Before your recording session

Camera On,
Nerves Off

Everything you need to know before you press record. How to look like yourself, sound like yourself, and not lose sleep over it.

You may already feel confident with some of this. Skip ahead to what is useful. It is arranged in the order you will likely think about things, but it is built for dipping into.

Look your best

You do not need to be a presenter. You need to be yourself, clearly seen and clearly heard. The rest is small adjustments.

What to wear. Solid colours work best. Bright, mid-tone or dark, all are fair game. Choose the colour you feel good in. Avoid busy patterns, tight stripes, fine checks and intricate prints, which make the picture shimmer, and avoid pure white or pure black, which the camera struggles to balance.

Make-up. You do not need it. Show up as yourself, that is what people connect with. A touch of translucent powder to stop shine under lights is a personal choice and perfectly fine.

Hair and grooming. Hair off the face if you usually push it out of the way. The camera cannot see you doing it once, twice, three times across an interview the way you can in a mirror.

Glasses. Lenses pick up reflections from your screen and overhead lights. Recording without them often gives the cleanest result. Keeping them on is completely fine too, we will angle things to suit.

Posture and eyeline. Sit or stand tall. Shoulders back and dropped, not hunched toward the screen. The camera should be at your eye level, not below it. A laptop on a stack of books is the cheapest, fastest fix you will ever make.

Set up your space

Sound and lighting are the two most important elements in video. Get these right and a humble phone camera in a small home office will outperform expensive gear in a poorly lit, noisy room.

Light. A window or lamp at 45 degrees gives soft, flattering shadow on one cheek. A window directly behind you turns your face into a silhouette.

Background. Tidy, with some depth behind you. A lamp or a plant adds warmth. Anything on a shelf behind you is readable, so put up only what you are happy for people to read.

Framing. Camera at eye level. Frame from roughly the diaphragm to just above the head, with a finger's width of headroom.

Sound. Microphone about an arm's length away. Phone on silent and face-down, laptop notifications off, and a sign on the door if you might be interrupted.

Deliver with confidence

Eye contact. Talk to the lens, not to your own face on the screen. A small sticker or arrow beside the lens gives you something to aim at.

Notes. Bullet points near the lens, not paragraphs. Paragraphs make you read, and reading is visible.

Repeat the question in your answer. Say "the program gets kids reading" rather than "it gets kids reading", so your answer stands on its own without my voice in front of it.

Energy and pace. Slow down by about ten percent, and lift your energy slightly. Both feel exaggerated while you are doing them and look completely normal on the recording.

The pre-record checklist

Print it, or keep it open beside your camera. Run through it before every recording.

Anything here you are unsure about, reply to your booking email and ask. Nobody has ever asked me a question about this that was too small.