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How Enterprise Teams Are Building Scalable Video Studios · Broadcast2Post by Key Code Media

• 0:00
  Speaker A: Foreign. Welcome back to Broadcast to Post. I'm Michael Kammes, and today we're digging into how corporate content production is changing from simple recordings and webinars to fully built studio workflows. We'll kick things off with a quick explainer on the top ways companies are using video production to improve corporate communications. And then we'll talk with Paul Moore from AWS about how they're leveraging video to communicate more effectively across their organization. Let's face it, corporate communications can be kind of boring. Think low resolution zoom calls, static slides, poor audio, and maybe only one camera pointed at one person's face while they read long updates off a screen. But that's changing today. Video is becoming one of the most important tools that companies use to train employees and to communicate with teams, run live events, and create content that actually gets watched. In fact, 91% of businesses use video as a marketing tool, 93% of marketers say video is an important part of their overall strategy. And the enterprise video market is projected to grow from almost 22 billion in 2023 to just over 61 billion by 2032. That's not a trend, that's a shift. So let's break down the top ways companies are using video production to improve corporate communications. First is training. A lot of companies are no longer treating training like a one time video conference call. They're building full video first learning environments. And that makes sense because online learning is basically standard now. One study found that around 98% of corporations have adopted or plan to adopt online learning. And online training can take 40 to 60% less time than traditional in person training. So instead of just showing up for a live class, employees and partners can go through structured learning modules, certification courses, and recorded lessons that they can then revisit later. And the rooms are changing too. Companies are building training spaces with PTZ cameras, auto tracking systems, better microphones, and simple touchscreen controls so instructors can run everything without needing a full tech crew in the room. That means the same session can work for in person attendees, remote viewers, and future playback inside an lms. It's a smarter, more flexible way to train people, and it makes the content have a much longer shelf life. Next up, executive and internal communications. See, this is where companies are making leadership communication feel more polished and more human. Instead of a basic webcam town hall, companies are using proper video production for employee updates, leadership messages, and virtual company meetings. And it matters. According to Alert Software, 76% of companies using video improved internal communication with remote employees, and 44% said video helped employees feel more engaged with senior executives. That's huge because the goal is not just to send information via a monologue. The goal is to actually connect with people. That's why some companies are turning conference rooms into easy to use podcast or video studios. With a good camera, solid lighting, clean audio, and the right switching gear, executives can record messages that look professional without making the process overly complicated. And when communication feels clear and consistent, people pay more attention. They stay engaged. Then there are live events. Corporate event teams are no longer just planning gatherings, they're creating experiences. And the big shift is that these events are not just live anymore. There are also content opportunities. See, a major event can be streamed, recorded, clipped and repurposed content for sales, marketing and internal communications. Suddenly, you now have a way to communicate with your teams in the ways that they consume media. That's why many more companies are upgrading their event production. Whether it be LED walls or multi camera coverage, improved lighting and better recording formats are all now becoming part of the standard package. See, at first, a lot of companies rent the gear for one off events. But once the events become reoccurring, buying equipment starts to make a lot more sense. Because now the company is not just hosting an event, it's building a repeatable communication engine. And now you've gained a ton of value from each and every production. And last but not least, marketing and creative teams. These teams are producing more video than ever before. Short form, long form, social product launches, live streams, customer stories, plus internal content. The list just keeps growing, so your workflows have to keep up. And that's why more teams are using shared storage, media, asset management systems, and AI powered search tools to find footage and brand assets faster. But it also reflects a bigger shift in how companies are staffing creative work. Major players reports that 88% of brands now have in house creative or marketing teams. And and over 83% say expanding in house capabilities have been more cost effective than relying solely on external partners. And smaller teams are also doing more than ever. Graphic Design USA says 26% of creative teams work with only 6 to 10 people. So these teams need systems that help them scale, especially when they're juggling multiple offices, freelancers and busy campaign seasons. The companies that get this