Geschreven door Peter van der Reijden | May 02, 2012
A webcam exercise has three parts: an assignment (context and instruction) a clip with an actor and the response of the participant. My last blog was about writing the assignment, this one about making a good clip.
Tips for the script
Suppose your assignment is as follows:
You are a salesmanager and in a meeting with client Bob his willingness to buy seems to decrease. Find out why.
What is the text for actor Bob? For example:
Lets take some time, perhaps its better to discuss this again after the summer, there is a lot going on in our firm and I prefer a good landing of your proposition.
The precise text is not that important but it is relevant to consider a few ‘rules’:
- Keep it short, between 5-50 seconds
- Stay close to the learning objectives and goals, 1 exercise=1 goal and often this difficult enough. It helps the coach to give his feedback directly on the learning objective
- Trigger the participant by provocation, formulation, too vague or too clear etc.
Tips for acting
Good acting for a webcam exercise is about
- Really empathize with that skeptic customer, angry colleague etc.
- Support the message with appropriate emotion (better a bit too much than too little)
- A credible actor in terms of pronunciation, clothing, setting
Tips for recording the clip
Because most people are accustomed to YouTube quality and the goal is working material rather than a short movie, we recommend to keep recording simple and practical:
- A well lit area without environment issues that distract
- Use a fast and pc compatible device such as a small camera or Iphone or use the option ‘record from webcam’ in the TrainTool author environment
- Work towards a clip that is 1:1 useful so you do not need to edit. That means focusing on start/stop moment and better 5x times over rather than cutting.
Good luck!