Why Hollywood?
Since Hollywood operates in the entertainment industry, there can be a tendency to overlook the best practices it offers to learning professionals. After all, it's “just entertainment, right?”
Organizations have long looked outside their industries for best practices. Learning from Hollywood is no different.
One way to better understand why some cinematic practices are so effective is through neurocinematics. It examines how cinematic experiences influence attention, emotion, memory, and other cognitive processes. The Learning From Hollywood™ approach translates relevant insights from that research into practical eLearning design decisions.
Learning From Hollywood™ is an eLearning consulting and speaking firm focused on bringing relevant Hollywood best practices through a neurocinematic perspective to eLearning design. It is not a video production company.
Think Like a Hollywood
Director.
Hollywood doesn't simply tell a story. It considers every element of the experience—what the audience sees, hears, feels, anticipates, and remembers.
Learning From Hollywood™ brings that mindset into the eLearning design conversation, giving designers a new way to think about the experience they are creating for the learner.
Content Comes First.
eLearning design begins with the learning need: what learners need to know or be able to do, and what the training needs to accomplish.
Content comes first.
Now put on the director's hat...
Turn the content into an experience.
What Does a
Hollywood Director
Consider?
A director sees possibilities beyond the script. The same content can become a very different experience depending on how it is framed, paced, revealed, heard, explored, and experienced.
ATTENTIONWhat deserves the learner's attention—and how can the experience guide it? |
EXPERIENCEHow can the content be experienced rather than simply presented? |
EMOTIONWhere can emotional context give the learning greater meaning? |
INTERACTIONWhere should the learner participate, explore, or influence what happens? |
DECISIONHow can the learner make meaningful decisions rather than simply receive information? |
MEMORYWhat can make the experience more memorable long after the learning experience is over? |
A Neurocinematic Mindset for
Everyday eLearning Challenges
The need for a neurocinematic approach often appears in familiar L&D challenges—even when it is not described in those terms.
Learning From Hollywood™ brings a neurocinematic perspective to those familiar L&D challenges—considering how attention, emotion, memory, curiosity, anticipation, context, choice, and other cognitive processes can inform the design of the learning experience from the beginning.
| LEARNING CHALLENGE | WHAT A NEUROCINEMATIC MINDSET CAN HELP ADDRESS |
|---|---|
| “Learners aren’t paying attention.” | Attention, focus, salience, pacing, and directing the learner’s attention |
| “People are just clicking through the course.” | Curiosity, anticipation, learner investment, interaction, and meaningful choice |
| “They complete the training but don’t remember it.” | Memory, emotional salience, context, distinctive cues, and retrieval |
| “Our compliance training is dry.” | Relevance, stakes, consequence, context, and learner connection |
| “We need better scenarios.” | Story structure, authenticity, perspective, decision-making, and consequence |
| “Learners know the information but aren’t applying it.” | Practice, decision-making, context, consequence, and transfer |
| “There is too much information.” | Focus, prioritization, sequencing, and directing attention to what matters most |
| “We need learners to care about this.” | Meaning, motivation, emotional connection, relevance, and stakes |
| “Engagement drops off.” | Curiosity, anticipation, pacing, progression, and learner investment |
| “We want the training to be more memorable.” | Story, emotion, context, sensory cues, and distinctive learning moments |
From Content to Experience.
The Learning From Hollywood™ mindset shifts the designer's focus from delivering content to directing the learner's experience of it.
01
UNDERSTAND
Understand the content, the learner, and what the learner ultimately needs to do.
02
EXPLORE
Explore the story, setting, perspective, interaction, sound, visuals, and other possibilities within the content.
03
SHAPE
Shape those elements into an experience where they reinforce the learning.
04
DIRECT
Direct the experience so the learner has a reason to pay attention, participate, make decisions, and move forward.
A Different Lens Can Reveal
New Possibilities.
When designers begin looking at their content through a Hollywood lens, possibilities emerge that may not have been apparent through a conventional approach.
Bring a Hollywood Lens to
Your Learning.
Learning From Hollywood™ consulting gives learning professionals a different way to approach how their eLearning experiences are conceived, designed, and produced.
It examines the principles behind compelling cinematic experiences and applies them to eLearning design—helping make learning more intentional, engaging, and memorable.