowledge of video and Vyond with our webinars. These sessions are typically 45 minutes long (plus Q&A), so they cover a lot of ground on specific video topics. You can also check out our library of past webinars. This intermediate webinar, for example, will teach you how to take your videos from good to great by using scene transitions, camera movement, and sound effects.

Test your knowledge

Here are some exercises to complete in Vyond Studio to apply what you’ve learned. Search our help center if you get stuck.

1. Change your character’s action to “sit” and make the facial expression “confused.”
2. Make a pig fly from the bottom left corner all the way off the screen.
3. In one sequence, make your character walk, stand, and then jump.
4. Show the change of seasons by showing your character in a summer outfit, and then a winter outfit.
5. Import an image of your favorite place and have your character talk about why he/she loves it so much.
6. Use whiteboard animation to draw a monkey and a banana. Extra credit: erase the banana and replace it with a chocolate bar.
7. Create a chart that compares the popularity of your three favorite sports.
8. Find a template that allows you to insert a screenshot into a computer frame then slowly zoom in on that screen.

Vyond customer support

Have a question about Vyond? Our team of experts is here to help.

• Vyond Help Center: Search through topics and explore Vyond resources to answer your questions.
• Email customer support: You can reach our support team at support@vyond.com. We typically respond within 24 hours.
• Call customer support: You can call our support team at (888) 360-9639. We are available Monday – Friday, midnight Pacific to 5:30 pm Pacific (excluding holidays).
• Premium support: Vyond Starter, Professional, and Enterprise customers have access to live chat support. Vyond Professional and Enterprise members have a priority spot in our service queue.

Showcase

As a newbie, you can learn a lot from others’ Vyond creations. It’s helpful and motivating to see what’s possible in Vyond Studio with time and experience. That’s why we created the Vyond Customer Showcase and Templates Showcase pages where you can explore stand-out video examples from the Vyond team and our customers.

The videos are organized by different use cases—training, marketing, branding—so you can find examples that are the most helpful for your work.

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 Start a 14-day free trial of Vyond.

Step 5: Storyboard and finalize your script

Now that you understand how Vyond works, you know what’s available to you visually and can start storyboarding. Storyboarding is critical because it speeds up production. By envisioning the entire video, you know exactly what to record (or animate) and focus on during the production stage.

The most common way to storyboard is drawing by hand. You don’t need to be a great artist, and the amount of detail you include can depend on how simple or complex your video will be. A storyboard needs at least enough information to give stakeholders a sense of what’s happening.

If you don’t feel comfortable drawing, Vyond is a great tool for quickly putting together storyboards. The characters, props, and settings are already designed—you only need to drag them to where you want them to create each frame.

Always make final modifications to your script during the storyboarding process. The more you can communicate through imagery, the more powerful your video will be.

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Step 6: Create your characters

Creating characters is one of the most exciting parts of using Vyond! Our characters are customizable from head to toe. Pick outfits to show off a character’s personality, and add different eye and mouth shapes to convey their emotions and expressions.

On the free trial, you will have access to our three animation styles and two character creators—Business Friendly and Whiteboard. If you choose to upgrade to a Vyond Professional plan, you will also have access to the Contemporary Character Creator that offers even more customization options, such as changing characters’ height.

We recommend creating your character first and then making the rest of your video. This order is more efficient than switching back and forth from the Character Creator to your scene in Vyond Studio.

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Step 7. Make your video

With your characters built, you’re ready to make the rest of your video in Vyond. With all your pre-production work set, making a video could be the easiest part.

Here are the basic elements you’ll need to make your video feel polished and complete:

• Scenery and props: Find a template that’s pre-built with scenic elements and props to save you time.
• Camera movement: The view of the camera guides viewers’ focus throughout your video, so they’re focusing on the most important elements. Check out this help article and this webinar on camera movement to learn more.
• Voiceover and lip sync: You can either create audio narration through typing in text or by recording your own voiceover. We recommend using the text-to-speech voice while you work and then adding your own recording at the end, in case you need to make any dialogue adjustments. Vyond characters will automatically lip sync to your dialogue.
• Music and sound effects: Both audio elements add emotion and realism to your videos, so audiences are more engaged. Check out this help article on adding music and sound effects to scenes.
• Scene transitions: Watch this help article and this tutorial to learn how to add scene transitions.
• Character movement: Add your characters back in and plot out motion paths for them to walk or run in your video. You can learn how to set character movements in this article.

