Ted Talks are essentially lecture presentations, but they have a aesthetic and and style that makes them distinctive.

Here is a quick breakdown of WHAT makes a good Ted Talk.

All presentations and Ted Talks, looked at as a kind of sub-genre, have some basic component parts.

Presenting is about giving something, more than the presentation itself.

They always have an intended *audience.* This is always greater than your teacher. Your audience includes you, your classmates, and any other interested party.

Here are the three core components specific to Ted Talks: Topic, Delivery, and Visuals.

The topic drives the entire presentation. It usually is something the speaker is driven and passionate about.

Even with a designated topic for a class, find the thing about it that is the most interesting, exotic, exciting, or strangely cool to you. Use that to develop of the talk and video.

Narrow the work you have already done to its essence, a sentence or two. That essence drives the entire talk.

Then find ways to connect individuals to the topic emotionally and convey choices or strategies related to the topic.

Where delivery is concerned, basic public speaking applies, but a few items bear highlighting.

Open with your best material, whatever that may be, and start with a bang.

Smile while you speak, not all the time but often. It makes you seem brighter and interesting. How you say things is as important as what you say.

Memorize your material cold. It frees you to be more natural and fluid once you have rehearsed repeatedly.

Only move when necessary, most talks take place on a small carpeted area. You can gesture, but remember there is power in stillness

It starts with you. Your appearance is part of the visuals. Dress well but comfortably.

Good visuals should be aides to your audience’s understanding. They can be powerful ways to show evidence or logic.

If you use slides, make sure that they are good (well-designed, few words, and powerful). Use a color scheme that suits your topic and what you have say.

If you use props, make sure they are organized, easy to use, and do not get in the way.

Ted Talks are built on ideas worth spreading, which is in fact their slogan. You need a single message, one core idea, and theme to wrap it.

Like all good presentations and stories, they have a three part structure, a beginning, middle, and end.

Often the beginning and end are roughly the same length, while the middle can be as much as half of the presentation. It is important that carefully crafted part works with the others as a whole.

A strong start is a must. You have less than 7 seconds to capture or lose your audience's attention. Make a declaration.

Whatever your opening, it has to have a hook, as well as spell out what you have to say and hint at the gift will give.

There is no formula for starting and what works for one person may not work for another. You have to find what will work best for you.

Beginnings and endings can sometimes be very similar but not the same.

The middle of the project is where you really need to back your declaration and make your case.

It is where you get into the details, convey your knowledge, and convince your audience about your message and core idea. Just remember you have limited time. So you must communicate that which is most essential.

Your challenge is to make the complex simple.

Endings, like beginnings, encapsulate the whole presentation. The pull everything together and finish with flair.

Restate your declaration in a human way (I want… I believe… I wish… I dream…) in a way that is clear about what should be known. Call people to action and make sure that you deliver on the gift you hinted at in the beginning.

Again, there are no formulas, but your audience should be in no doubt when you are finished.

There are limitations of format and time. However, limitations can release creativity.

As shown, there definitely is a format to Ted Talks which sets the audience’s expectations.

You only have three minutes, which is more time to fill than you think when starting and never be enough as you are trying finish.

You have time to communicate one idea, one story, and one question, not necessarily in that order. They can even function as your beginning, middle, and end if you are clever.

You have time to communicate one core idea. This where distilling the work you have already done down to essence in a sentence or two is critical.

Big ideas are powerful and important, but you need to simplify and make them easy for anyone to understand, even conceding the complexity.

Can you go even further and develop a slogan from the couple sentences? Slogans last much longer in the memory.

Stories are also powerful vehicles for communication. Well told, they can reveal more than the sum of their parts.

It might help to think of the whole talk like a story, but what kind of story? Is it a hero story or a rebel story or a detective story?

The anecdote a very short, interesting story about something real that can be one of the most powerful tools shared with economy.

A well-crafted question can be the foundation of an entire presentation or story.

Sometimes a question is just a way to get to the answer, which may be its own story or spark a completely new idea.

Sometimes a question alone is important and has yet to be answered, but the pursuit is what matters most.

With some tips anyone can make a Ted Talk video with readily available tools. Remember the the talk is never about the technology or gimmicks. It is always about the power of the idea and the person presenting.

Still there are some consideration for creating a video, mainly dealing with shooting footage of the speaker, all the special added elements, and editing it all together in a well-crafted video package.

Here are some quick tips.

There are number of considerations in shooting video that often go overlooked. It is not enough to simply point a camera at someone and press record. There is more thought and planning required for quality results.

