Luma Creative produces training video in San Francisco and across the Bay Area: procedure and skills films, compliance modules, onboarding, and software walkthroughs. We handle scripting with your subject-matter experts, filming in working environments, and an edit built so a single step can be updated later without a reshoot.
What is a training video?
A training video teaches someone to perform a specific task, and it is judged on whether they can perform it afterwards. That is a different measure from every other kind of video we make, and it changes the production.
The audience is captive and already motivated, so persuasion is not the job. Clarity is. A trainee will rewatch a step rather than watch the film once, which means the structure has to survive being entered halfway through.
Why training video is a different brief from marketing video
- It is used repeatedly, not once. Navigation matters more than a hook. Chapters, consistent framing, and one idea per section.
- Terminology has to be locked before the shoot. Changing a term afterwards means re-recording narration, so we agree the vocabulary with the subject-matter expert in pre-production rather than in the edit.
- Hands and equipment are the subject. Framing that shows exactly what the trainee’s hands should be doing is the whole craft here, and it drives lens choice and camera position more than aesthetics do.
- It has to survive the process changing. We cut so one step can be swapped without recutting the rest.
The training films companies commission
- Procedure and skills training. A task performed correctly, filmed so it can be copied.
- Compliance and safety. Where the record of having trained someone matters as much as the training.
- Onboarding. The first week, made once and reused, usually the highest-return film in the set.
- Software and tool training. Screen-led, and closer to our software demo work than to a filmed procedure.
Filming training in a working environment
We produced a training film with Sequoia Hospital, and a hospital is the clearest example of the constraint: you film around care, not around a schedule. That means a small crew, patience between takes, and clearance for anything identifiable in frame. The same discipline applies on a factory floor or in a lab, and it is the reason we keep crews small on this kind of work.
What a training video costs
A single-location shoot generally starts around $5,000. Multi-day or multi-location work with a larger crew runs $15,000 to $100,000. The number that usually matters more is cost per module: filming several modules in one visit brings it down sharply, which is why training is normally planned as a series rather than a single film. The full breakdown is on what video production costs.
Related
Training sits alongside our interview, software demo and corporate video work, and we cover healthcare specifically on the healthcare video production page.
Training video FAQs
What is a training video?
A training video teaches someone to do a specific task, and it is judged on whether they can do it afterwards rather than on how it looks. That makes it a different brief from marketing video: the audience is captive, already motivated, and will rewatch a section rather than watch once.
How long should a training video be?
One task per video, and as long as that task takes. A series of short modules almost always beats one long film, because a trainee returning to check step four should not have to scrub through eleven minutes to find it.
Do you write the script or do we?
Either. Most often the subject-matter expert supplies the procedure and we handle structure, wording and shot design. What we insist on is that terminology is agreed before the shoot, because changing a term afterwards means recording the narration again.
Can you film in a working environment such as a hospital or a factory?
Yes. We have filmed training in a working hospital, where the constraint is care rather than the schedule. That means a small crew, filming around real activity, and clearance for anything identifiable in frame.
How do we keep training videos current when the process changes?
We build the edit so a single step can be replaced without recutting the rest, and we keep project files so the update is an edit rather than a reshoot. Procedures change, and a training library that cannot be revised stops being used.
What does a training video cost?
A single-location shoot generally starts around $5,000. Multi-day or multi-location work with a larger crew runs $15,000 to $100,000. Cost per module falls sharply when several modules are filmed in the same visit, which is why training work is usually planned as a series.