Video creation process

Definitions & Key takeaways

Creating an Osmosis video involves a lot of work and effort from a team of professionals with relevant expertise. It takes a process that typically involves 5 main steps: Scriptwriting: Once the topic has been selected, a team of Osmosis medical writers develops a script for the video, and ensures that it is accurate, up-to-date, and engaging. Script review: This is a critical step during which the script is reviewed by a team of medical editors, and subject matter experts to ensure that it is scientifically accurate and contains the latest information about the topic. Video production: After the script review is finalized, the team creates a storyboard that outlines the visual elements of the video. This includes sketches or illustrations which are then turned into a video. Video review: After production is complete, the video is reviewed and edited to ensure that it meets the platform's high standards for accuracy, clarity, and engagement. Video revision: Once final video edits are made, the final version is sent again to reviewers and partners to make sure that everything was addressed as recommended.

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Osmosis’ mission is to empower the world’s clinicians and caregivers with the best learning experience possible. As part of that process, we’ve made more than a thousand educational videos and have collaborated with over fifty organizations, including the Council of Medical Specialty Societies, Rush Medical College, and the National Organization for Rare Disorders.
And most importantly, our videos have been viewed tens of million of times across all of our distribution channels by clinicians and caregivers around the world.
Whenever we create a new video, we always start with the same guiding questions: What’s the question that your learner has, that your video will try to answer?
Why is the topic of your video so important? What language and language level works best for your learner?
Answering these key questions as specifically as possible really helps to create a strong foundation for a great video. Now, Osmosis is well known for our whiteboard animation style videos, but we always try to make the video style fit the educational goal.
To do this, we typically use a whiteboard heavy approach for knowledge based videos, like our series on pathophysiology, physiology, clinical reasoning, and pharmacology; a live footage heavy approach for procedural skills based videos; like our videos on opening an airway, or putting on sterile gloves; and a blended approach for competency based videos, like our Clinician’s corner series, that discusses soft-skills Clinicians need like our videos on taking a good patient history or how to deliver bad news.
In terms of making a video, there are 5 key steps involved. Step one is scripting and it’s led by Osmosis.
We have a team of health professionals who write fantastic scripts that work in the Osmosis style. But to make sure that the finished video looks and feels right, we always welcome material from our partners.
That includes PowerPoint presentations, journal articles, reports, marketing materials, or anything else that contains content that should be included or referenced in the script and video.
In some cases, where the topic is extremely specific, we’ll need an outline of key points for the script. This step typically takes 4 weeks, but can be fast-tracked down to about 2 weeks.
Step 2 is script review and it’s led by our partner. Once a script is written, Osmosis will send over a draft of the script in a Google document for our partner to review.
At this stage we invite a subject matter expert and other stakeholders to go through and identify potential scientific errors or key omissions.
Now there are some things to keep in mind with Google documents. First, edits should be made using suggesting edits so that everyone can see what is changed.
This is like “track changes”, and these suggesting edits save automatically. Second, comments can be left and these are saved by pressing the “comment” button.
Third, it’s helpful for the subject matter expert to call out any words or phrases that they think we should highlight in the video and any images that they’d like to see.
Images can be added to the very bottom of the script and a comment like “See figure 1” can be added to the part of the script where that image belongs.
Once the script has been reviewed, our partner will send it back to Osmosis so that it can be revised to address the suggesting edits and comments.
Osmosis will then send over a clean copy of the revised script to the partner. Once the script has been finalized and receives a “green light” from the partner, it’s ready for production.
It’s very important to get the script to be as accurate as possible at this point because it’s much more difficult and costly to make changes once the video has been made.
Script review typically takes 2 weeks, but can be fast-tracked down to about 1 week. Step three is video production and it’s led by Osmosis.
Our illustrators will create a storyboard for our partner to review and approve. Once the storyboard is approved, our team of voiceover artists and editors will take the storyboard and turn it into a video.
This is where the magic happens and ideas that are often confusing and complex can become straightforward and easy-to-follow.
Our creative team carefully selects the right balance of text and images, and makes sure that our characters and scenes are specifically chosen to be inclusive and engaging.
This step typically takes 6 weeks, but can be fast-tracked down to about 3 weeks. Step four is video review and it’s led by our partner.
Once the video is complete it’s sent back to our partner, and the subject matter experts and other stakeholders get to offer feedback on any text or images that need to be edited.
For example, they might say that “at the 1:15 mark of the video, the red blood cell is drawn in green and needs to be changed to red”.
This is the final round of feedback, so we like to get all of the feedback at once, especially if there are differing opinions on a particular scene.
After this step, edits become time consuming and expensive, so it’s best to get all of the key stakeholders to sign off on the video.
That includes getting sign off from the marketing and communications team with regard to how the branding and logo placement is done.
This step typically takes 2 weeks, but can be fast-tracked down to about 1 week. Step 5 is video revision and it’s led by Osmosis.
Once our team receives the final round of feedback, we make the appropriate changes to the video and send over a final version to our partner.
This step typically takes 2 weeks, but can be fast-tracked down to about 1 week. So end-to-end it normally takes about 16 weeks, but can be fast-tracked down to 8 weeks.
Now, depending on the topic and intended audience of the video we’ll work with you to create an optimal distribution strategy.
If the topic is relevant to our audience of medical and health professional students, we may release it on our Osmosis YouTube channel, which has over a million subscribers, or the Osmosis platform, which is used by over half-a-million current & future health professionals.
The distribution channel determines how we brand the videos, but we always make sure to include your logo in videos distributed via the Osmosis YouTube channel and platform, as well as provide you with a copy of the video with your branding for your own distribution.
Each video project is different and so are the costs. The cost varies based on the style and content of the video, the timeline for the video, the length of video, and the number of videos.
We generally work on projects that are strategically aligned with our focus on health and education. Once we get a sense for your specific project we can figure out a price that makes sense for both our partner and Osmosis.
Finally, it’s important to remember that educational videos make a difference. More people are turning to videos to learn than ever before, and Osmosis receives hundreds of messages each day from clinicians and caregivers around the world who feel more empowered through our videos.
That’s why we’re excited to work with you!