How to Record a Course Video Without Crying (Step By Step)

If recording a course video feels like walking into a dragon’s lair armed with a water pistol, congratulations—you’re normal. 👍

Let’s be honest: most course creators overcomplicate the hell out of this.

They think they need a fancy studio, a film crew, and the voice of Morgan Freeman to sound credible.

Nope.

You don’t need any of that. You need clarity, a repeatable system, and a friggin’ plan that gets you from “I should record this” to “Holy cannoli, my course is live!”

That’s exactly what this blog delivers: a bulletproof step-by-step framework for recording course videos that look and sound professional—without requiring a PhD in videography or the patience of a monk.

Sound good? Let’s roll. 🚀

Step 1: The Brain Dump – Extract the Gold from Your Head Before It Turns To Crap

Ever tried explaining something you’re an expert in and halfway through, your student’s eyes glaze over like a donut? That’s because your brain is optimized for doing the thing, not explaining the thing.

Most course creators assume they can just “wing it.” Spoiler alert: you can’t. If you try, your first recording will sound like a voicemail from a confused time traveler.

The Fix: The "Brain Dump & Slice" Method

Your first job? Rip every ounce of knowledge from your brain and dump it into a doc—messy, unhinged, beautiful chaos. No organizing. Yet.

But let’s play devil’s bodyguard for a sec—what if you don’t actually know the full process?

Bad news: ChatGPT isn’t your shortcut to mastery. AI can guess, but real expertise comes from doing, breaking, fixing, and refining.

That said, clever prompting can get you 50% of the way there. Try:
🛠 “You are an expert on [X topic]. Teach me [X process] step by step.”

Then? Test it. Run it. Break it. Analyze what’s missing. Keep digging until you don’t need AI to tell you—you just know. That’s when you’re dangerous.

Anyways…

1. Open a Google Doc. Title it: “Unhinged Genius: [Your Topic Here].”

2. Write down every single step of the process. Even the “duh” steps. If you skip them, your students will too, and they’ll hate you for it.

3. Talk it out loud as you do it. Record yourself with Loom while performing the task. This will catch all the micro-steps your brain autopilots past.

4. Stop worrying about structure. That’s future-you’s problem.

🔥 Example: Teaching “How to Build a Sales Funnel”
✅ Write down every click, every tool you use, every weird little workaround
✅ Narrate it like you’re explaining it to an alien who just landed and wants to buy your course
✅ Save that video and transcript—this will be your course script goldmine

Before You Move On, Ask Yourself:

❓ Did I include every single step, even the painfully obvious ones?
❓ Did I record myself explaining the process like I would to a beginner?
❓ If I got hit by a rogue asteroid tomorrow, could someone else teach this from my notes?

📌 Tool for This Step: Use Loom to record yourself talking through the process.

Step 2: Slice & Dice – Carve Your Chaos into a Crystal-Clear Learning Path

Alright, you’ve got a gloriously messy brain dump. Now, it’s time to make it teachable. Right now, it’s a crime scene. We need to turn it into a step-by-step framework that’s so clear a sleep-deprived Arby’s janitor could follow it.

How to Do It:

🔪 Cut ruthlessly. If a step doesn’t move students toward the result, yeet it.
🔄 Reorder for logic. Should step 6 actually be step 2? Fix it.
🎯 Simplify, don’t dumb down. Your job isn’t to flex your knowledge—it’s to make the process so easy they wonder why they didn’t start sooner.

💡 Example: If you’re teaching “How to Create a YouTube Channel,” do NOT start with video editing software. Your student is still stuck on “How do I even make a channel?”

🔥 Einstein Knew This
"If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough."—Some guy who was pretty smart.

Before You Move On, Ask Yourself:

❓ Is each step necessary or just my ego talking?
❓ Does this flow make sense for a total beginner?
❓ Can I explain this in one sentence per step without confusion?

📌 Tool for This Step: Trello – Drag and drop steps until they make logical sense.

Step 3: Slides That Slap (No Snooze Button Allowed)

Repeat after me: Slides are not scripts. Slides are not scripts.

If you fill your slides with paragraphs, you’re basically building a prison for your students’ attention span.

The Golden Rules of Not-Sucky Slides:

🚀 One idea per slide. No novels. No bullet points from hell.
🚀 Visuals > Text. Diagrams, memes, flowcharts—whatever helps comprehension.
🚀 Zero clutter. If your slide looks like a Myspace page, start over.

🔥 Example: If you’re teaching email marketing, don’t write:
"Your subject line should be compelling, curiosity-driven, and provoke an emotional response in the reader."

Instead, SHOW THEM:
🎯 Bad: “Here’s my newsletter”
💥 Good: [Screenshot of an actual killer subject line vs. a flop]

📌 Tools to Make Great Slides:
🎨 Canva – Simple, sleek, free
📺 Keynote – If you’re on a Mac
📑 Google Slides – Fast and easy

Before You Move On, Ask Yourself:

❓ Does each slide communicate one clear idea?
❓ Can my audience understand it in three seconds?
❓ Do I actually need this slide, or am I just afraid of silence?

Step 4: Recording Without Wanting to Set Your Laptop on Fire

Here’s where most people freeze. Perfectionism kills more courses than bad content ever will.

How to Not Suck on Camera:

🎤 Prioritize clear audio. Bad audio is worse than bad video. Get a decent mic.
🎬 Keep energy up. Imagine explaining this to an excited friend—not a camera.
🛑 DO NOT RE-RECORD OVER EVERY MISTAKE. Just pause, breathe, start again. You can edit later.

🔥 The “One-Take Wonder” Method:
Mistake happens?

1. Pause.

2. Take a breath.

3. Repeat the last sentence like nothing happened.

Magic trick: Editing exists. No one will ever know.

📌 Best Screen Recording Tools:
🎥 Loom – Simple, fast
🎥 Tella – Underdog, heavy-hitter
🎥 OBS Studio – Free & pro-level
🎥 Descript – Edit video like a Google Doc

Before You Move On, Ask Yourself:

❓ Is my audio crystal clear?
❓ Do I sound engaged (not like I’m narrating my own obituary)?
❓ Did I push through mistakes instead of over-recording?

Final Step: Publish & Profit (Because This Isn’t a Hobby, It’s a Business)

🎯 Keep each video under 10 minutes – Attention spans plummet after that.
🎯 Maintain consistency – Same format, same structure = happy students.
🎯 Launch, then improve. No course was ever perfected before it was published.

🔥 Remember: No one cares about your lighting. They care about results.

🚀 Your Next Move:
✅ Need help launching? Join my free Skool community [here].
✅ Need templates? Download them [here].
✅ Still waiting for the “perfect time”? It was yesterday. Hit record.

Now go record your course video before Netflix convinces you otherwise. 🚀

📌 Follow me on LinkedIn for more marketing strategies for course creators!