According to the eLearning Guild, 90 percent of organizations today make training videos to educate their staff. Most are software videos, recorded at trainers’ desks using screen-capture software. However, an increasing number of trainers are adopting television-style filming techniques to take their videos to the next level. This approach is great, because it doesn’t just make training videos more engaging, which improves learning impact. It improves the branding of the training departments within the organizations.

However, as we become excited about the possibilities of making better videos, it’s easy to forget the inherent risks involved in making content. Learning executives and training managers should make sure the people who make training videos consider the risks of production, evaluate their likelihood and apply strategies that prevent them.

There are multiple considerations when doing a risk review for making training videos. Here are just three.

1. Production Risks

Video productions poses multiple risks, including personal security, personal safety and environment.

Security is easily overlooked if you’re shooting most of your video on site at your organization, but if you leave the premises, it’s an issue. When shooting, the videographer’s entire attention is focused on the viewfinder, not the surroundings. They’re framing a shot, ensuring it’s well-lit and in focus. It’s easy for someone to pick their pocket. Consider having employees work in pairs when they are filming.

Personal safety is also important. Accidents on film sets often result from simple mistakes, like tripping over a cable, being burned by hot portable lights or falling off an unstable object when filming high-angle shots. Often, external issues are involved – for example, if you’re filming in a parking lot or doing a dolly shot and walking backward.

Environmental conditions present risks, too. Industry veterans have plenty of stories to tell about the weather, like getting frostbite because they didn’t wear enough warm clothes, getting sunburned or dehydrated because they forgot to prepare for the elements, or tripping on slippery pavements due to rain.

Make it policy for trainers to do a basic risk assessment before producing a video. Brainstorm what could go wrong, its likelihood, how to prevent it and what to do if it does go wrong.

2. IP Risks

A significant risk to training organizations is breach of intellectual property (IP). If your training department does not have licenses for the music, stock footage or images used in your videos, you’re increasing the risk for court action.

Don’t be fooled by websites that offer “free” music or stock videos. Many don’t have permission to give you those assets. Subscribe to a reputable stock library that provides a copy of the license for you. If people appear in your video, ensure they give permission. You don’t want to find yourself pulling a 10-minute video from a learning library because someone complained he or she hadn’t been asked.

The best way to minimize IP risk, whether it’s talent, branding, music or footage, is to keep paperwork and have a system for filing it. That way, you can quickly respond to any requests for proof.

3. Asset Management

Asset management is easy to overlook. It generally takes two to three hours to make an engaging one-minute video. If you think about that time in terms of the trainer’s salary, just 10 minutes of video is a considerable investment. You should protect it.

Make sure your final video is stored securely. Think carefully about where it’s published and the IP asset controls you institute to ensure people can’t use or steal them. Also, consider a system for protecting the individual assets used within your videos, such as B-roll or actuality footage. When people return from a shoot, ensure they upload video files to a folder that’s backed up. Be sure those files are renamed following whatever file naming convention you use at your organization.

Managing the Risk in Making Videos

Tomorrow’s training departments will increasingly look like newsrooms, where a part of the trainer’s role, in addition to design and facilitation, will be curation and creation of media content to support learning. We’re at the stage in the evolution of the training department where making video is no longer haphazard and professional protocols and processes need to be implemented. Risk is a key part of that development.