Unfiltered Thoughts

2022.08.08– 0585 – The 3-P Formula For A Better Voice
THE THREE P’s FORMULAIf you want to claim you have a professional presentation (albeit sounding adlibbed), then you need to work at your craft.
In the same way the starter guitarist doesn’t launch instantly into riffs and jams, you need to do the work to underpin your future career of having ‘your mouth on the mic’. Get the fundamental foundations, the mouth and mental muscle memory, before your creative communication excellence can begin. And you do that through: continual Practice, and then on-the-day and with-the-script Preparation and finally, your actual Performance. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

2022.08.07– 0584 – How To Be An Auto-Cutie 3  Look at the lens·        Keep looking the camera lens ‘in the eye’ in the same way as you’d look at someone if they were in the room with you. That doesn’t mean a stare or a glare, but with a natural ease (one of interested, informed involvement) alongside occasional glances at your paper-notes or maybe a colleague or monitor. Not only will this make you look conversational, because you will be emulating the style of face-to-face interaction, it will also help you sound conversational too.  Relax ·        Keep your head, neck, and shoulders relaxed. Let your head move naturally, with small movements up and down left and right so you don’t appear to be staring. Some people look down at a desk script occasionally to keep up the ‘pretence’ of having committed the story to memory. As well as helping you look and feel more natural, it’ll help reduce stress around your neck and shoulders. ·        Smile and gesticulate (within reason!). Obviously, this depends on the context and content of what you’re saying, but don’t be a statue.·        Consider (with permissions) putting in ‘natural’ pauses or hesitations to make the presentation sound more authentic.
The prompter may be just that, a prompt·        If you just ‘read the words’ you may come across as inauthentic and disengaged from the actual content. Try and avoid the ‘glazed-over glare’ look.·        The key is to use the prompter to sound conversational. Again, where allowed by a director, use natural habits we do as we talk to each other face-to-face: look up or down to ‘gather your thoughts’, use those natural instinctive gestures. ·        Don’t necessarily feel as though you have to read every single word. To be clear, on a TV news bulletin you will have to because of timings, fluency and accuracy, but if you have a prompter for a livestream show then you can afford to adlib around the bullet points that are on screen. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

2022.08.06– 0583 – How To Be An Auto-Cutie 2 Rehearse·        Have the font set to suit your sight. Although, the larger the font, the fewer words will appear at a time, it will save you squinting or slipping up and getting panicked. You can often switch the text from white on black to black on white if that makes it easier for you to read. You may also need to adjust your glasses as you’ll be focussing on the mid distance rather than close distance as you would be with a script.·        You can’t see many words at once on a prompter, so it’s tricky to read ahead and get the sense of the sentence before you read it out loud. So, you have to know the script in advance to get the correct delivery and intonation and not be caught out by any unusual words. You may be able to have some key words underlined or in CAPITALS to help guide you through. Having said that, some studios write the whole script in capitals which can make it tricky to spot a name or title. ·        Write out words how you will read them and in the correct order: “AU$0.7m” does not necessarily belong on a teleprompter, instead a presenter may prefer “700-million Australian dollars”.·        Beware of any ‘stage directions’ that might be included in the script [usually in square brackets] such as [CAMERA ONE] or [AD LIB TO FILL TO 29:30] which you should not read out. ·        Have a hard copy of the script to hand in case the prompter malfunctions, turning the pages as you proceed. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

2022.08.05– 0582 – How To Be An Auto-Cutie 1 
How to be an auto-cutie The speed of the read·        The prompter operator should follow your pace. That is, you don't need to speed up or slow down to follow the words appearing, but trust that the words will be there when you need them. Don’t play ‘cat-and-mouse’: if you go quickly the scroll of the script will pick up pace too. ·        Develop rapport with the operator so you find a balance on your likely speed of the read together with the speed they need you to go to fit with the duration of the programme, so you can focus on your delivery. They will also get to know your idiosyncrasies, such as when you might pause or throw in an adlib. ·        Sometimes the speed the words appear is controlled by you with a foot-pedal or joystick. Be careful not to get itchy foot-syndrome and press the pedal as though it’s a car accelerator as the words will shoot ahead to another point entirely. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

2022.08.04– 0581 – Prompts On Using Your Voice With A Teleprompt TelepromptersWhile we are talking about reading from a screen, a few words on systems[1] which project the words you have to read, onto the lens of a TV camera, or alongside the lens of a mobile phone. Teleprompter positives·        In using a teleprompter, presenters naturally look into the lens (or the text is so close to the lens that their eye-line doesn’t look askew), giving the impression of eye contact which helps ‘connect’ with the viewer·        The intention is to make the presenter appear to know their material off by heart and are simply talking naturally and fluently to the audience·        Looking at a screen at eye level means that you will have your head up and be sitting with a ‘long spine’ both postures to help with your breath control and resonance. Teleprompter Negatives ·        What frequently spoils the illusion is the way some presenters stare woodenly into the camera·        Using a teleprompter can make you look shifty if you don’t know how to use it properly, with your unblinking eyes going from left to right. Then people watch you rather than listen to you·        Reliance on a prompter can make some presenters feel as though they can’t look away from the screen at all, let alone ad-lib.
[1] Autocue is a trademarked name of a teleprompter system. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

