Comfortable On Camera (Be Yourself)

1. INTRO: [MUSIC] Do you want to get more comfortable on camera and really show your authentic self? Well, I genuinely believe that this course is going to help you to gain the tools that you need to grow and develop that skill. As a videographer by trade and in the past few years, I braved the idea of getting in front of the camera and I started a YouTube channel. Between those two things I've learned a lot from experience. So this class is a culmination of everything, well, of most of the things that I've picked up. This class is for you if you want to create online content, start a live stream podcast, or you simply just want to be more comfortable on camera. In my video work, I use this stuff all the time, especially when I'm working with clients who aren't often in front of the camera. I really love working with people, and this skill for me it helps me to ensure that we're always capturing a great performance. What I'm trying to say is that the ideas in this class will help you, no matter if you're in front of the camera or behind it. The only tool that you're going to need for this class is a camera, and if you have a phone or webcam, that's going to work totally fine, so just use those. In the next session, I'm going to explain that the class project and give you the why for how this is going to help you to develop the skill. I promise you're going to learn a lot, especially if you engage with the project. Let's get into it. [MUSIC] 2. CLASS PROJECT: [MUSIC] The best way for you to get the most out of this class is to really engage with the class project. I made it simple so it's really easy to do. It won't take up a ton of your time, but you'll still be able to put the ideas that we've learned into practice. The project for this class is really simple. You're going to make two videos and you're only going to post one of them. One video you're going to make at the end of this session and that one is just for personal reference. Then will make another one at the end of the class and if you're feeling up to it, I would love for you to share the final video in the project gallery. Don't worry. This is going to be a safe space to grow, to be encouraged, and to get helpful feedback. Anyone who violates that will be removed from the project and reported to Skillshare. Sharing videos of yourself is just as much of an accomplishment as actually making the video. But again, seriously, if you're stressed out about that, don't worry. Let's go through the class and let's see how we can grow. Of course, I would never ask you to do something that I wasn't willing to do as well. But since I already know what I'm teaching you in this class, I figured the best way for me to show you what it was like before I knew any of this is to show you a snippet from one of my early YouTube videos. Here we go. Check it out. Hey. I'm set up here on scene at the Falls which if you are a local you'll know what that is. It's super loud here so sorry if you can't hear anything. But my buddy, Mark Schwander, he's a local photographer. He organizes this thing called the Joplin toad, which I'll link down to all of those accounts in the description of this video if you want to check them out. Anyway, I'm going to show you just what we are working with here. Also, you'll notice I decided to wear a different color of shirt. I do that a lot, so get to used to it. As you can see, I'm definitely not just a natural at being in front of the camera. I really do hope that this shows you that there is real value to this class and the things that I'm going to cover in it. The biggest key to developing your skill is practice. Practicing doesn't always mean that you're doing the right thing. Sometimes you're practicing bad habits. We're going to focus on practicing with good habits in mind that will really set you up for success. Every skill requires practice, which is one of the reasons why I like Skillshare so much is you're not only learning content, you're not only learning ideas, but you're actually putting it into practice that you can, one, get better at stuff that is helpful for you in your life and it's also just fun to put things you know into practice. I don't want to worry about that anymore but take time. Take a minute, record your quick video without thinking, preparing, checking your hair, fixing your lighting, [MUSIC] any of that stuff. Here is your quick little prompt. Give me two reasons about why your favorite social media platform is the best one. When you're done with the video, just save it, tuck in your back pocket. Again, this video is just for you to be able to track your improvements. Let's keep moving along and we'll see you in the next session. 3. KNOW YOUR STYLE: I hope that you were able to take a minute and make a quick video before diving into this session. The simple practice of talking to a camera is really, really hopeful because every time you do it, you become more comfortable with the camera. Once you've made your video, hang on to it. We'll come back to it here in a few sessions, but first, we need to get into tip number 1. Know your style. It seems really obvious, but to be able to be authentic on camera, we have to know ourselves, we have to know who it is that is supposed to show up to be authentic. To start, I think it's really important for us to figure out how we process information, how we share stories, and what's interesting to us because who we are, how we think, it informs what we say. If I know one thing, especially from my early content, it's that knowing what to say makes a huge difference for your confidence when you're in front of a camera. Confidence is a really helpful tool in our tool belt for being ourselves. Knowing your thinking style is one of the best ways to be able to create a system of planning ideas that works for you and not against you. Sometimes for me, at least, planning content is enough of a buzzkill to stop the process altogether, and so learning about myself is really helpful and it keeps me, even still today, keeps me from getting stuck and quitting. Instead, it just helps me to figure out the right system that works for me. Like I said, I think that these systems can be unique, they