right are not just making more content, they're making better content faster. If your company is looking to build or upgrade its video strategy, the first step isn't buying band aid gear. It's making sure you have the right strategy workflows and systems in place. So video actually supports the way Your team communicates. That's where Key Code Media comes in. If you're building out trading rooms, executive studios, event production spaces or creative workflows, KeyCode Media can help design a video strategy that works for your team now and scales with you later. So if you're ready to improve how your company trains, communicates and creates with video, contact Kie Code Media. Corporate content has fundamentally changed. Training videos, partner education, product explainers, live streams and internal enablement are no longer just nice to have assets. They're often the first place customers and internal teams go to learn about how to use your products and services. Now for aws, that created an interesting decision point. Their team could have continued producing content through basic meeting room captures or zoom style recordings. Instead, AWS invested in a higher quality studio model built to support learning path videos, long form education, short form clips and scalable content production. So today we're talking with Paul Moore from AWS who focuses on external facing training and certification content about why they made that leap and what changed once they upgraded the production environment. And lastly, what corporate media teams should be thinking about when building a studio of their own. So Paul, thanks a lot for joining us. And before we get into the studio itself, can you kind of give us a little backstory on your team at AWS and what kind of content are you responsible for and who's it serving?
• 8:04
  Speaker B: Yeah, definitely. So I am in the training and certification org at AWS and we are on the creative services team. Our team is about nine people. We are roughly eight or so video producer, editors, a graphic designer and we're split between Seattle and Virginia. We make public facing training content that goes primarily on skillbuilder aws. It's a learning platform and then some, some of the AWS social media channels as well.
• 8:31
  Speaker A: So traditionally a lot of companies stop at kind of the webinar or meeting room stage because, well, let's face it, it's fast, it's expensive and it's fairly easy to produce. So what drove AWS to invest in a more professional studio environment?
• 8:46
  Speaker B: We're really focused on the learning experience. We want to make sure that there's no distractions when people are trying to learn about aws. So having this kind of studio environment allows us to scale content a lot faster at same high quality as well as kind of making sure that we have a space dedicated to record in. I think we, with Amazon and AWS and a lot of other large companies, just trying to find a meeting room for a standard meeting is really hard and let alone Trying to set up and break down equipment every day or every other day, found it to be really hard to schedule just content in general.
• 9:26
  Speaker A: And at least from our side here at kiecode, we had the same problem. Right. We have a lot of demo gear here at Keycode Media and a lot of things we set up for clients. And when we then have to use that to record a podcast or live stream, it involves setting things up and tearing things down, which as a whole nother dimension in terms of time usage to accomplish that. But I'm sure there's also for aws, there had to be some feedback from the end viewers. So did you also get feedback from people who weren't at AWS or people who were external to say yes, if we had content that was delivered in this fashion, in this way, we would be more engaged with it.
• 10:03
  Speaker B: We have to produce a ton of content, a ton of courses, a ton of certifications. And with that, it was a mix of we just couldn't produce enough content as fast as our customers wanted. And with that, we decided to kind of up level the quality and make it more streamlined so that we can engage with the customer faster, easier and kind of, I think, more on brand as well. We were having to mix a lot of different kind of production elements from different rooms into one course. So you might jump from a nice background in one module and then to a completely different place in the next module. And I think for a customer experience as a whole, it's just kind of jarring and you lose maybe the first couple minutes of whatever anybody's talking about.
• 10:49
  Speaker A: So in addition to the time savings, Right. Of having to tear things down and set things up again, once you had the studio in place, what did the studio you built allow your team to do? That was difficult or impossible before.
• 11:02
  Speaker B: Yeah. So I think mainly we're looking for kind of more engaging ways or different ways of training content. So traditionally, if we were in a conference room, we'd be limited to maybe one camera, one presenter. Once we moved into the studio, we could do upwards of five presenters or fireside chats or three to five cameras with live graphics. It just kind of allowed us to try new things, test out new things, and really publish this content to Skill Builder to see the customer's reaction instead of having to do just the single camera, single presenter in a conference room, and then it just kind of is maybe different or the same kind of throughout the course.
