Recommendations before and after shooting
1. Prepare all the materials for the shoot BEFORE you get to the studio. Make sure you have:
- The text for the teleprompter
- The presentation
2. Rehearse your talk along with the presentation slides.
For speakers who have little experience on camera, the whole process may seem difficult, even if they are experts in their field. Having a good rehearsal will help to reduce the shooting time and make the recording process faster and more productive.
If you plan to record the video in parts, you should make sure you know how to split them before you start shooting.
You shouldn’t split them by the number of slides, and certainly not by sentence or paragraph.
Try to split the presentation up into logical parts: welcome, introduction, module 1 etc.
The switch between takes is noticeable, but it looks organic if the takes are split up logically.
3. Choose comfortable and appropriate clothing.
Choosing the right clothes for a recording will give you confidence and make you feel more relaxed.
It’s important that you feel good when you look at yourself in the studio screens.
We recommend wearing clothing that contrasts with the background – white clothing for a black background, or black clothing for a white background.
Avoid sheer fabrics, large knitted patterns, checks or stripes. Wear comfortable footwear – it won’t be seen in shot, and the filming process can be tiring.
During the recording
1. Record in takes.
We know that every speaker can record material in one take. However, if that’s not possible, we recommend recording in takes. If you don’t manage to record the take in the way you wanted, simply click “Stop” and go back to the beginning of the phrase. You can easily splice the takes together in the edit.
Some people find it easier to record a video in one single take, including any errors and mistakes. This is also an option, but in our experience, we can say that splicing together good takes in the edit is easier to do.
2. Pause at the beginning and end of a take
After pressing “Sart”, pause for 1-2 seconds, and then start to speak.
Your intonation should go up. These few seconds can be cut, but there is no way of getting back speech that has accidentally been missed. The same applies to the end of the recording. Speak until the end of the text and look into the camera, then you can press the “Stop” button. Correspondingly, your intonation should go down towards the end.
3. Changing position during takes
Try not to abruptly change your position and pose between takes.
Choose a comfortable pose in which you will end the take and then start a new take. It’s important to remember where you were standing in the frame in the previous take, how your hair was and where your hands were.