We just watched an educational video! Are you sure? I was so entertained!

This week’s video style inspiration comes from one of my favorite tv hosts, Adam Savage. Adam Savage was one of the quirky characters of the dynamic duo c from the Discovery Channel’s Mythbusters. That tv show has recently come to an end, which has made me sad. However, now Adam has more time to dedicate to other projects such as the website Tested.com. This site is dedicated to posting challenges to its fans, and it also shows its viewers how to make some pretty cool stuff, all in the name of art, science, math, and tech.

Back to the task at hand, talking about great video. There are many things I love about this video. The fun playful approach makes me want to watch this video from beginning to end; by the way, it is the perfect length at 60 seconds. Two, the impromptu guerilla non-professional style approach to the shooting lends a feeling of authenticity to the content. Modern video viewers, who tend to watch content on their phones, love watching user generated content. Three, quick cuts and energetic video game based music drives the pacing, which keeps the viewer engaged. Four, the steps in the video are numbered, which helps with a teaching style aspect. We, the viewer, can easily follow along and thus, we feel we can replicate the processes scene. Lastly, the use of on-screen graphics (text) informs the audience what is happening, without a boring distracting voice-over. The text overlays the on-screen action. If this video had a voice-over, it would be a boring yawnfest. The only problem is the translucent quality of the text. Any light colored, or white colors found in the video caused issues with the transparent text. If the text were opaque, this problem would be solved. The creators of the video did use a fun vibrant three color palette. The use of color in the text is great. The colors are used in a way to replace bold-faced fonts, different sized text heads, and to create visual emphasis to help speed up the readability.

Well done, Mr. Adam Savage and team. This video style would work amazingly well for math or science based educational content. Does this give you any ideas? Now, go out and create educational awesome!

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