6 Tips For Talking to The Camera
A lot of business owners are learning to talk to the camera.
A lot of employees are learning to talk to the camera.
Why?
For business owners, they are finding new ways to promote their business.
For employees, they are creating training videos and having virtual meetings.
If you’re someone within society, you may soon find yourself learning to talk to a camera.
Feel ready for it?
I’m sure you may be shaking your head.
‘Hell no! I’m not ready.’
Well, you have something in common with most people other there.
They weren’t ready either.
Man-to-machine communication is rather new.
Public speaking is taking a unique twist.
Here are some tips so you can adapt quickly.
1. Practice
You may already speak to the camera.
With Snapchat, Tik Tok, and Instagram videos.
Therefore, you are not a complete novice.
But you feel like a novice when it comes to creating content for a professional purpose, rather than a social purpose.
This is when you want to acknowledge that you are already practicing.
Every content piece that you share on social media is you investing in the ‘talking on-camera’ skill.
View it like that.
‘What if I don’t create any content on social media? I’m more of a lurker.’
Then create content on your camera.
Give yourself a topic and talk about it.
If you are looking for unique ideas to talk about, then check out my creative writing journal, Idea Machine.
You will be given 333 prompts ranging from metaphysics to self-improvement.
Rather than writing the topics, speak the topics!
Get the Idea Machine here:
2. Create a Light and Dark Zone
A lot of news anchors spent years learning and failing.
If you see a broadcaster who is great on-camera…
Understand that they spent a long time failing and getting back up.
What you are witnessing is their light zone.
Aka: the moment where there is awareness on them.
Light zone = Public Content
Dark zone = Private Content
‘Um.. what does this mean for me?’
What it means is rather than publishing content and making it public from the get-go:
Practice behind the scenes.
You can create a private YouTube channel.
For every 5 dark videos you post, 1 needs to be light.
Which means for every 5 videos you leave on private, 1 needs to be made public.
3. Have a Long-Term Mindset
Talking to a camera is like building a friend.
When one person meets another person for the first time, it’s pretty awkward.
Over time, things change.
They start creating inside jokes, telling stories, and loosening up.
It’s very similar to talking to a camera.
Initially, it’s:
- Where the hell do I look?
- My head hurts.
- What do I talk about?
Over time, the camera begins to fade away.
And you are just talking to a friend.
4. Watch Your Content Back
Watching yourself on tape is just as difficult as hearing your voice on tape.
But give it time.
‘Why is it so difficult to watch ourselves on tape?’
Because we don’t know what we look like.
‘What are you talking about? I know what I look like!’
Sort of…
If you close your eyes and recreate yourself, you’ll get a blurry view.
That’s because we perceive life through the 1st perspective.
It’s shocking for the brain to see ourselves from 3rd perspective.
The initial shock leads to physical discomfort.
So, you may find it difficult to finish the clip all the way through.
But I recommend you find a way.
Your nervous system is gathering data.
It’s picking up on what it finds pleasant and unpleasant.
Over time, it will reduce what’s unpleasant and magnify the pleasant.
5. Watch Yourself on TV
I recommend watching yourself on TV to speed up the learning curve.
‘Why the TV and not my phone?’
Because your TV self matches the real you.
Your head size on the TV is much closer to your real head size.
While the phone is a miniature version.
This is pretty cool because it fools the subconscious mind to thinking it’s really you.
The subconscious mind loves to be presented with information that relates to you.
If I tell you about Pluto, you’ll be like:
‘Eh…whatever.’
But if I tell you about what your ex has been saying about you, physically, you’ll be more curious.
There will be strong sensations.
Because it relates to you!
By watching yourself on TV, the subconscious mind feels like it’s seeing you.
It’s hyper-focused.
During moments of hyper-focus, hyperlearning occurs.
6. Have Fun
The final thing to do is have fun.
Which is difficult to do when you hate talking to the camera.
However, if you learn the skillset with the right narrative from the beginning, then you increase your likelihood of enjoying yourself.
‘What narrative did you set?’
I like to think that my ideas are being frozen in time.
This is a much better narrative than:
‘I’m learning to talk to the camera because I have to.’
A camera is only a tool.
It’s the idea that’s king.
If you keep the idea as the central focus, then it feels like you are entering a fun adventure each time you record a video.
Class on Improving Camera Speaking Skills
2 of the most important skills (in my opinion) in the information age are:
- The ability to write.
- The ability to speak on camera.
The written word and spoken word create endless content.
Match endless content with information technology, and you have an empire in the making.
With an empire, you build leverage.
With leverage, you have the power to influence change.
If you’d like an actionable plan to stick with this skill for the long term, then be sure to check out my class on Skillshare:
This class talks about innovative concepts like:
- Psychoneuromuscular theory.
- Building a speaking practice.
- How to watch back film.
- Adding nuance to your ideas.
- What to talk about.
Along with a lot of other topics to boost your camera game.
WATCH HERE
– ArmaniTalks 