can be customizable. My best suggestion is to take the ideas that I'm going to share in this class and use them to build your own system, one that works for you and the type of content that you want to make because after all, you're the person who is uniquely you and that's the person we're trying to see on camera. For the sake of simplicity, I divided everybody into two thinking styles. What I want you to do is just try to figure out which one resonates with you more because it's probably more of a sliding scale, and we'll use this to identify the types of tendencies that we have naturally and some of the snags that we get stuck on. Let's jump straight into it. The first type is the thinker. The thinker is likely most comfortable with a script. The thinker might find that they generally don't want to share a video if they don't feel confident that they can not only share the content, but they can react to comments and they know how to interact with anyone who's watching it. Basically, they just want to be and feel like an expert. The thinker generally likes the security of using some kind of robust notes or even a teleprompter, and it seems obvious, but they highly value expertise and logical thought processes. The downside of this method is that sometimes the delivery of content is more likely to be the under-prepared part and it can feel a bit rehearsed, scripted, or robotic. The other thing is that the thinker is quite prone to over-explaining things, or for the next type I call it, ranting. It's kind of the same problem, it just shows up a little bit differently. The second type is the performer. The performer usually knows their content just enough to get by, but really is so confident in their ability to improvise and entertain that they don't care, they don't mind not knowing exactly what they're going to do, they're just going party and it'll be fun. The performer is really most likely to be comfortable using a loose outline or if any notes at all. But naturally, they're going to be more physically expressive and talk a lot with their hands and maybe even do a lot with their face and have some big facial expressions. But the downside of this method is sometimes it's actually confusing. Sometimes so confusing they're even just repeating points in an attempt to make the word sound just right. It's also really possible that the performer doesn't actually share anything of value, but leans too heavily on the party trick of sounding interesting and fun. One note about this method is that it's really actually quite possible that being animated, being super extra isn't authentic to you. That was definitely a discovery of my own was, I don't have to be this big extra person. I can still be animated just being myself. Getting comfortable with that was really helpful for me. Like I said before, everyone should really develop their own special recipe for preparing your ideas. Knowing yourself is the most important part of this whole thing. So figuring a system that works for you and your schedule, your tendencies, and all of that is going to be the best. You may have a pretty good idea on which thinking style you trend towards, regardless of which one resonates with you, processing your ideas should start in the same space. All types of content are better with at least some preparation. You may enjoy vlogs, but even vlogs have a lot of planning behind them. You have to remember these people are professionals and they make difficult things look effortless. Professionals have most likely put in practice, preparation that they need to be able to create great, holy smokes, that they need to create great videos. Got it. Or really, professionals to anything they've usually done the 10,000-hour rule, which is I don't think always applicable, especially not with being yourself on camera, but I do think that again, practice with good habits in mind, is going to create a space for success. In the next session, we're going to dive straight into how we prepare our ideas. Let's do it. [MUSIC] 4. PREPARE YOUR IDEAS: Now that we know our thinking style, we still need to get into some of the practical work of preparing our ideas. Tip number 2 is prepare your ideas. This tip seems pretty obvious but you'd be surprised how helpful it can be when you actually know how to prepare those little monster ideas camping on your brain. In this session, we're going to focus on creating an outline. That's the goal. We'll have an outline by the end of this practice. This is just a practice of thinking through ideas and observing how your ideas are telling a story. We're going to go through a few questions that you can ask yourself to process and refine your ideas. Think of it as a brainstorming session where you're just throwing ideas at the wall to see what sticks and I think writing everything down on paper or keeping it digitally somewhere, whether you want to type it out or use a tablet, iPad, something like that. Generally, I find it a little bit better if you can write because you can draw pictures if you have things or you can squeak something in somewhere. But if you want to type, again, this is one thing where you know your thinking style, and you know what works best for you, so just prepare in the way that works best for you. This is just an exercise for brainstorming. That might get a little disorganized but that can be a good thing, so don't worry too much. These questions are simply for you to focus on your thoughts. Develop them into meaningful content. Once you get your idea board ready, we're ready to dive in, so let's do it. Also just before we dive in, I'm going to go a little bit deeper on each question and expound on what I mean, or maybe even some of the snags that the questions can cause when you're processing through them. Feel free to either pause the video and go through this practice at your own pace or listen to the whole thing, write them down, and then go through the process on your own after this session. What is the main idea that you're trying to share? Sometimes this is hard to figure out, so I like to scribble down several main ideas and keep just moving along. Usually, it becomes a little bit more clear to me which one is the best idea after I