Are your business video communications letting you down? Read on to learn about how to make a better impression in online meetings and film a better business selfie video.
COVID restrictions have seen an explosion in video communication for all sorts of purposes, not least in the business realm. Video has been a mainstay of personal communication for several years. However, business people have generally preferred a face-to-face approach, when a phone call or email won’t suffice. However, there’s nothing like a worldwide emergency to make us re-evaluate how we do any number of things. As a consequence, more business teams are meeting via video conferencing on Zoom, Hangouts, or Teams. Meanwhile, more information and training is being given to workforces via video messaging of one sort or another. Likewise, schools and universities have increasingly turned to video for teaching. From global commerce to classrooms, video has become the unrivaled king of comms!
The technology that has enabled this revolution has seen an awesome pace of development. However, the poor and even dreadful practice when using it has been equally awesome. Just as the capability of everyday devices, unimaginable a decade ago, have paradoxically spawned a trillion awful photos; a passing glance into the world of business video communication reveals a similar situation. Fortunately, most of the faux pas encountered are pretty easy to avoid with a little insight. So, if you find yourself having to use selfie videos for your work, you may want to read on.
Sound is half the picture
George Lucas famously said, ‘sound is half the picture’. This means that sound is every bit as important to the impact of a movie as what you see on-screen. This is just as true for effective business video as it is for a Hollywood blockbuster. You don’t need to record in Dolby 5.1 or spend a small fortune on equipment to improve the quality of your video’s sound. However, you would do well to adopt a few good practices.
Choose a good environment for sound
If you’re working from the office, there’s probably not a great deal that you can do about the acoustic environment. However, recent events have meant that many of us are working from home, in which case there are a few simple tricks for getting better sound: Try to record in a quiet room, that has carpets, curtains, and soft furnishings, rather than in a room with only hard, acoustically reflective surfaces, i.e., record in a bedroom or lounge, rather than in the kitchen. Too much room reverb (that echoey stuff) makes speech less intelligible and will annoy those viewing your video. This is never a good start.
If you really have to record in an acoustically lively environment, try hanging up a nice thick quilt or blanket behind your recording device, to help reduce acoustic reflections off the wall in front of you. Better still, if you’re working on a table or worktop, fold the bottom of your quilt onto your work surface, under your recording device; now you’re reducing reflections from two surfaces, which will help a lot.
Your new best friend: Mic
Sometimes you really can’t do anything about your recording environment, particularly if you’re working in a shared space. In these situations using a simple lavalier or lapel mic will be an absolute godsend. A lavalier mic can be positioned nice and close to the sound source, your mouth. This means that it increasing the ratio of signal (sound you want to hear) to noise (all other sounds) in the background. You don’t have to spend a fortune on a lav mic and any number of suitable mics can be found on Amazon for as little as £30.00. Lav mics are available for mobile devices and laptops, with a variety of different connections. So, be sure to check your computer, tablet or phone, so that you get a mic that works with your device.
This Saramonic lavalier mic is designed to be plugged into a laptop’s USB port. Similar mics are available with mini-jack, Lightning, micro USB, and USB C connections.
A lav mic should be clipped onto your clothing about 20cm/8″ below your chin. If you’re really fussy, you can hide the cable under your clothing. One important tip when using a lav mic is to make sure you take it off as soon as you’re finished. Lav mics are easy to forget, and leaving the mic attached could mean you walk away, dragging your laptop with you.
Find out more about capturing good audio
Lighting your business video
Ensure that your face is well lit and avoid having your back to a window or other bright light source. Otherwise, you’re likely to appear as a rather sinister-looking silhouette. Poor lighting will also make your device’s camera struggle, leading to a grainier image. This might be OK for the background, but that will do your face very few favours!
Make sure your face is well lit and try to avoid bright backlighting.
You might work in a room with central ceiling lighting that you have your back too. If this is the case, put a reading lamp on the table, behind and above your recording device. This should throw some light on your face. If you’re getting unsightly shadows cast by your desk lamp, use some A4 white paper to reflect light into these. You could also try diffusing the light with a little greaseproof paper or thin white fabric. However, you should take care to ensure that nothing catches fire, particularly if your lamp has a tungsten bulb!
Device choice
Your phone or tablet may well have a better camera and microphone than those found on a cheaper laptop. Having said that, much will depend on the relative age of your devices. So, if in doubt, do a quick test recording. You might decide to use a dedicated camera like a DSLR or compact. However, don’t fall into the trap of thinking that this will automatically solve all of your problems. This is because onboard sound can be a real issue on consumer-grade still cameras and camcorders.
Device orientation and stability
Put your recording device in landscape orientation and keep it still rather than hand holding it. Vertical video might be acceptable in some circumstances. However, most of your viewers will probably view the video on a horizontal computer screen. This is because this is the preferred type of device in a business situation. If you’re using a phone or tablet, try propping it up against a pile of books, or something similar to get a good angle. A nice big lump of Blu Tack works wonders for positioning a smartphone and keeping it still.
Frame composition in your business video
Check that you have a decent frame composition before you start recording. There’s little worse than a video frame with someone’s face languishing right at the bottom of the screen. It’s also worth checking what’s in the background, in case there’s something unsuitable on show. Generally speaking, a fairly plain background is less distracting than one that’s cluttered, or one adorned with posters or photos.
Poor framing will do you no favours whatsoever, so take the time to compose the shot.
Get better sound and better visual composition by getting in close
If you’re not using a lav mic, get in nice and close to your device to improve the ratio of direct sound to that of reflected sound. This will also improve your visual composition, placing more of the main event, i.e., you, in the frame. If you’re recording on a mobile device, DSLR, or camcorder, don’t be tempted to sit at a distance and then zoom in.
Maintain eye contact
Look directly into the lens on your device, rather than looking at yourself on the screen. This will give the viewer the illusion of direct eye contact, instead of you looking to one side of or beneath them. Remember that your video needs to establish a connection with the viewer, so maintaining some sense of intimacy is important. It’s very easy to forget this simple tip and to start talking to yourself in the mirror, as it were. So, try placing a post-it with an arrow pointing to the camera, as a constant reminder of where to look.
Keep recorded video files reasonably large when sharing
Live conferencing services like Zoom offer little or no control over video resolution and quality. This is because they take care of this very well by themselves. If you’re pre-recording a video message, there’s a lot you can do to damage the final product. For example, don’t be tempted to compress video files down really small in order to send them as email attachments. Both image and audio quality will degrade significantly! It’s much better to upload them to a cloud account and send a link via email instead. Alternatively, use a file transfer service like WeTransfer or Transfernow, most of which offer free transfer for large files. Having said that, don’t be tempted to record and share 4K selfie video files, just because you can. You’re wasting everyone’s time and bandwidth by doing so. Either 1080p or 720p is more than adequate for most business purposes.
Another alternative is to upload directly to a free YouTube or Vimeo account, and then send out a link, but remember to set an appropriate privacy level if you don’t want your videos in the public domain. Likewise, social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter can also be used to share a workplace video but may be regarded as less professional, depending upon your intended audience.
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Stourbridge-based Mooma Media offers event audio-visual support, event filming, live-streaming, video production, and still photography services to businesses, the public sector, and other non-commercial organisations throughout the Black Country and the wider West Midlands region. To discuss your project, or for a competitive quote click the button below.
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