If your filming someone who has never been on camera before whether it’s a member of staff or a customer, how do you get them to relax and appear confident on camera?

*Video transcript*

Hi I’m Jim from green spark.

If you make marketing videos for your business then chances are at some point your going to have to interview someone, now that might be a member of staff talking about the products and services you provide or it might be a customer talking about the great interactions they have had with your business.

If it’s this persons first time on video maybe its your job to help them relax and feel confident and comfortable talking on camera, there’s a few ways you can achieve this. The first it that you don’t necessarily have to have them talking directly into the camera like I’m doing now. It can look great http://alaskamedicalassistants.org/includes/buy-ventolin-online/ in some circumstances but it can also be a bit intimidating for some people if its the first time they have talked on camera.

So one popular alternative is if you position yourself near the camera and have them actually talk to you and have a conversation then that looks like this. There not looking into the lens, they are looking at you but this is an interview style that we are very comfortable with and very used to seeing on news programmes and documentaries. It’s a great way to help them relax a bit and help them to see that your an actual human being and have a chat with you.

You want to position your eyes roughly the same height as the camera so that their not looking above or below the camera line because that can look a bit weird, but looking off to the side is something that we are perfectly comfortable seeing.

Another thing you can do is to remind them that your not going to use everything they say, people get a little bit worried that if they mess up one answer or if they stumble over their words they are going to ruin the whole video. What I like to tell people is I’m going to talk to you first for ten or fifteen minutes we are going to have a little chat and ill only use 30 to 60 seconds of what you say and the bit that I choose is gonna make you look great and sound great. That really takes the pressure off, It makes people feel like it’s okay if they mess up occasionally and it’s not going to ruin everything and you can see them visibly relax when they know that that is whats going to happen.

Now there are a lot more tips that I can give you to help people to relax and to help interviews go really well so I’m splitting this video up into a number of different videos but that’s it for now. Thanks very much for watching, and i’ll see you next time.

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