get more onto the page because some ideas just stopped quickly and the other ones I get excited about. At the same time, you don't want to get too broad that you end up distracting yourself. Honestly even confusing yourself about what's the concept. Sometimes I get really good ideas all at the same time, so I'll just put a little box to the side and I put ideas there that I want to come back to at another time. The second question is, what experience do I have that could give maybe a little extra color to the way that I talked about this? If you're talking about fashion, for instance, and maybe you're a sneaker-head or you just like shoes in general write that down. Maybe that turns into starting every outfit reveal on your fashion channel with your shoes. It could be this inspiration for a whole segment. The main point of this is that what's normal to you may actually be what's really interesting to other people, and in the worst-case scenario it's just normal and it makes you really relatable, which is a good thing too. The third question we're going to ask ourselves is, is there a story or maybe there are other multiple stories that I can attach to this idea? Different types of content are going to learn themselves to answering this question just a little bit differently but stories are always a great way for giving ideas something to hold onto. It's generally how we remember important lessons and ideas. For instance, some of the most inspiring movies aren't special because they say something unique, but because it is the way that they say it that makes it special. Stories always are really great way for us to add even some different layers to our content. For instance, I'm not really that comfortable with certain emotions. Maybe for you, you do a lot of informational stuff so you need to add a little bit of humor, maybe a little bit of sadness but either way, it's going to make you more relatable, which is overall a good thing for people to feel like they know you too. Even for you when you're in front of the camera to feel like you're sharing yourself with the camera. Don't be afraid to relate to your viewers, which we talked about, and this is going to help you to get your viewers to watch. Quoting your title things would get viewers to watch, but your style, your personality will help people to relate to the real you, the person that's authentic, the person that's actually you. You know that person that we're trying to encourage to show up, and that is important. As always, if you don't like something edit it out, it's so easy to just not use it. Cut it out, don't use it, don't post it, easy. The fourth question we're asking is, what answers are we providing? If you're doing educational content, this can be a really easy one to answer but don't worry if you're making other types of content, maybe you're making cinematic videos that are just really cool and interesting to watch, they tell visually a story. You're still probably answering questions or even if you are flogging, maybe you're just answering simple questions like, was it like to live in a small town? Was it like to live here or there? What do other people do for fun if they have dogs? What do people with kids do to mess up their schedules? How do you bake this and what's the taste like? There's so many things you could be answering, so even if it's not educational, you're still answering questions and that can help you guide your story and your content. Let's move on to the next step. Once you're able to write down the ideas, get them out of your head, get them on the board, the paper, or whatever, then we're going to take a minute and see what looks interesting and special about these ideas. This step will probably take you at least a few minutes and we're trying not to focus on making sense of everything at this point, but rather we're just looking for what pops out. Maybe you take a highlighter to it or colors or something. Maybe there's even huge gaps you're like, whoa, I left this out. Feel free to add that in to make sure your ideas are complete. Once you feel good about your main idea and what you've got going there, we're going to create our rough outline, which is our goal, so just think about bullet points here, we're thinking about a story of progression. Work through your ideas and create a plan. Focus on creating this basic flow of ideas. The fields engaging has probably some progression to it, you want to have all of your story elements beginning, middle, end, twists, plots, resolutions, all those types of things. Each piece of content is just going to need different things but you understand the story, you know about stories, use the elements you know about watching stories, telling stories to help you along with this step. It's probably going to take you 20, 30 minutes but sometimes the idea just clicks and it goes way faster. But there's plenty of times where the idea gets stuck and it takes me way longer. Either way, this practice will help you by giving you a strong sense of direction when you're in front of the camera. A pro tip is creating planned phrases that are concise for transition moments and main points. For performers like me, this is a really great way to stay on track and give yourself solid ways to move through your content without ranting too much. For thinkers, it's really helpful to have phrases like this to have a little extra expression to keep you from sounding just like you're reading the page and processing information. Bonus tip for the thinker, consider typing a script at this point. I think both types could do this, for the thinker, I really suggest this. Reading it out loud sometimes makes sure that your sentence structure is more speech unless writing. Sometimes there's grammar things we do when we type that are actually correct but that's just not really how we talk, so you want it sometimes just read out loud what you're typing in your scripting. Don't be afraid to try new things at this face, saying it out loud, saying it silly, saying it funny, saying a word wrong on purpose, or whatever. Sometimes even just saying it out loud can make you feel like that's not how I talk. But either way, no one is watching. It's a super good time for experimenting. Once you have your ideas ready to go, no matter which thinking style you are, we're ready to hit "Record." Well, not quite there's still one more thing, so to the next session. 