• 11:53
  Speaker A: For the folks who are uninitiated, maybe we should talk about the content that you're Creating itself. So when your team plans a production, are you thinking only about the full length training video or are you also planning clips and modules and derivative assets from the beginning?
• 12:09
  Speaker B: Yeah. So the content we produce on Skill Builder is a mix of, it's kind of an all encompassing course. So if you wanted to get certified, let's say in Cloud Practitioner for aws, it's going to be a long, it's going to be a three to six hour course, but it's mixed of video modules, text, hands on labs and different graphics. So when we're thinking about our role as the video team, we need to make sure that our content fits within that overall kind of course strategy. Primarily we are thinking video modules and within that we're also thinking kind of like how do we market this content on social media to drive people towards Skill builder? So we definitely try to think of everything, but mainly kind of the video modules and kind of how those connect between the different course objectives.
• 13:06
  Speaker A: So let's talk a little bit of tech. Let's talk about your workflow from kind of the idea to finish video, who's involved and what are the main steps in that?
• 13:16
  Speaker B: Yep. So we're closely in the pre production phase with the TNC Pro or the training certification, product teams, curriculum developers and technical trainers. That's kind of the teams that develop the writing of the content, maybe the scripts. We work closely with them to kind of come up with creative concepts to make sure that if we need dedicated graphics, how those are portrayed on screen, if we need to make sure that anything in video format is said correctly or maybe that's different than text, we want to make sure we're involved early on there. From there our team essentially assigns a producer. We figure out the correct studio location and then we rely heavily into the live to tape workflow. Whether it's one or two cameras plus a few content feeds, we try to live switch just about every show we can to get a baseline, like a baseline kind of edit for us. And then we have all the ISOs, video ISOs as well as audio ISOs. And then from that stage we go into the editing phase where our editors split the content into modules, upload it to Frame IO, where our stakeholders review that content and then once it's approved, it goes to the publishing team, which makes sure everything gets up to Skill Builder correctly.
• 14:36
  Speaker A: And then what about is there storyboarding that's done at the beginning. So you know what's going to be a talking head, as we say, or what's going to be an on screen graphic or a UI walkthrough. How was that done?
• 14:49
  Speaker B: Yeah, so we in. In our scripts, we kind of outline what will happen where I would say that most of the storyboarding would happen in kind of creating those custom graphics. Less on what is going to be a talking head versus graphics. It's kind of like we pretty much record all the talking head first and then we'll go back and record the demos and kind of if there's any specific graphics where we need that involve the camera, we would kind of record those separately as well. So it's definitely a mix of a little bit of everything there.
• 15:26
  Speaker A: Paul. I gotta imagine with an organization as large as AWS that a lot of the scripts that are being written for the modules and the courses are fairly scrutinized. So is there any room for improvisation by the demo person or is it fairly locked down?
• 15:40
  Speaker B: There are certain types of content that we have a little bit more flexibility with as far as kind of how the content is produced or the scripts are written. There's definitely a lot of content where we're going to stick to the script and make sure that everything is said correctly. Generally that happens a lot in the production phase of like, do we want to try something new, do we want to add a line here or there? And then we record the script the way it is. But we can kind of add in an additional like suggestion maybe here or there. And that lets the stakeholder run that one up the chain to make sure that it's approved or not. The content goes through an entire legal process before it even comes to us for sure.
• 16:22
  Speaker A: That seems a little daunting. I don't know if the folks at Key code here would be able to do a script that is that locked down so good on you and your team. So once the studio is built, what does it take to maintain it and keep it production ready? Like how many folks are on the team to actually keep it operational?
