For the past six months, GD Media has been working with Safety in Design, filming and producing video for their new e-learning course on the CDM Regulations, the rules that cover health and safety on building sites.
If you haven’t come across them, Safety in Design specialise in CDM training for the people who plan, design and manage construction projects. Their view is that a tick-box approach to safety doesn’t work. Instead, they help people properly understand their duties, improve the culture on site and feel confident they’re doing things the right way. Judging by the feedback on their courses, a big part of that comes down to Liz and the energy she brings to her teaching.
Our job was to capture that same energy on camera, so people taking the course online get as much from it as they would in the room.
The biggest challenge with training videography like this is consistency. We filmed with Liz across a number of sessions over several months, but the finished course needs to feel like one continuous piece. If the framing shifts slightly or the lighting changes from one module to the next, learners notice it straight away, and it pulls them out of the content.
So every time we met with Liz, we made sure we recreated the same frame and the same lighting setup. That meant noting camera positions, lens choices and light placements, and checking everything against previous footage before we started rolling. It takes a bit of extra time at the start of each session, but it makes all the difference in the edit.
Sound was just as important as the picture. With e-learning video, the audio carries most of the information, and people will forgive a slightly soft shot far sooner than they’ll put up with poor sound. We gave the audio recording the same care as the filming, so every word comes across clearly and sounds consistent from one session to the next.
It’s been a really rewarding project, and it’s great to be helping make important safety training easier to follow and more engaging.
If you’re a business in Somerset, Devon or across the South West and need training videos, e-learning content or corporate filming, get in touch. As a videography team based in Taunton, we’d love to hear about your project.
