Now that most of America are in some sort of lockdown restricting their movement, CEOs around the world are having to do their work from home offices. And for newsworthy CEOs, that also means doing interviews from home offices. Instead of going on set with CNBC or live via satellite from a professional studio, they’re now going live from their basement via Zoom or Skype. And sometimes the results are less than ideal. No one expects a CEO to have a beautifully lit, professional studio in their basement, but there are a few things you can do to ensure that your next interview looks more professional. By the way, these tips are also useful for plain old regular video conferences with your coworkers as well.
Back-Up and Look-Up
In a lot of webcam interviews, the subject’s face takes up the entire screen, and they’re looking down at the camera. That makes sense because that’s typically exactly where we’re sitting when we’re typing at our computers. But for an on-camera interview, that look is bad for a couple of reasons.
- You aren’t matching the framing of the professionals interviewing you. Look at any on-camera interview and you’ll note that the professionals are a few feet back from the camera. You see their shoulders and a good chunk of the top half of their torso. That’s how you want to look as well.
- Looking down at the camera is not flattering. Think about when you take a selfie. Do you look better staring down at your camera, or with your head elevated a bit? Moving away from the camera evens out the angle between your eyes and the camera and makes for a more flattering look.
In our next video, we will be talking about how background can distract viewers and how to avoid this as well as how lighting can improve the view.
