Comments on: How to survive watching yourself on video

By: Presentation tips from a public speaker

Presentation tips from a public speaker — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 03:08:50 +0000

[...] Video yourself: The golden rule applies: don’t ask people to listen to something you haven’t listened to yourself. Just do it. If its unwatchable, be proud you only inflicted a rotten talk on yourself and not an innocent audience. You can delete the video, you cannot delete an hour of wasted time from people’s lives. [...]

By: Jerry Fletcher

Jerry Fletcher — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 17:49:17 +0000

If you present the same material frequently, be surre to video tape it at least every second or third time. Note how you felt about your performance immediately afterwards.

Now compare it with your best performance ever. Compare them overall and decide which is better. Look for the parts you thought you did especially well and jot those down. Next time try to put all those good parts together. (And if you can edit video, try stringing the good parts together for review)

Then try to figure out why one is better than another. Is it you? Is it the audience? Is it the time of day? Did you just get off an airplane or a long drive to get to the venue? Why are you better one time and not another? Look for negative influences and get rid of them. Look for positive influences and put them into the equation. You can improve and video is a great tool to help you do it.

By: Doug Nomura

Doug Nomura — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 00:38:27 +0000

This is great advice. But, I’ve not gotten used to seeing my self on video or hearing myself
on audio. But, I shall heed the sage points made here.

By: Ricardo Bueno

Ricardo Bueno — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 05:58:01 +0000

I always feel a little silly watching myself on video but I have noticed something…I’ve improved significantly since my first ever speaking engagement (this of course is a great thing!). But yeah, I do often feel queazy at first. I get over it about 2-3 minutes into the video.

When it comes to watching it with a friend, I let them watch the video first. Then I ask for their feedback. They joke with me and all but then tell me that they’ve liked it so far. Only recommendations have been to speak louder.

What I need to do is gather some of the recorded sessions and place them on my website as a reference ya know? But alas the “press kit” if you wanna call it that has been slow to come together. I’ve been fortunate enough to not have really required it up to this point but I should put it together nevertheless…

By: Jim Anderson

Jim Anderson — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 19:55:37 +0000

Olivia,

Great advice. With the arrival of small & cheap video cameras there is no longer any excuse for you to not walk away from your next presentation without a video record of it (I like the Flipvideo Mino myself).

I’ve found that once you have a collection of several videos of yourself you are well positioned to look for things that you do over and over that can distract from your message.

Of course, watching yourself on video is a uniquely painful thing to do…!

- Dr. Jim Anderson
The Accidental Communicator Blog
“Learn How To intimately connect with your audience in order to make an lasting impact in their lives.”

By: Simon Raybould - presentions training UK

Simon Raybould - presentions training UK — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 07:56:23 +0000

Will you kindly stop doing this?!?! Much more sensible and free advice and I’ll be out of a job!

Seriously – another good point and it’s hard to argue with a word of it. One trick that I learned from a famous (in the UK) Impressionist called Rory Bremner, is to play video over on fast-forward (sound off); that way you can spot any bad, repeated habits you have, too.

I’d say it’s often not worth worrying about them but if you want to spot ‘em, that’s the best way to do it.