• 16:41
  Speaker B: Yeah, for sure. So I'm the only studio operations manager. We have two studios, one in Seattle, one in Virginia, which are our primary studios, and then kind of smaller partner studios around the world. I rely heavily on our producer and editors to ensure that they can help maintain the studios. I would say that generally they're kind of. They run themselves for the most part. We do a lot of firmware updates, computer updates, kind of just ensuring that everything is working. And then if something isn't, we always make sure there's some sort of option to pivot to ensure that the production keeps going. Generally Our studios can be operated with one or two people. I would say if you need to, you can run an entire production by yourself. I would say that two people, kind of one producer, director, slash TD is going to be one role and then the other role just kind of be teleprompter kind of production assistant. Especially with kind of a single camera, single presenter scenario. So rail it's in general, they're pretty easy to maintain. I would say that if we're doing a large panel or a bunch of live content, live streams, we're going to bring in more people and just ensure that we have those kind of live positions ready just in case something happens.
• 18:13
  Speaker A: So Paul, given your experience, if you were advising a company that is currently producing webinars, maybe Zoom recordings or even basic meeting room videos, what advice would you give them before they invest in a dedicated studio?
• 18:26
  Speaker B: Right off the bat is to understand what type of content you want to produce or you're looking to produce or really what the stakeholders are asking for. It's a different scenario when you're setting up a room for one presenter or a panel of five. And the technology behind that is much different as well. Within creative services we have two larger studios. We also have a few different, what we call solo studios. The large studios we can accommodate. I think the most presenters on camera we've ever had was about 15 in one studio. Down to one or two presenters is kind of our standard look. But we have all the lights, a video wall, the capabilities to do live streaming, remote broadcasting, kind of anything that we could potentially think of that started small, that started pretty small with just kind of a live to tape workflow and grew into having all these capabilities based on what our stakeholders want, wanted or needed or wanted to try or like. A solo studio where I met, which is just a single camera and a teleprompter that I could remote into a different broadcast or just record on my own. They both serve the same purpose. I could definitely right now be in our full on studio and have someone controlling everything for me, or I can just walk into this room and kind of do everything myself. So I would say understanding your content, understanding the, the type of technology you may or may not need in the beginning and then design that so that you can scale in the future. I don't think that everybody needs to invest in the top of the line, most expensive equipment right off the bat. You're going to get some prosumer stuff or get some stuff that makes sense for your current workflow flow and then learn to upgrade in the future. I would also say that understanding what the capabilities of your team are around you, if you're the only one that's technical and you build out entire studio, that means you are living in that studio, ensuring that everything is constantly working. So as we have developed RStudio and our workflow, we've kind of stairstepped our way to where we're at, meaning I've introduced technology to do something new in phases so that we're not all learning at once. And we ensure that the core purpose of the studio, which is recording technical content, training content, still works all the time, even if we're upgrading equipment or potential new workflows.
• 21:08
  Speaker A: Paul, that covers all the questions. Was there something that I didn't ask that you kind of wanted to convey or maybe something that you think some other advice that smaller companies may need?
• 21:20
  Speaker B: What I run into personally is the security aspect and the scaling aspect of being in a corporation, like the Internet requirements and the kind of software solutions that I can and can't use. There's a lot of things that I could do better, different, potentially easier, but there are also specific things I cannot do. So I think it goes back to like, what kind of content do you need to make?
• 21:50
  Speaker A: I think the, and we see this a lot from, from our clients as well, is what's the alignment? Right? Just because you have all these bells and whistles and you may have a crew that can do all this, does that serve your message or is it there just to be shiny? It's like adding a different, you know, some kind of different transition to every PowerPoint slide, right? Like you can do it, but is it really serving the message or is it just an extra, you know, sprinkles on the sundae that you don't need?
• 22:16
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 22:17
  Speaker A: Thanks so much, Paul for joining us today. Thanks for watching. Broadcast to post, don't Forget to follow kicodemedia on social and contact us about your projects@keycodemedia.com.