3 Ways to Look Great on Zoom, Forevermore
Shazam! This also works for all other videos, too
Been Zooming much lately? Yup, thought so.
It looks like video and video conferences are here to stay in a big way.
Sorry if that makes you wince.
If you had been avoiding video conferencing for most of 2019, or even most of your life, I feel for you.
It’s hard enough for you to be cooped up at home with everyone.
Now we are expected to do live video and video conferences.
Guess what else?
It is getting harder to get away with leaving the camera off.
I mean, would you walk into a real meeting in your jammies and a black paper bag over your head, with your name in white letters printed on it?
Peer pressure is growing to show your face in these meetings, right?
And that’s actually GREAT! Because you showing your face is awesome!
Here is the good news
I love to get to the good part.
Let’s wrangle this one together! Please join me in a crusade to banish cave person lighting, Friday the 13th movie camera angles, and tin can sound quality from Zooms everywhere!
With a couple of simple tweaks, you can look just as good in a video conference as you would at a coffee or board meeting.
Scratch that. You will look even better since the lighting in some coffee shops and all boardrooms is terrible.
Now that video conferencing is here to stay, I’d love to help you look as professional in those video meetings as you do for an office meeting — and you can still keep your jammie pants on!
Ha! Try THAT in a boardroom, right?
OK, on with the Tips.
Step 1: FRAME UP
Think about the last scary movie you watched.
How many scenes did the baddies look down
in the dark
at the audience?
Pretttty often, is my guess.
For Zoom and video conferencing, the biggest tip is this:
Stop looking down
in the dark
at the folks in your meeting.
Would you do that in person?
No. Not unless you were trying to be Freddy Krueger.
This angle is not only quite unflattering, it also sends odd signals to our subconscious brain.
The fact that your phone or your laptop is naturally positioned below your neckline will not change a millennia’s worth of human conditioning. We are used to talking with our faces level with other humans in normal conversation.
If you are joining the live stream from your computer, get your screen up — use a stack of books or one of the zillions of boxes you have from all the Amazon shipments.
And yes, if you want to get all fancy (jammie) pants, you can use an adjustable stand instead, ordered most likely from Amazon.
How high?
The camera on most computers is at the top in the middle. So you want the top line of your screen where the camera is at the forehead level or a bit higher.
In other words, you want the screen to be at about the same place the other person’s face would be in real conversation.
You can also experiment with putting the upper edge of the screen a tad higher than face level. Tilting your chin up slightly to look at the camera gives a flattering result.
Joining with your phone?
If you are attending the meeting with your phone, take a seat and 2 minutes to stabilize your phone.
Use a desktop tripod to get the phone camera up as described above.
You will need a bracket to attach your phone or tablet to the tripod.
Here is a cool idea, too. Some selfie sticks double as tabletop tripods.
You don’t need a bracket because the end of the selfie stick has the bracket already, making it a selfie stick and not just a plastic wand.
Step 2: LIGHT
Sit near a window with some light on your face from the front, not just from the one bulb in the ceiling fixture above. No matter how lovely the view is from your window, do not sit with the light from a window behind you, unless you balance that out with lots of light in front of your face.
Read on.
Purchase an inexpensive box light and put it in front of your face, level with your face. For about $40 your shot will look a million times better.
If you want to get a bit fancier, yet still keep it simple, buy 2 box lights and put one in front of you and one off to the side. Two box lights also work well if you have no window or natural light.
This is the killer tip for glasses, by the way — 2 sources of light off to the side at about 10 and 1, if we use the clock face analogy for reference.
Step 3: SOUND
Use a decent pair of earbuds so you sound like you, not like you in a tin box.
Earbuds are considerate to your audience because they don’t pick up as much background noise as your computer mic.
You don’t have to mute yourself every time a car drives by, a child slams a door, or your dog whines to get in or out.
En fin
As an added bonus, this will help all the videos you (should be planning to) create in your business look better, forevermore, too!
In fact, a video homebase — meaning a simple video setup that you can leave up or put up in 5 minutes or less — is becoming a requirement for the new WFH life. Or even just the ZFH — Zoom from home life.
I’ve put together an easy way to help you with this — only 60 minutes to look better on zoom and all video, forevermore. Includes super simple gear recommendations, video demos and lots of visual examples, ’cause thats how I roll.
You can check it out here.
I’d love to see your before and after shot, too!
Happy Zooming — you got this!
