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A how-to video has one job: someone watches it and can then do the thing. That sounds obvious, and it is exactly why most how-to video fails. It gets made from the expert’s point of view rather than the beginner’s, covers the whole subject rather than the single task, and skips the step where people actually go wrong.
We build how-to video from the other end. We find where people get stuck, script the task from a standing start, and hold on the moments that matter rather than the moments that are easy to show. Rancho Water, JM Bullion and the Accounting Aid Society all use videos built this way.
Common uses: customer instruction, self-service support, procedure and SOP training, and public information. Production starts at $2,500 and a single video typically takes two to four weeks.
Six how-to and procedural projects, covering a domestic repair task, a warehouse packing procedure, an industrial process and a piece of official paperwork most people would rather not open.
We find the failure point first. Support tickets, complaint logs, the questions your team answers ten times a week: that is where the video should focus. The task then gets written out step by step with someone who does it daily, and we cut everything the viewer already knows how to do.
How-to scripts are written to be followed rather than admired. Short sentences, one instruction at a time, and a pause where the viewer needs to act. We storyboard so each step has a frame that could stand alone as a diagram, because that is the frame people screenshot.
You get the master, captions and a transcript, plus chapter markers so a viewer can jump straight to step four. Where the video supports a help center we also deliver still frames from the storyboard as step images, which gives you a written version of the same instructions at no extra cost.
Experts skip steps without noticing, because the skipped step is the one they stopped thinking about years ago. We script from the viewer’s starting point, and the awkward questions we ask during discovery are how those gaps get found.
Combining five tasks into one long video makes it useless at the moment of need. Separate short videos get watched, get found in search, and can be updated one at a time.
A visual-first build, with each step shown rather than only described, means the video still works with the sound off, in a noisy warehouse, or dubbed into another language.
Scope and sequence. One task per video, written from the viewer’s starting knowledge, with the tricky step given more time than the easy ones. Add captions and chapter markers, because most people arrive part-way through the task looking for one specific moment.
As short as the task allows, usually sixty seconds to three minutes. Complex procedures are better split into a short series than compressed into one file, because a viewer mid-task needs to find step four without scrubbing.
Filmed where the physical object matters and can be shot clearly. Animated where the process is invisible, dangerous, hypothetical or spread over time, and wherever a cutaway view helps. Water moving through a wall, for instance, is not something a camera can show.
Yes, and a series is the right shape for support content. We build a template once so every video looks the same, then produce against your ticket data, starting with the questions that cost your team the most time.
Often the same video serves both, though the tone differs. Customer-facing how-to has to be welcoming about the fact that the viewer does not know something. Internal procedure video can assume more context and move faster.
From $2,500 for a single video. A batch is quoted as a project and costs less per video, because the template, motion system and voice are established once and then reused.
We write them, working from a session with whoever actually performs the task. Written procedures are a useful input but rarely usable as a script, since they tend to be complete rather than clear.
Captions and transcripts are standard. Additional languages are quoted per video and cost considerably less than the original, because only the voiceover and on-screen text change.
