The Complete Talking Head Video Production Masterclass

This instructor has found a very crucial under-served niche and covered it exhaustively in a clear, concise, and highly-engaging manner, leaving no stone unturned in the process. Whether your place is in front of or behind the camera — or both — this course is for you… a clear home run.

fantastic course!!! I’ve learned far more than I anticipated and the range of information covered addressed things I was not thinking I needed to know, but I did. I have already begun utilizing what I’m learning and there is much more content to consume. Highly recommended.

not what I was expecting at all. The content was not relevant, no real information o lighting, camera settings, edition, just public speaking tips. The instructor was not compelling, I really wish I could get a refund on this course… but just started watching it after 30 days of buying it… very disappointed.

ADDITION TO REPLY TO TJ’s REQUEST FOR FEEDBACK:

Hi TJ, of course I will give you feedback in relation to my 1 star review. I will try to break it down as descriptively as possible.

SUMMARY:
A. Rename the course to reflect what it truly is.
B. Improve the Production Quality of the course. Video and Audio
C. Reduce fluff and repetitive content.
D. Articulate the content in a way which is easy to follow, thus learn.
E. Less is more.

1. Very misleading title. The definition of production in regard to Video production is:

“the process of producing video content… …There are three stages of video production: pre-production, production (also known as principal photography), and post-production. Pre-production involves all of the planning aspects of the video production process before filming begins. This includes scriptwriting, scheduling, logistics, and other administrative duties. Production is the phase of video production which captures the video content (moving images / videography) and involves filming the subject(s) of the video. Post-production is the action of selectively combining those video clips through video editing into a finished product that tells a story or communicates a message in either a live event setting (live production), or after an event has occurred (post-production).”

Even though your course covers aspects related to some of these issues, mainly in the pre-production stage, it is more of a media training course, than the production of talking head videos. Production and post production have very strong technical aspects, such as lighting, camera and lens choices, set design and or backdrop choices microphones, audio recording, and later software for editing, editing techniques, etc.

While your course may prepare someone that has absolutely no prior knowledge in communication and public speaking into presenting themselves in a talking head environment it covers absolutely none of the technical aspects to an acceptable degree, and these are a Vital part of a “Complete talking head video Production Masterclass”.

It may be a complete course on media training but definitely not on video production.

Once the expectations generated by the title and course description are so far apart from the delivered content, there is a huge dissonance in the student, at least in my case. I have little to no need in media training as I have enough experience on the matter, I wanted to dive into the production aspects.

2. There is an insane amount of 1 -2 min videos which are very difficult to filter and navigate to find relevant info within the staggering (and not in a good way) 322 clips that comprise your course. Which even makes it cumbersome to give specific feedback. There is a good part of the content which is just repetition of the same messages within different contexts, but essentially adds nothing new.

3. The course structure lack articulation and logical flow. The videos and sections lack a connecting storyline, they seem all over the place with no particular order or check list structure. So one needs to fish around the course and make sense of the content for oneself which is not very efficient or pleasant as a student.

4. There is quite a bit on crafting messages and tips on how to “direct” talent on video, even though directing is a different job than producer and hence are differentiated as professions, same thing happens with script writing. But again there is no Methodology being proposed, no order of steps or sequentiality to what you teach, it seems more as a recollection of tips and tricks on a vast number of subjects often not related to video production itself.

5. The technical quality of the videos is (i’m sorry to say) just not good, lighting is inconsistent and poorly set up, some videos bright, others dark, even though they seem to be recorded in the same setting. Audio quality is poor, background noise, static, variable volume from lecture to lecture. Lens selection and focus quality also seem pretty basic. Considering this is supposed to be a Video production course, that seems like a Cardinal Sin. Your videos should be an example of pristine production, or at the very least not be lacking basic principles.

6. The course seems to resemble a bit your teaching portfolio, of over 188 courses many of them 10hr + which if I had to bet, are probably comprised of reorganization of similar if not identical material. The course seems impressive at first sight but then just appears to have a lot of fluff in order to fill out the hrs of lecture. Less is more, when less is done better.

7. You are an expert in communication, so the misleading title and tricks and omissions mentioned before lead me to think they are not intentional. If it were an engineer that misleads in the title I could give him the benefit of the doubt on whether its intentional or just lack of communication skills, but in your case, I find it difficult to make that argument.

All in all, I have great respect for you as a businessman, as you have almost 1,000,000 students, over 188 courses, and your marketing skills got me to click and add up to that, more power to you. And hey, even if your product is not to my liking I have nothing to say for the thousands of others who think it’s acceptable, even great. But, I take a LOT of online courses, and have been doing so for many years, I teach and consult for a living over the past 15 years so I have high standards and a habit of not keeping my opinions to myself.

My best advice for you, if you truly want to improve the Quality of your courses is to take the “Udemy Course Creation Blueprint Online” course by “Musicians Inspired”, Which is probably one of the best courses I have ever taken and outlines clearly, simply and in brevity, most of what I think fails in your course, and a lot more.

On the marketing side of things, your result speak for you, you are highly successful Udemy teacher, so Whatever you are doing on that end clearly works. But the world of online learning is rapidly evolving and the standards are quickly rising, what may have been a decent course years ago, now faces fierce competition.

I chose this course because I want to record a message to my employees by myself to ensure that the message come across. The tips are quite helpful. The only star I did not give to a „talking head“ I saved because he keeps assuring how useful his tips are. Which they are! Just let me figure it out, don’t let him repeating himself. It might be a part of the process though so I don’t make the Same Impression Recording my Video. Let’s see

very good message

Perfect match so far and fits my expectations and needs.