Screencasts are short to medium length movies where the action on screen is primarily made up of software use on a computer desktop. Over the last few years software companies have started to use screencasts more and more, both to market their products as well as educate and train existing users. Clickable Bliss has produced many high quality screencasts and would love to work with your company to create one of your own.

Our production process

After hiring Clickable Bliss to create your screencast this is the basic production process you’ll experience:

  1. The first thing we do is work on a screenplay. Like the screenplay of a real play, we write a story documenting what will be heard from the narrator as well as the actions happening on the stage/screen (what section of the software we are in, what buttons are being clicked, and so on).

  2. When the screenplay is close to final we record a temporary audio track. This not only helps us to estimate the time length and pacing of the screencast but it also helps us make final changes to the screenplay. It turns out, sometimes a section may not flow as well being spoken as it did being read on paper.

  3. Once a temp audio track is done we will do the actual capture of the video. While capturing the video the main goal is to capture each distinct action as was described in the screenplay. We don’t give much consideration to timing, except to make sure their is a distinct pause between each action so that we can stretch and trim the time as needed in editing.

  4. Once we have temp audio and video we will start to edit it together using Final Cut Pro. Using Final Cut Pro lets us have precise editing to make sure we get each frame we need, and get rid of each frame we don’t.

  5. After pulling together the initial edits and getting client approval that we are on track we’ll clean up the movie, removing software pauses, speeding up typing, and highlighting areas being discussed on screen using spotlight effects.

  6. We use this final editing time to capture the real audio as well, using professional voice talent in a real studio. This does require a slight amount of re-editing but it’s usually nothing too bad (as we keep the raw footage flexible with the pauses as stated earlier).

  7. After all of the editing is done, for the final release we experiment and tweak with compression settings to get the highest quality / smallest size versions of your movie. Thankfully due to the nature of screencasts (low frame possibilities, not a ton of on-screen motion) historically we’ve been able to get very small movie sizes, resulting in faster play for end users as well as small bandwidth bills.

  8. When the project is all over we will provide the full uncompressed movie to the client on a data DVD so they can use it as they wish.

Samples and Testimonials

One example of our screencast work is the Introduction to Subversion screencast we released in April of 2006. The screencast has been very successful, getting thousands of views and lots of buzz from subversion experts and newbies alike.

A commercial example of our work can been seen in the Introduction to Sandvox screencast we did for Karelia Software:

We wanted to give potential Sandvox users a taste of what could be done with our program, and a screencast fit the bill. Clickable Bliss put together a presentation, with our input along the way, that turned out just great. Not only does it show our potential users what they can do with our program, it also serves as a tutorial to get our new users underway. Our basic support requests have gone down since we put the screencast online, and we’ve received many compliments for the screencast!

~ Dan Wood, Karelia Software

Prices

Prices can vary according to a number of factors:

  • How long will the screencast be? The more time, the more editing needed.
  • If the screencast involves assets (sample documents, sample websites, photos) are you supplying them or is Clickable Bliss building them?
  • Is the software stable? The more stable the less heavy editing we need to do to work around bugs or changed UI.
  • Do you want to use professional voice talent? Usually professional voice talent is best, but we can work with you on other options.

Voice talent is booked by the hour, and the most we can realistically capture in that hour is 15-20 minutes which totals about $650 at the studio I currently use. This covers, the talent, the studio time, the audio engineer, backup of the session, and media costs.

Clickable Bliss production is charged at an hourly rate of $75/hour and can range about 3-6 hours for each minute of final footage. This is a generalized average and specific projects can and will vary.

To get a quote, please contact us. To see samples, see the sidebar to the right.