How to use Synergy Studio

Studio builds a training video out of a description. You say what the module is about, it writes the scenes, finds the footage and puts the words on the screen. Everything after that is you changing what you do not like, by clicking it or by asking for it in plain English.

Getting in

Go to studio.synergysafetygroup.com. Type your work email and press Email me a code. A six digit code arrives in your inbox within a few seconds. Type it in and press Sign in.

You stay signed in for 12 hours, so most days you sign in once. The code only works once and only for 10 minutes, so if you come back to it later just ask for a new one.

What you are looking at

Three columns.

• Left is the list of scenes, and under it the settings for the whole video: shape, look, voiceover, narrator, music.
• Middle is the video itself, with the play button and scrubber under it, and a strip showing the selected scene's length and voiceover.
• Right is where the work happens. It has three tabs across the top: Build, Footage and Graphics. This is the one thing worth remembering, because each tab hides the others. Uploading a picture lives under Graphics, and you will not see that button while you are on Build.

1. Build your first video

What makes a good description

Say the subject, who it is for, how long, and what you want them to do differently. The more specific the better.

Things you can say that it will honour: how many scenes, how long, the tone, whether to include a statistic, that you want it to open on a consequence rather than an introduction.

2. Watch it back

Play under the frame, or drag the scrubber. Clicking a scene in the left list jumps to it. The number beside Length in the strip under the frame is that scene's length in seconds; change it and everything after it shifts.

3. Fix the words

Two ways, and both are quicker than they sound.

Click the words on the frame

Double-click any text in the video and type over it. Enter keeps it, Escape throws it away. You are typing at the size and in the position it will actually appear, so you can see immediately if it is too long. In a bullet list, double-click the one line you want to change. Empty a line and press Enter and that line disappears.

Ask for it

Back on the Build tab, type the change and press Send. It knows what is already there, so you can say things like:

• Make the heading on scene 2 shorter and harder.
• Scene 4 is boring, swap it for something with a person in it.
• Add a scene at the end about who to call.
• Take the statistic off scene 1.

It changes only what you asked about and leaves the rest of the video alone.

Move things

Drag any block of text to put it where you want. Right-click it to send it back to where the tool would have put it.

4. Change the footage

Click the Footage tab on the right. Type what you want to see and press Search. Video and Photo are two separate searches, so try both, a still is often the better picture for a document, a sign or a close detail. Click any result and it goes on the scene you have selected.

Search for the setting and the object rather than the situation. "loading dock pallet" finds something; "driver forgetting to chock the wheels" finds nothing.

5. Your own pictures and logos

Click the Graphics tab on the right. This is the tab most people miss.

• Upload a picture takes a file off your computer. You can pick several at once. You can also drag a picture from your desktop straight onto the page from any tab.
• From stock jumps you to a photo search; the Keep button on any result saves that picture into your library for good.

Everything you add stays in the library and is there for every video from then on. A logo, a piece of equipment, a form, a diagram: add it once.

Putting one on a scene

You can also just ask. Once a picture is in the library, "put our logo small in the top right of every scene" on the Build tab does it for the whole video.

6. Copy the look of a video you like

Bottom left, under the narrator dropdown, there is a button reading Learn a look from a video. Point it at a video file on your computer whose design you want, one of ours, one a customer sent, anything.

It takes eight frames off the video on your own machine, reads the design out of them, and turns it into a look you can use. Twenty seconds or so. Then:

• The video you are working on is immediately restyled into it.
• It joins the look dropdown on the left under Learned from a video, so you can use it on the next one too.
• Anything you build afterwards follows it: not just the colours, but how big the type runs, where it sits, and how fast it cuts.

The dropdown above that button holds the five looks that come with the tool: Synergy, Bold Impact, Clean Corporate, Hazard and Documentary. Switching it restyles the whole video at once, so it costs nothing to try all five.

7. Voiceover and music

Voiceover is off unless you ask for it.

• One scene: tick Voiceover in the strip under the frame, then either type the line or press Write it and let it write one that fits the length. Hear plays it back.
• The whole video: tick Voiceover on every scene on the left, then go scene by scene with Write it.
• The narrator is the dropdown under that. Changing it re-records every line you already have, which takes a moment.

Add music writes a piece of music for this video. Describe the feel you want. It ducks down automatically whenever the narrator is speaking. The x beside it takes it off.

8. Save, reopen, share

Save at the top. After the first save the address bar carries a link to that exact video, so you can bookmark it or send it to Jon and he opens the same thing. Open lists everything saved. New on the Build tab starts a fresh one.

Save before you close the tab. It will warn you if you have not.

Getting it into iSpring

When something goes wrong

The build is taking ages

One to three minutes is normal, and the status line keeps moving while it works. Keep the tab open. If it ever stops moving for several minutes, say the same thing again, it costs nothing.

A scene has no footage

The note at the end of a build tells you if any scene came back empty. Open the Footage tab and pick something yourself, or ask for that scene with different words.

The text is too big and overlaps

It should not, the tool measures and stacks, but if a heading is very long the whole block shrinks to fit. Shorten the heading. Two lines is the most a heading should ever be.

My picture is not in the library

Files over 5MB are refused. Take a screenshot of it or save it smaller and try again.

It signed me out

Sessions last 12 hours. Ask for a new code.