2022.08.03– 0580 – Video Call Voice Confidence Tricks
Video confidence tricks:So once you have set the lights and background how you want them, find the button on your video-platform that allows you to turn off your ‘self-view’, which may help you feel more confident … because you wont have the dysmorphia we spoke about a few days ago. Then: ·     notes to one side of the screen·     picture of someone friendly beyond the mic·     look at the lens so you don’t look a dick·     have a separate mic and headphone which’ll make you sound better and have a better emotional connection.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

2022.08.02– 0579 – Why Video Calls Lead To Vocal LoadingBut then neither is the whole tech and protocol of video-conferencing:

• Talking to people we can see and hear but are not physically with and so can’t see their full body language
• The now-disrupted turn-taking rhythm we are used to in a conversation and working out the protocol if several people talk at once and how to give way
• How we can do work, school, church, a quiz with friends, talk with grandparents or the doctor … all while sitting in the same chair at the same desk, sometimes switching from one to another without even getting out of the chair. And so, as everything is in the same format, a meeting with friends can feel like work. Yes, you're talking about fun things, but you've set it up just like a meeting.
• Coping with audio delays, buffering, automatic mic cut-outs, extra noises for children and pets, unmuted mics and broken feeds
• Friends and colleagues who don’t join on time, don’t know how to mute and unmute, or turn video on and off, or send messages on the current video-chat platform of choice.

 All of which adds to mental tension, skeletal stress and vocal loading - meaning you are less ‘communicatively confident’.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

2022.08.01– 0578 – How ‘Zoom Dysmorphia’ Affects Your Video-Call Voice How ‘Zoom Dysmorphia’ Affects Your Video-Call Voice [1]Seeing ourselves (and others) on screen can cause micro-stresses, and so, tension in our frame, shallower breathing and a potentially lighter voice. ·        What we think of our face, hair, clothes and voice, room background (and so on)·        What we think others may think of our face, hair, clothes and voice, room background (!)·        And what we think of their face, hair, clothes and voice, room backgroundPeople see us in our own space: our room, how we dress, whether are shaved and so on. The confidence-sapping tension can be compounded by our old friend, the broken feedback loop. In ‘real life’ we can clearly see our colleagues’ nods, eye contact and so on which constantly tell us that what we are saying is being understood, or not. Such feedback gives us confidence or tells us to adjust our style – gestures, volume, tone, pace, duration – to regain their engagement them. But with video appearances the feedback is disrupted or broken completely and the incongruity of being seen and seeing yourself on a monitor; of talking to hundreds or thousands of people at once – and only seeing some of them, and but using a quieter voice than if they were actually with you; of trying to be business-like but sitting in your home… and dealing with the tech, you’re not in a meeting room with a notepad (“Will I be able to bring up the right caption, can I get the PowerPoint on screen, will a child scream or a dog bark or another call come in…?”) It’s just not natural! The incongruity causes stress, affecting our voice.But then neither is the whole tech and protocol of video-conferencing as we will hear tomorrow:
[1] Spending increased time in video meetings during the pandemic has created a new phenomenon being called ‘Zoom dysmorphia’, insecurity about how we see ourselves. Doctors have reportedly noticed a rise in cosmetic surgery requests as people are forced to spend more time on camera. (NBC, January, 2021) https://www.today.com/video/what-is-zoom-dysmorphia-insecurity-rises-due-to-video-calls-99327045790  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

2022.07.31– 0577 – How To Prepare Your voice For Video-Calls How Your Schedule Affects Your Video-Call VoiceVideo-calls are perhaps more likely for those working from home, but try not to roll out of bed and go straight to your laptop and sit down and talk! Think what you used to do before our lazy lockdowns: busily getting ready, moving around, up and down the stairs, twisting into the car seat or running for the bus… and we’d be chatting along with all of that, to the kids, the person on the bus, talking back at the radio shock-jock, thanking someone in a shop, greeting a colleague… Yep, we generally had movement in our body and breath. And when at the laptop, it doesn’t necessarily feel like work: you’re just sitting there and people just appear in front of you. But don’t be misled. You can still be doing a lot of talking and getting stressed.
So, start your WFH day with some ‘muscle and vocal’ exercises, and take a 10-minute break every hour (or have meetings of 45 minutes with a break in between).
At the start of the day:·        Maybe a brisk walk, dancing to your favourite playlist or simply marching on the spot·        Warming up your voice with hums and trills, swoops and glides.·        Stretch your tongue.
Between calls:·        Say nothing! Rest and relax your throat muscles to reduce vocal cord swelling. ·        Reduce neck pain, muscle tension in your back and shoulders after sitting still for so long. Move around, and carefully try a few head rolls, shoulder scrunches, turns and bends.·        Take the opportunity to top up with water: your body and your bottle. After all you should always be sipping to keep your folds slippery, hydrated and healthy. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

2022.07.30 – 0576 – Why Video Calls Are Exhausting  And don’t forget video-calls are really quite exhausting[1]And dullness saps your energy – mentally, physically and vocally. Webchats:·        Need more concentration on the conversation – as there’s little change of scenery. Dull backgrounds, green screens or even people wandering around in the office, but nothing much happens.·        Are very repetitive – in the format of the beginning and ending conversations. “We’ll give it a few minutes for latecomers”, “Please mute your mics”, “please put any questions in the chat box”, “Please mute your mics” …·        Are abrupt – in how they start and end. There’s no chance to mingle with people after the meeting as you would be able to in an office situation. You may feel abandoned and back alone in your back bedroom.
[1] https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20200421-why-zoom-video-chats-are-so-exhausting Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.