looking your best in remote presentations - success · president, webinar success these are notes...
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Copyright ©2008 Webinar Success
Secrets of Webinar Video:Looking Your Best In Remote Presentations
Ken MolayPresident, Webinar Success
These are notes from Ken Molay's presentation on how to look your best on videowhen web conferencing.
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A College Story(And Its Relevance)
I was in a business writing class in college. The professor told us in our firstmeeting: "You people never use semicolons correctly. I'm tired of looking at themistakes. So if I see a semicolon in any of your writing, I'm going to grade youdown." I was furious that he simply wrote us off and refused to even try to giveguidelines or instruction.
Fast forward a few decades... iLinc asked me to deliver a webinar on videotechniques and I said, "Haven't you read my blog? I hate seeing people using videoin web conferences. They always do it wrong and they shouldn't even try."
Wow... I had become my professor!
So as penance, here it is... A real collection of tips and practical instruction forappearing on video in a web conference.
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What We Want To Avoid
Being on camera adds another dimension to your presentation. It also adds anumber of things that can distract and annoy an audience. The up-side is greaterconnection and immediacy with your audience. The down-side is a greater potentialto weaken your message without even realizing it.
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What's In This For You?
Make you appear more:
Professional
Confident
Credible
Poised
With that in mind, here is my goal in this presentation. To give you the tools youneed to do a better job, feel better about yourself, and come across the way youwant to with a remote audience.
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Your Problem:Audience Expectations Are Unreasonable
Spectacular amounts of money, talent, and resources are applied to makingpresenters on camera look good. We have become used to an incredibly highstandard for video communications. Your audiences (whether consciously orunconsciously) expect you to come across just like David Letterman, Brian Williams,or Stephen Colbert. That is completely unreasonable. But it doesn't make it any lesstrue. You need to work very hard at doing what you can to create the same "illusionof competence" that news anchors and talk show hosts generate.
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Appearing On Camera:The Basics
Physical Setup
How You Look
How You Act
I have broken our tips into three very broad areas. Physical setup of yourenvironment and your equipment, how to appear better on camera, and how toadopt behaviors that work for a viewing audience.
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Appearing On Camera:Physical Setup
Physical Setup
Scene/Take
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The first thing to consider is your "studio."
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How To Choose A Poor Setting
It's very easy to pick a poor physical location for your webcast. There are manymore bad locations than good ones. These pictures demonstrate a few thingsthat can work against you.
1) A messy office behind you draws focus away from you and makes you seemless professional and organized.
2) Video shot in a public environment with other workers behind you also takesfocus from you. The audience starts watching the background action instead ofyou.
3) Video shot in front of a window allows all sorts of problems. You can be washedout and silhouetted on camera. Your camera can catch reflections in the glass.And anything can happen outside, behind you.(PS: It looks like this woman forgot to check that her camera was set upcorrectly. Don't look like you are about to slide out of the frame!
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Temporary Backdrops Can Be Cheap And Easy
Sometimes you can fix your background with a simple screen or even a sheethanging from a line. Anything to create a neutral and non-distracting backdrop.
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Put Yourself In The Best Light
Lighting is another important consideration. Try to find a way to set up fairly bright,but diffuse lighting. Naked bulbs from desk lamps and hot fluorescent lights canmake you look washed out. Watch out for severe shadows behind you on abackdrop. And never sit in front of a bright white background, since you can end upappearing siloughetted yourself.
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Watch Out For Reflections
If you wear glasses, check to see if the camera is picking up screen reflections inyour lenses. You may need to tilt them a bit or turn down the brightness on yourscreen. Raising the general room lighting also helps combat this problem. A brightpoint source for light can create reflections off your face and head. The gentlemanin the picture here looks positively bi-colored, with a vertical line running down hisface. Very strange. Hanging wax paper loosely over a light is a way to diffuse abright spot.