5. HEADSPACE MATTERS: Now that we have our content plan, we need to record it. But not yet because well it seems like it's the next step, it's not. Tip number three is Headspace matters. Getting into the right headspace is vital. For being your best self on camera, I promise this isn't going to be some kind of [NOISE] stuff. That there actually is some practical elements to getting yourself into the right head space before hitting record. Like imagine trying to give a presentation about something really technical. But the whole time you can't catch your breath and you're sweating and it's getting hot in the room and you need a drink. I'd imagine that video is pretty uncomfortable, like not just for you, but for everyone. That's why we want to center ourselves before hitting record. Because all those little things they really do add up, your natural defense to feeling uncomfortable will be some sort of version of yourself that really isn't that authentic. Being intentional about this practical stuff is super-helpful for building confidence. Getting centered means that we're prepared on the content level which we already knew we are, but also on a physical level too. Let's look at some of the most common ways that you can improve the environment for your performance. Some of these are going to be practical things, but some of them also production anything. For instance, knowing that you're going to put some certain music under a moment. It can really inspire the extra zest for how you want to deliver that moment. That's a production thing. It's like knowing that stuff changes your performance, but it's okay because you know what you're going to do with it once you're in post, in production level. A practical thing would be making sure that you're hydrated so that your mouth doesn't have that awful smacking sound that's often in videos that make your skin crawl. Yes, I fully realize that there's ASMR and that's a thing but that's different. Something else you'd be doing that on purpose, so it'd be fine. Another practical thing is setting a comfortable temperature. You can make sure that your location is generally comfortable for you or that you're dressed in a way that makes you feel good, makes you feel comfortable. In this class, we're mostly going to focus on practical things because it really isn't a production value class. Both unlike the content and delivery level, I really like how Ansel Adams, who's like a black and white photographer. He says this quote that's related to his medium art, which I would say you being yourself on camera is art. He says, "There is nothing worse than a sharp image with a fuzzy concept." There's plenty of good classes for you on Skillshare to help you with things like lighting, microphones, backgrounds. In fact, even I have some of that stuff on my YouTube channel. But to be honest, those things really don't matter until you're able to be your best self on camera. I can say that someone who loves production quality, It's a tough realization to know that your video isn't weird because I had the wrong lighting or camera setup. It was awkward because I felt awkward. I wasn't prepared. I didn't know what to say. I had little confidence in what I was doing and I didn't give a good performance. I realized this, I was willing to accept it and that's when the real work began, the self work. This is the stuff that motivates us and this is probably even why you're taking this class because self betterment is important to you and it's an awesome thing. But it doesn't mean that it's easy. I'm actually super grateful for all the friends and family that I have who have encouraged me along the way. But not just said, you did a good job. They give me honest feedback so that I can grow. I promise it won't be mean, but I hope that the feedback that everyone submits, the stuff that I give to your videos, to all the stuff that you put in the project gallery is able to encourage and motivate you to continue to grow because we're all on this journey of self-development and discovery. Be kind to yourself, be courageous. In the next session we're going to jump into some of the actual practices and exercises. Let's focus on her head space before we hit record. Let's do it. 6. CENTERING EXERCISES: [MUSIC] It's so good that you're working on yourself and taking this class seriously, but I want to take a minute and get out of our thinking space and our feeling space and really emphasize that practical space. So head and heart, hang on a minute, we'll give the same attention to you, but hands and body, we're going to practice some of these types of things real quick. There are a few types of reactions that I've run into pretty frequently when I work with clients. I figured that would be a good way to reference some behaviors and how I learned to react to stabilize the client. But obviously people are really complex, so these are just going to be a few common things that I run into when working with people who aren't used to being in front of a camera and even some things that I struggled with too when I wasn't really used to being in front of a camera. The first is, feeling overly aware of your body. Someone is clearly feeling this way or when someone is feeling this way, I tend to try to help by adjusting the environment if possible, so like for you just making sure that you're wearing something you're comfortable in, that you feel good in. Maybe it's like you know that when you feel attractive or you feel comfortable or you feel whatever that you are your best self. That you're at least willing to be vulnerable and to share yourself with an audience or a camera whatever. Another thing you can do is set the temperature of the room accordingly. If you really like wearing a hoodie, then making sure your house or wherever you're presenting is a little bit colder, then that's going to help you from feeling sweaty because you have a hoodie on which would be a negative thing and a positive thing. We're trying to make ourselves the most comfortable to be ourselves. This