All of these elements together create a full, sensory experience that engages your audience as they watch your video.

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Step 8. Upgrade to a Vyond subscription

From a free trial account, you are able to explore Vyond and create watermarked videos. However, you’re not able to download a video on a free trial account, and you’ll only be able to use Vyond for 14 days. For regular access to Vyond with the option to download, you’ll need to upgrade to one of the following subscriptions.

Starter

Perfect for individuals, Vyond Starter offers core video creation features, plus:

• Access to AI avatars and tools
• 600+ high-quality test to speech voices
• Screen & webcam recording.
• Includes 10,000 credits per user, per month

Professional

The Professional plan is perfect for businesses and 1-5 user teams. The plan includes all of the Starter features, plus:

• Team collaboration tools
• Access to 4M+ Shutterstock assets
• Instant translation into 70+ languages
• Speech Enhancer (powered by Dolby.io)
• Includes 20,000 credits per user, per month

Enterprise

Built for large teams with individualized needs. Contact sales for multi-seat pricing. Includes all of the Professional features, plus:

• 100+ WellSaid AI voices
• Brand management tools
• Advanced team collaboration
• Enterprise security features
• Virtually unlimited credits

Learn more about Vyond’s subscription plans.

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Step 9: Practice and play

Set yourself up with good, productive habits by learning from the resources in this post. You may be using Vyond for work, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be fun too! Play around and make fun videos for yourself, your family, or your co-workers. This is a great way to learn. Try out new ideas and don’t be too hard on yourself if your videos aren’t perfect right away. Keep at it and let us know if you need help.

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Step 10: Take your videos to the next level

Vyond makes it easy to make videos, but your video strategy will require more than that. Take your videos to the next level with these tips for sharing and improving your video distribution.

Video authoring and interactivity

Authoring your video with interactive elements transforms the video viewing experience. You can create a choose-your-own-adventure video, give your learners quizzes or skill checks, gamify your content, create clickable menus, and more.

Many Vyond customers use tools such as Articulate Storyline, Adobe Captivate, Trivantis (Lectora), iSpring, and others, to add interactivity to their Vyond videos.

Video hosting

Your videos need a place to live when you’re done with them. With a host, you have a secure place to store and share your videos.

Here are a few industry-specific video hosting suggestions.

• eLearning and HR: You most likely want your videos to be private, so consider storing them on a learning management system (LMS), such as Litmos or Docebo. Or post your videos privately on your employee intranet portal, such as Unily.
• Marketing: Most of your videos will be public, and you’ll want to distribute them as widely as possible. Wistia, Brightcove, Vidyard, and Vzaar are excellent options for marketers as they allow you to easily upload and embed videos, and they track viewer engagement.
• Enterprise: Large organizations with specific video hosting requirements should consider Qumu, Kaltura, Panopto, and Brightcove.

Of course, Vimeo and YouTube has distribution benefits, and it’s free, but it’s also not the ideal service to use as your primary storage and distribution channel. YouTube gives you less control over the viewing experience, as users will see commercials and outside videos on their sidebar, but its affordability makes it a considerable choice.

Advance your video skills

Make the most of your Vyond subscription by continually building your video skills. Revisit the knowledge-building tips in Step 4 and check out video resources outside of Vyond. Our video production team recommends No Film School, and our marketing team has learned quite a bit from Wistia.

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Anyone Can Become a Vyond Pro

Vyond is meant for people with all levels of experience—from the novice to the film school grad. With this accessibility, it doesn’t take long to become a whiz at using Vyond. Follow these ten steps and you’ll quickly be on your way to making professional animated videos regularly for your organization.

Make a video

The post Everything You Need to Make a Video in Vyond appeared first on Vyond.