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Choose Your Webcam Wisely
Example: Ezonics iContact Pro
Example: Logitech Quickcam Pro 9000
Your camera and sound equipment have an effect on your appearance. There is aqualitative difference in webcam quality. Logitech is one name that is generallytrustworthy, especially on their higher-priced cameras, such as the Quickcam Pro9000. The Ezonics iContact Pro has a fascinating design that hangs the cameralens down into your screen area. This makes it easy to look at your material whilestill maintaining eye contact with your audience.
Integrated laptop webcams are seldom high quality.
Look for the ability to zoom and focus your camera both automatically andmanually. Better cameras have automatic white balance, which can help overcomewashout in the video.
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Use A Remote Microphone If Possible
If possible, choose a webcam with a high quality "shotgun microphone" or one thataccepts input from a lapel lavaliere microphone. Wearing a headset with a boommike can give excellent audio quality, but tends to make you look less like a trustedbusinessperson and more like a sports announcer or industrial worker.
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Appearing On Camera:How You Look
How You Look
Scene/Take
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We'll spend quite some time talking about the little things that influence youraudience's impressions of you even before you start talking.
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How You Dress Instantly Defines You
People make a near-instantaneous evaluation of you the second they see you. Yourappearance makes a statement. Here are some tips for making sure the statementmatches your goals.
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Men: Business Or Business Casual
Men, it is difficult to overdress for a webinar presentation (unless you wear a tuxedoand bowler hat). A business suit and tie are always professional on camera. Takingoff your jacket can add a touch of intimacy and non-formality. If you elect to wear ashirt without a tie, keep all but the top button closed, don't wear an undershirt, andnever wear short sleeves. These keep you looking as professional as possible.
Avoid turtlenecks and bulky or shapeless sweaters. They make you look like a turtlepoking his head out of a shell and appear amorphous on camera.
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Women: Go With "Smart Business"
Women, you have a much wider range of business clothes. Again, long sleeves aregenerally safer and a jacket adds an extra professional touch. In general, go for asmart business look that is not overly formal.
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Contrast With Your Background
Both men and women should be conscious of their background. Wear colors thatcontrast so you don't become an eerie floating head on camera!
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Pinstripes Can Cause Moiré Effect
Narrow, well-defined pinstripes are dangerous on camera. They can produce ashimmering effect with a rainbow of false colors. Subtle, very thin pinstripes or oneswell separated are usually not a problem.
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Keep Makeup And Jewelry Understated
Women, the camera is an unflinching observer, especially in close-up. Tone downyour makeup and keep jewelry understated so it does not distract the audience.
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No Shoulderless Dresses
Think about how you might look when framed by the camera. A sun dress or otheroff-the-shoulder outfit might be cute when seen in full.
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No Shoulderless Dresses
But when cut off at the camera frame, you can give a false impression that isdefinitely distracting and not what you intended!
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A Little Grooming Goes A Long Way
Men, the camera is just a harsh taskmaster for you. Trim any stray facial hair, getrid of your five o'clock shadow, and make sure you are combed. You might want touse a VERY light pancake or foundation makeup to cover up small blemishes.Always remember to keep a mirror handy just before going on camera to make sureyou have nothing in your teeth, that your hair is still in place, and that your tie knot isstraight.
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Appearing On Camera:How You Act
How You Act
Scene/Take
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Acting for the camera is very different than presenting on stage or speaking in aconference room. This section requires constant attention and practice. Somethings you need to do feel unnatural in order to create an illusion of comfort in thevideo.
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Annnnnddddd... Hold It!
Posture is very important on camera. Sit up straight and know where your cameraframe is. You need to stay much more still than usual. Use a non-swiveling chair, orlock it in place. When changing the position of your head or refocusing where youare looking, avoid fluid or rapidly changing movements. Shift your head from point Ato point B in a single well-planned movement. The idea is end up somewherebetween the jerky motions of a robot and the sinuous constant motion of StevieWonder.
