If you use Camtasia Studio from Techsmith to create screencast videos, we think you’ll find some really valuable information here.

The site has 3 levels of access:

1. Non- Members – these folks are probably new or here for the first time and haven’t registered as a user on the site. They can see only the most freely available articles and resources.

2. Free Members – By registering for free, members get access to more articles and resources and also can receive the Learn Camtasia Newsletter.

3. Full Members – are customers who have purchased the full Learn Camtasia Training Course.

Here’s a quick video tour to let you know what’s what:

[video coming soon]

Our Mission?

"We help online businesses, educators, and trainers learn to make Camtasia videos that boost the bottom line faster and easier even if they are completely stumped, frustrated , and don’t know where to start."

And what "bottom line" is that?

Well, that depends! If you’re making videos for marketing or to grow your business then the bottom line is pretty much what you would expect: More cash in the ‘ole bank account after everything is said and done…

But if you use Camtasia for education, to teach and instruct? Then the bottom line might be effectively reaching and teaching more students in more powerful ways than previously possible!

Or training professionals creating videos that hit the all important points of engaging viewers, providing clear, concise instructions, and successfully getting your information across.

Here’s a Special Preview of Module 1 that explains the course and has some good tips for you:

As we mentioned in the sample above, the course has two additional sets of tutorials where Lon and Michelle walk through two real-world examples of EXACTLY how they created a couple of the most common and useful Camtasia videos.

Here’s what the final completed projects look like:

You see, as experienced trainers, Lon and Michelle know that one of the best ways to learn is by EXAMPLE.

And by following the step-by-step instruction of how these were created, YOU can have your very own, completely customized version of these projects!

NOBODY else provides this level of instruction designed to walk you through getting your Camtasia videos DONE…quickly.

Put this together with the twice weekly personal coaching and Q&A webinars where we will SHOW you the answers to your questions and problems and you’ll find that the Learn Camtasia Course delivers exceptional value. 

The fact is, lots of people use Camtasia for LOTS of different reasons!

There’s something for everyone here so…

Browse…participate…comment…enjoy!

- Lon & Michelle

In case you missed it, here it is again:

Me? I saw a brilliant video…almost a work of art. The combination of imagery, perfect music, and use of screen capture “scenes” put together into a 60 second collage was awesome.

But when it was over, I immediately thought, “Whoa! I could do THAT!”

Since I’m speaking at Bob “The Teacher” Jenkins S.I.M.P.L.E. Event this month, I put together my own little “search story”. Here it is:

[Click to Watch]

The really sweet part? I don’t have to pay $3 million bucks to air it! Actually, this clip is WAYYYY long because I couldn’t resist putting in the Cape Fear clip, so the 3 1/2 minute video would cost $10.5 million during that TV time slot.

The biggest concept to understand if you want to make one of these yourself is that it’s made up of individual “scenes” captured with Camtasia individually and then stitched together during editing.

If you tried to just grab ALL the footage in one recording shot? Hmmm…that would be VERY messy and you would never end up with anything that looked smooth. The biggest problem is that most of the scenes are “sped up” to give that cool fast typing effect.

I tried using Camtasia’s Clip Speed feature for this at first but since you can’t see the effects of the speed up until AFTER you produce, it was a TOTAL nightmare (come on Techsmith!! Uggg…).

I gave up and dropped the clips into Sony Vegas Movie Studio Platinum where the whole thing was a complete snap and I could monitor the timing and tweaks in real time. Syncing the music, sounds, and other audio was also a breeze in Vegas.

I exported to a AVI file and did the Pan & Zooms in Camtasia (which is easier than Vegas to me), and rendered it out to MP4 Flash.

These kinds of videos aren’t new. They are called Search Stories and you can see other examples on this YouTube Channel.

A big thanks to Andy Jenkins (The Video Boss) for his blog post that gave me the inspiration and motivation to whip this out.

BTW…it took me about 7.5 hours, start to finish. Planning (as usual) took the biggest percentage of time (about 3.5 hours), setting up my “shots” and rehearsal about 2 hours, and the rest in editing and final production.

What do you think?

Lon Naylor