Tips for better remote video presentations
Social distancing has forced us to use new tools to make our Project Presentations.
On the 5th week of Quarantine, we are late but never is too late to learn something! Meanwhile, Instagram Live and Youtube video have been duplicated, we have assisted to first time videos to all kind of personalities.
Working and Lecturing and Project presentation are going to be remotely, so we need to find the time to learn of how to do it, here you can find some rules and considerations.
This days and this Covid situation can help us to learn and to grow new habilities that maybe will be important in the future.
First, you must think if you will make your presentation with some slides and other information, I recommend to read Design better Presentations, Documents and Reports.
You can use all kind of tools and platforms, choose yours.
They're all kind of tools these days to record your video:
The most popular one is YouTube: Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on
The formal but “cheese” one is Prezi Video: Videomaker & video recording software.
The Ice breaker can be Flipgrid: Empowers every voice in millions of PreK to PhD classrooms across 190 countries.
The teenager one is TikTok: here we can see amazing animations, the pitty is they have to be of maximum 1 minute, so short videos.
The more formal Video creation: WeVideo
The Software that went online: FlashBack Express: Creates unlimited length videos with screen capture, audio capture, and webcam recording capabilities.
The easiest screen capture sharing: ShareX: Open-source screen capture and file-sharing software.
The school one: Screencastify Helps make student voices heard and thinking visible through activities like Speech and language practice; Comprehension and reflection exercises; Interactive slide presentations.
The Proof one: Blackbird: fast cloud video editing and publishing platform.
Plan your Video presentation
You can use paper notes, for this, you can make a sort of guide of what you have to say, I found very interesting after Julia Esque Live at my barrio, she uploads a story of her notes, that shows her ability to prepare herself of the main important points and topics to remember in her presentation.
If notes, you think is too oldish, you can download an app, that can help you with your script, there are a lot of possibilities, of what are call Teleprompter apps.
These apps allow you to write down all you what to say and read it meanwhile you are recording yourself.
This app is popular used by the news women and men to be so natural and tell a lot of information that you are unable to keep in mind for so long.
These days we can find a lot of memes and information that gives us clues of how this business works, Dan Ziffer, Journalist for ABCnews, an Australian Broadcasting Corp, show us how he makes his videos from home, the image shows us a lot of clues.
Good background and good dressing
Prepare Yourself and the recording space. All that is in the picture, keep in the picture, so is very important you upper part clothes and your background home amenities are ok.
Matt Abrahams, Lecturer Stanford University Graduate School of Business recommends to help me deliver the webinars and virtual courses he teach, to built astanding desk. The design reinforces several best practices we teach in our Effective Virtual Communication sessions: (1) Light — provide consistent lighting from above (2) Look — speak to the camera so you appear to be looking at your audience (3) Lift — raise your camera up so your image appears head on (4) Liquid — drink warm water to support your voice (5) Limit — monitor your phone’s clock to stay within your allotted time
These days we have entered in all kind of houses and personal lives, there is not a good tip for the place, you can take it as seriously as you want, you can use some curtains, a small room with no background to the living room with your books, your plants. If you can, decide to put a poster beside you a picture of your family or a poster of your favourite designer.
Some software, you can hide the background or just blur it with a light spot putting more light to you than in your background. Light is very important, control your types of lighting: Front Lighting and side lighting gives power to you, backlighting gives you a sort of mystical
Put your mobile in a good place for recording
You can design an object to keep your mobile at eyes high if you use a laptop or a mobile and you put on the table, normally you will get a low angle view, this view is not the best view. Experts recommend a normal view that is recorded from your eyes high.
Product designer Marc Morro has created his own object to allow to take long videoconferences, imagination to create your own device of the platform to put your mobile or laptop to rec yourself.
Don’t cut yourself in the video
One of the main important things is not to cut yourself, give space around you or around your object if you are recording your screen try to make it smaller to give a bigger perspective. Is not allowed to cut the image video from your neck, or your arms or from your legs.
Use the same criteria as photography, sometimes rules are to break it, but be careful!
Look at the camera, and put a face to your device like if it was somebody.
Try to talk more slowly and vocalize with calm. Normally when we are nervous we try to go faster than we can.
Don’t get scared if you don’t recognize yourself after your recording.
The importance is the message you are trying to give.
Smile and Repeat
Keep trying and improving your video presentations.
If you have a tic, don’t worry about it, Video recording will help you to reduce it.
Share and ask for somebody else opinion of how to improve it, what doesn’t understand correctly or what you can do it to make it better.