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If She Can Smile, So Can You
You do not need to keep a smile plastered on your face like a grinning loon theentire time you present. But occasionally remind yourself to consciously smile atyour audience. A smile on camera builds additional warmth and connection.
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"I Just Don't Trust Him"
Just as you make defined, planned movements of your head, you need to hold youreyes in check as well. Constantly shifting your gaze from the camera to the screento your notes and back again gives you a shifty, untrustworthy appearance.
The two most common eye positions are to look directly into the camera lens as ifyou are talking directly to your viewer, or to look slightly to the upper right of thecamera lens, as if the audience is watching you present to a larger audience. Pickone and make that your primary focal point for the entire presentation. Avoid rapidglances at various focal points.
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Look At Me, Mom! Look At Me!
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1st Qtr 2nd Qtr 3rd Qtr 4th Qtr
EastWestNorth
If you want to direct your audience's attention to detail on a slide, tell them first:"Let's take a look at this slide together." That gives you permission to break eyecontact. Then know where your video window appears in relationship to the slidedisplay and learn to turn your head so it APPEARS TO THE VIEWER as thoughyou are looking over to the slide. This is usually somewhere different than looking atthe slide on your own screen. Once you have visually cued them to look in the rightplace, you can turn back and look at it on your screen if you absolutely need toreference it to remind yourself what is being shown.Similarly, if you want to add annotations to a slide, tell your audience first that youare about to add graphics to help clarify. Then you can look down to do the fine eye-hand coordination work.
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Voice For The Camera,Silence For Notes
If you have reference notes or need to look at a slide to see what is on it, stoptalking while you turn your eyes away from the audience. It appears rude for you tobe talking down at your desk. Instead, you can take a pause and look down as ifcollecting your thoughts before looking back at your audience and continuing yourpresentation to them.
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Arms And Hands Must Remain In The FrameUntil The Ride Is Over
If you tend to speak with your hands or use gestures to make a point, make sureyou know where your camera frame cuts off. You typically need to move your handsup quite a bit higher than feels natural to you. But it looks correct to your audience.If you move your hands out of range of the camera lens, it can look distracting orconfusing to the audience.
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You Can Touch, But Don't Look!
If you plan to present on camera, you need to spend extra time practicing with yourweb conferencing software and your presentation materials until you can moveslides and know what comes in what order without needing to constantly look downfor reference. Put your hands on the arrow key or position your mouse on the slideadvance button and move your slides without glancing down.
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Practice That Poker Face!
Close-up work on camera reveals little emotions very clearly. You need toconsciously work on avoiding facial expressions that signal a problem,embarrassment, or exasperation. If you make a little vocal flub, keep moving onwithout getting worked up about it. If an audience member asks a stupid question,don't roll your eyes or act frustrated and impatient. You are giving the audiencesubtle visual cues at all times about how they should be feeling about yourperformance. Project confidence and satisfaction with the way things are going.
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Never Let Them See You Sweat
The same rule applies if you find yourself running short on time, if you experience atechnical glitch with the conferencing software, or if you get a message from yourmoderator or co-panelist. Take it in without visually reacting.
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That's A Wrap!
I know that some of this information seems picayune and overly worrisome aboutsmall points. But your audience responds to all these small and subtle factors, oftenwithout even realizing why they think one person looks good on camera and anotherdoesn't.
These tips are most useful in public one-to-many webinars, but even in a smallcollaborative meeting using webcams, you can come across as the most poisedand trustworthy person on the team, without anyone knowing why.
Adjusting your behaviors for video requires practice and a willingness to criticallyreview your own performance in the actual web conference environment. As a goodexercise, watch a televised political debate or a TV newscast with these ideas inmind. You will see how they affect your perception of the speaker and the material.
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I Don't Suppose There Are Any Questions
If you have questions or comments, feel free to send them to me [email protected]. I look forward to hearing from you.