is one thing where a lot of video creators are often worried about things like the fan noise from their light or refrigerator running or something like that. [NOISE] The reality is, a comfortable person on camera will always create a better and more interesting video, so get comfy. It's important. The main thing that I do for this is just find simple ways, if I can't control all those things to complement the person about what they're doing well, to make sure that you're keeping the mood really positive and reassuring them that they can mess up and it's no big deal. I always say, hey, with video, you could try again, don't worry about it. Look, this can be a throwaway take and you just work through the content. Maybe just start at the beginning, go all the way through even if you mess up, just keep going. You'd be surprised how often I end up using that take, it's hilarious. The second thing that I run into is people overthinking it, which is so classic. This is where identifying your thinking style really comes in handy, not only because that helps you on the preparation phase, but it helps you to know where you'll typically get stuck which if you've forgot some of those things, you can rewind and check that out. But knowing what you need to feel confident in your content is really helpful. One thing I do for clients is I help them reduce their lines into smaller sections or I simply just let them use some notes. A lot of people won't even reference their notes, but it just makes them feel safer knowing that they have them and sometimes I'll take some content if they're having to look at the camera and I'll just change the style of it. Sometimes I like doing an off-camera interview, which can really help a person too, because most people aren't really interested or aren't practiced and talking to like inanimate objects. But they are used to talking to people, so it's a lot easier for people to talk to a person than a camera. The third and honestly most common thing that I run into is [NOISE] coughing. No, sounding fake. Just sounding like you're really love it here. No one buys that and that's really unfortunate because you're not being vulnerable, you're not being authentic and that's really the point of this class is that we're trying to be our best self, even if sometimes we have to prioritize content and some of those other things. [NOISE] We really want to bring our best self to our performances. So if you've read a teleprompter this can really be an issue for you. Another place that I've also seen this being an issue is when someone's trying to do like a very specific branded line, something that maybe doesn't feel natural to the way that they talk. One of the ways that I get over this is either having practiced the line a few times until it starts to feel normal or I find it helpful to get them in a flow. Offer them a little extra space to simply talk about whatever in, say some different stuff and shake off those nervous feelings. Because some people can get a combination of all those things where they're overly aware of their body, they're thinking too much, they're overthinking everything and they feel fake and so if you get there, having someone [NOISE] and restart is really helpful. One thing I even do for myself when I'm recording a video is I will sometimes let myself get to a point where I'm really frustrated and then I'll allow myself to be calm and breathe and just re-center myself. So I'm [NOISE] I'm closing my eyes and making sure that I feel good. Maybe I'm even going to give myself a little brain massage and that helps to stop, reset and good to go. Of course, there's a super real possibility that none of this works for you and you're still super hyper fixated on whatever. In that case, you need to just eat a piece of humble pie and realize that maybe you're just not prepared enough. You need to go back and prepare your thoughts a bit more or maybe try using a different medium, have notes, have a teleprompter or maybe you just need to tough it out. Give your best effort. Remember literally nobody is super great at what they do without practice, so sometimes the hard and tough reality is that intentional effort plus repetition is what equals improvement. You got to keep going and you will get better with intentional practice. It's been super great, I think there's still one more thing we need to talk about so I'll see you in the next and final session. [MUSIC] 7. HIT RECORD!: [MUSIC] You are now finally ready to hit record. At the end of this session, you're going to make your second video and it's part of the class project. Remember to go through all the things that you've learned in this class and really knock it out of the park. Once again, you're going to make a video sharing your thoughts on [NOISE] your favorite social media platform and why it's best. When you're done, upload that video to YouTube either as public or unlisted, and then you can share that to the class project. Again, if you decided to do your own idea, just go ahead and use that video too because I really want to see how you are on camera. I think it's better for you to be able to talk about something that you're really excited about, that you planned, that you did everything that we talked about in this class. If you don't want to talk about social media as your video, don't worry. Do what you want to do and post it in the project gallery. If you don't feel like sharing the video, maybe consider taking a screenshot and writing a couple of sentences about what was most helpful for you from this class. If there's something you want specific feedback on, just ask because we're all here to develop our skills and be our most authentic and best selves. Thanks for taking this class with me. If you enjoyed taking this class, don't forget to follow my teacher account here on Skillshare. If you enjoyed hanging out with me more than that, you can subscribe on YouTube or follow on Instagram and we can be friends there. That's it. You're ready. Go make some videos as your best and most authentic selves. It's been awesome sharing this class with you, and I really do hope to see you in another class soon. As always, I got to tell you guys this, stay creative. [MUSIC]