Have you ever had a frozen moment in front of the camera? Have you flapped around like duck? Have you delivered your piece to camera at the speed of a Le Mans driver?
Recently I attended a workshop on ‘the power of presenting videos’ and learnt that fear drives us all no matter how confident experienced or mature we are. When asked what their greatest fears were regarding appearing on a video, the women in the group commented that it was concern about their looks in front of the camera (weight, hair, lines) and the men about what to do with their hands and voices. This is interesting gender stuff I thought…but not for now.
For now I will give you seven salient pieces of advice for doing your thing in front of a camera.
- assume a neutral body posture – hands by your side (unless making a point) feet planted on terra firma – you will start to feel ‘grounded’ and confident
- look straight ahead – stare down the barrel of the auto-cue – don’t move your head
- smile 🙂 every now and again
- speak slowly – be guided by the speed of the auto cue and leave spaces between chunks of information
- ‘land’ your main points with a gesture or facial expression
- have a story to tell
- make three strong take away points
I can’t wait to get in front of the camera again!
[…] Do you know what put me on to that? I did the UTS Power of Screen Presenting course recently, and one of the first things they taught me was ‘grab the audience’. The title is […]