So how do you get past being camera-shy?
First, identify the source. Ten to one, it’s some personal detail you read as a flaw, such as being overweight or having a speech impediment.
This hasn’t stopped top-notch celebrities from sharing their expertise. Look at Dr. Lucy Worsley, the British historian who hosts If Walls could Talk: The History of the Home. Worsley suffers noticeably from rhotacism – the inability to pronounce the letter “r”.
She turns all her “r” sounds into the “w” sound – yet this doesn’t stop her one bit from investing everything she presents with a spirited, even mischievous personality. She dresses in authentic, period clothes, does things like going without bathing for a week, performs gruesome tasks and intrepidly asks questions even Oprah would shy from.
The result is a hypnotically watchable program that allows the viewer to understand life in past times more vividly and immediately. Even non-history buffs like it because… it’s thoroughly entertaining.
Oprah Winfrey herself was overweight when her TV show soared into mega-popularity. It did so not because she looked perfect but perhaps because she didn’t. And let’s not forget that people were attracted by her confidence, her fascinating guests – and the help she offered. (“Oprah made you believe in yourself,” said one die-hard fan.)
Can you make people believe in themselves? Can you show them how to do something generally perceived as difficult and make it really easy? Can you introduce fascinating guests?
Above all, can you smile?
Smiling helps eliminate on-camera nerves even better than deep-breathing, according to researchers. In fact, if you were to speak to a room full of people with social anxiety, you would be best to smile slightly as much as possible, since “socially anxious individuals tend to interpret neutral faces as threatening”, according to a 2012 Elsevier Behavior and Research study published in Science Direct .
Learning what confident people look like and simulating confidence can actually transform you into a genuinely confident person, according to most psychologists who embrace behavioral reframing. As behavioral therapists often like to say: “Perform the actions and the feeling will follow.”
So you see, being camera-shy is a two-fold problem because it includes on your part:
- An illusion
- A habit
Habits are hard to change, but (contrary to what you might think) it doesn’t take belief (at least, in the initial stages of change): It takes repetition and practice.
Here’s what you need to know about being camera-shy:
- Almost everyone appearing in a video experiences this[1] — from a few seconds immediately before going “live” to (in very rare cases) paralyzing terror
- It is easily overcome by practice and repetition
In addition, it helps greatly if…
- You focus on one person you are speaking to (envision that person in the camera lens)
- You speak to an audience you are comfortable with (e.g. fellow dieters)
- You smile whenever it feels natural to do so (even slightly)
- You speak first to a small, informal “closed” group – do this as often as possible, until appearing on camera no longer dominates your thoughts
- You pre-record your video rather than jumping straight into a “live”, interactive one – unless, of course, interactivity usually helps you overcome fear.
Knowing you can edit out awkward moments can defuse the anxiety of producing a video.
We spent a lot of time on camera shyness in this blog series because ultimately this is the biggest barrier to people finally creating business videos. Next we will move on to the technicalities.
Did you miss previous posts in this series?
Creative Video Marketing
What is Stopping You?
What Video Is and Isn’t
