How to be a Better Speaker on Camera

By: Carley Varley

How comfortable are you on camera?

So, we’ve all been there, we all hear our voice played back and think do I sound like that? We’ve all cringed when we’ve seen ourselves on video. With careers like being a musician, you are infront of cameras a lot of the time and so being comfortable and speaking well is a huge part of gaining fans and is a part of your image.

I have always been awkward myself infront of the camera, one of the reasons I started my vlog was to get practice at talking to the camera and feeling more comfortable. Today I’m going to give you some of my best tips for getting more comfortable and getting better at speaking infront of the camera. 

1. Pretend the camera is a person.

Learn to speak to the camera like you are looking at a person.

It’s easy to feel intimidated looking into the lense but if you relax your body language and talk as if you are talking to a person, it comes across a lot more natural. Its always good to look at the camera when you speak and try to memorize your notes as best you can.

You can look away from the camera if you are thinking or need to pause but always remember to look at the camera often, otherwise nerves can come across very easily.

2. Lots of Eye Contact

Learn the secret to connect with your audience.

If you struggle with this, look at the centre of the camera lense and focus on this when you speak, you can always look at the person who is filiming you, if you have someone who films you.

Eye contact is vital to engaging with your audience.

You’ll look a lot more comfortable and you’ll be better at talking to the camera if you focus on looking into the camera. Don’t pretend it isn’t there, that’s not a great tip, know it’s there are really try to focus on what you want to say and this should calm your nerves.

3. Learn to be Your True Self

One of the best things about being on camera is being captured authentically. You can pretend to act a certain way on camera but often people see right through this.

It’s best to be yourself

If you are a little nervous you may never be able to fully hide your nerves but some viewers may like the honesty. Being yourself is important on camera and often people get so nervous trying to be someone else or overthinking that they forgot what they are talking about or even have to try again later. Be yourself, make jokes to ease your nerves if you need to, mention that you are nervous, but be yourself. This is a great way to make yourself feel comfortable infront of the camera.

4. Focus on the objective

Remember why you are filming and focus on that objective. This often helps me, if I have lines that I need to say or a script, this really helps me not only stay focused but not get so nervous when talking to the camera. It’s also about practice, the more you do it, the better you’ll get, so try practicing filming yourself with scripts and see how you get on.

5. Reframe your Mindset

One thing that really gets in the way of a lot of people’s confidence, is worrying what people will think. One of the best bits of advice I was ever given was ‘people are for you, not against you’, people if they tune in to your content, will want to watch it, and if they don’t they’ll leave and that’s okay.

Remembering why you are making your content will help you so much.

Thinking when you are speaking that the people watching you want to hear what you have to say will help you feel comfortable and make talking to the camera easier. Make sure you write down this tip, it really does help to think that people are listening and watching, not to mock you but to learn.