Video Lecture Start Sequence

I have spent the past couple of days making the default start-up sequence for all of my videos (using Adobe Flash Professional CC... but also using Adobe Audition for the sound recording/editing, Adobe Premiere for the Video editing, Adobe After Effects for the "green screen" alpha channel effects, and Intewrite Video Capture to capture my pen/graphics in raw form to import into Premiere)

I am very happy with it all so far.

After logging on with the "colbysworld word of the day" there is a little "get ready" screen to remind the students to get out there supplies. Click "play" to preview/print notes.

The "get ready" screen that reminds students that
they need to have the notes/pencil in hand

After clicking <play> a screen appears that gives a preview of the notes that the student will be taking. The preview screen shows blue areas where the student will be adding notes. It also has a "download your notes" icon in the bottom/right corner that students can click on to open a new browser window that will display the correct .pdf file for the students to print.

Preview screen for the notes to be taken
(the notes are scrolling on the screen)

DOWNLOAD TIME: At first I thought that the ENTIRE set of videos would have to download BEFORE the Flash file would even open... which WOULD HAVE BEEN tough because that would mean that a student would be staring at a completely white square for up to a few minutes (time it takes for 20+ minute videos on a slow internet connection to download).... HOWEVER, that is not exactly the case.... The program will "play" up to the point where it needs to download a video... and THEN the screen will stop with whatever is on the screen while the video downloads...

This is actually pretty nice because NOW I can place an animated icon that gives the student the indication that SOMETHING (ie: a video download) is happening.... I created a mini-image of my colbysworld log with an animated satellite flying around it.

A little, animated icon that tells the student a video is loading

The first little video that will download is going to be the "colbysworld splash" video... This is a 24-second, animated snipped that shows me sketching the colbsworld logo in time-lapse, fast speed, and then other things are added and cheaply (meaning, I did it on the fly and not very professionally) animated... In the background my daughter is saying "colbysworld" in various ways.... I made a "sound mix" that gave it a sort of "rhythm".... I like it.

A scene from the 24-second, animated, "splash video"

The main program that is allowing me to do all of this is Adobe Flash Professional. It uses timelines in a similar way that Adobe Premier (video editor) does to control events on the screen. HOWEVER, it also uses ActionScript 3 for programming buttons and such. For example: I put VIDEO CUEs in the colbysworld splash video that tell the Flash program when to STOP the "video downloading" image and, later, when to START downloading the NEXT video to watch.

Adobe Flash Professional - Timeline for first part of interactive video play

Time used: 10 hours