Equipment also poses different kinds of challenges. Yet, thought and creativity are always more important than equipment.

Here are some quick rules for getting better results.

Since there is no official Ted Talk theater or special event space, choosing a good location is critical to getting both a look and sound for your video.

Pick a place where you have room to shoot and an interesting but not distracting background. Think of a place that might actually suit your topic.

As important as what the video looks like is what it sounds like is as important. make sure that the location is quiet and there is no distractions or ambient noise.

Use your phone as a video camera. It is available, you already know how to use it, and you can easily transfer your footage to your computer for editing.

Shoot with good composition. Use the rule of thirds, fill the frame, and set-up a few different shots (medium, closeup, and creative), but stay close to the presenter.

Find a way to steady the camera. Use a tripod, if you have one, otherwise improvise.

Every time you press the button to start and stop recording you create a take. You need to record multiple takes of your presentation.

You need multiple takes for a few reasons. You want to capture and use the best parts from your presentation. You want your video to be visually interesting. You are working with only one camera.

Shoot a few simple, waist-up medium shots. Shoot a few closeups. Try a different or creative angle. You can vary the distance or angle of these shots, but you need to stay close to ensure you get good audio.

The main footage of the presenter is often referred to as A Roll. It is the primary footage, the speaker presenting their powerful idea and serves as the primary visual and sound for the video.

Specials are referring to all of the additional visuals included in your video. There is a variety of alternative visual material that you can use to help create interest and illustrate part of the presentation.

Alternatives to your primary A Roll footage might include images, slides, or demonstrations of some kind.

If you want to use photographs or other graphics that you have researched and found, you want to make sure that you use the highest resolution images you can find.

You can limit your search in Google using the Search Tools and Size criteria. Choose Larger than… 1024x768 or larger options. That will keep your images from looking pixelated when dropped into your video.

You can use most presentation software, like PowerPoint, Google Slides, or Keynote, anything that will allow you to save individual slides as an image file (.jpg or .png), which can be imported into iMove.

Design the slides well. Use good composition practices.

Make sure the aspect ratio matches for both the video and the slides, either 4:3 or 16:9.

Demonstrations include any separate actions that will help communicate, like performance, prop use, and more. If you are using demonstration, it makes more sense to shoot it separately.

Consider using the five shot rule to capture the action of performance (Close up on the hands, close up on the face, over the shoulder, wide, and creative)

The secondary and complimentary footage is often referred to as B Roll. It is the supplemental footage intercut with the primary footage, or A Roll, to cover cuts and show, not just tell.

Editing video is quite different from editing writing, although there are some things in common. Most people think of editing as cutting out the errors and bad footage, but it is far more than that.

Video editing is actually more a process of addition. Once you have logged all your footage, you begin to break it down into smaller chunks that can be sequenced later.

Plus there are all kinds of effects and graphics that can be later added, although they are not necessarily appropriate for a Ted Talk.

As mentioned, once you review all of your takes and logged which sections are the best, you can start to assemble your rough cut, a little bit like putting together a puzzle.

If you have good audio in all of your takes, it can be even easier to simply switch between different shots and takes to make up the entire sequence of your presentation.

The idea is always to assemble the whole video so that it is better than the sum of its individuals parts.

You are probably looking at approximately 6 to 10 cuts per minute of video.

After reviewing your footage, you should identify one of the takes that is the best overall performance of your presentation with the best audio.

It may have some errors, which you can cut later, but it will serve as the primary clip upon which you will build your video.

In a way it will serve as the spine of the video. You can split the primary clip in various places to tighten it up and remove any mistakes. Then you will use the other footage and specials to build your complete Ted Talk video.

A cutaway is an interruption in a continuous shot. It is all the additional shots, footage, and specials, otherwise known as B Roll, that you add to assemble a sequence. A sequence is an assembly of multiple shots that advance a subject or help tell a story.

Cutaway is also the tool that you use in iMove to insert your additional clips. It will allow you to switch the video without switching the audio, especially useful when adding your Specials.

If you can get a trip for shooting, use one. If not you will have to improvise, but you wan tot find a way to stabilize the camera and keep it as still as possible.

You may have to improvise, like using the back of a chair or table, a doorframe, or even a stack of books, whatever you can do to maintain stillness while shooting.

If you are ambitious, make sure that you clap at the beginning of each take, which can help you synchronize your audio across multiple shots. It also even allows you the possibility of using multiple phones as a camera simultaneously.

Ted Talks are essentially lecture presentations, but they have a aesthetic and and style that makes them distinctive.

Here is a quick breakdown of WHAT makes a good Ted Talk.