What To Do If Your Online Course Videos Aren’t ‘Hollywood PERFECT’

“What If My Video’s Are Not ‘Hollywood’ Perfect?” Ever heard yourself say something like this?

If not having a Hollywood film studio is stopping you from creating your online courses, then this article is for you….

@sarahcordiner

You 👏 don’t 👏 need 👏 fancy 👏 equipment 👏 to 👏 record 👏 an 👏online course 👏. This is one of the biggest roadblocks for people creating their online courses, consider yourself now free of this limiting belief! #coursecreator #edupreneur #onlinecourses #onlinecoursecreators #creatorcoach #videoediting

♬ SUN GOES DOWN – Andreas Roehrig

I have taken $5 courses on Udemy that were way better than ones that I’ve paid in excess of $25,000 for.  Fact.  And by ‘better’, I mean what I learned from them.  

The $25,000+ courses I have taken had all the lights and bling; the private multi-million dollar mansion, the showy email campaigns, closed captioned videos, adrenaline-pumping intro music and big Facebook groups to boot.  But almost every time, it’s been the simple, homemade $5 courses that win my highest ratings.

This is because today, quality is not determined by how long a course is, whether it’s been filmed by a professional crew over looking the most expensive suburb on earth, or how many effects have been used to animate the speakers on-screen name.  

In a world saturated in information, ‘quality’ is often determined by the learners who feel that a course has given them the information they wanted, as quickly and directly as possible.  

Yes, it’s great if you can afford to buy yourself a home studio, or better yet, hire a professional film crew, but for many edupreneurs starting out this isn’t an option and i would highly encourage you to not let the idea that you need a Hollywood production, be what stops you sharing your expertise with the world.

These days it is becoming more and more commonplace and accepted that freelancers and self-employed business owners work from home, usually in a spare room or a corner of the kitchen table.  Remember that people are coming to you and your courses for the content, not to judge your backdrop.

If you are ashamed of your lounge room wallpaper, you could buy a cheap sheet of material to place behind you, or get a cheap banner with your business logo made and block off your surroundings that way.  

If you don’t have very good lighting and are worried that will affect your professionalism, then simply record ‘voice over’ slides or screencast videos.  

Your sound is important if you want to meet the quality criteria of online course marketplaces and enable your learners to actually be able to clearly hear what you are saying; but having a Hollywood production of a training video is certainly not a necessary requirement to help change people’s lives.  

No online course is stuck that way the first time it’s published.  

Simply upgrade your content as you start bringing more money in and becoming more experienced.  

There are a number of free tools and apps out there that enable you to create really professional looking videos from home, without the cost.  

Use your iPhone to do your filming.

Use the free trials of video editing software like Camtasia to do your edits.

In fact, my first home studio (which included two large soft box lights on stands and a backdrop in three colors with the stand) only set me back  $256.  Before I had my professional green screen I went to the fabric store and paid a few dollars for a big green sheet of material!

I made that back in the first 15 minutes of releasing my first online course.

Simply do a little learning on YouTube, or if you really want to get stuck in to course creation, take my online course on ‘How To Create Profitable Courses’ and with a green sheet of material and some good lighting, you can easily produce studio quality training videos from your kitchen.

If you can’t, just remember that SOMETHING is always always better than nothing.