Making Sense Of Technology in Multimedia

Video Series: How To Present On-Camera

• Daniel Douglas • Episode 4

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About This Episode

Due to the global pandemic, more people are recording podcasts, creating video presentations, or attending meetings and conferences virtually. Working from home has become the new normal may be that way for the foreseeable future.

Brendan Kumarasamy talks about techniques to get you ready to present on camera.  

 What to Listen For

  • Structure - Good Habits vs Bad Ones On-Camera
  • How to Prepare to Go On-Camera
  • Controlling Filler Words (Umms, Ahhs, Like, etc.) 

Check-in with Brendan

Resources Mentioned in the Episode

Other Useful Resources


 

On-Camera Presenting

 [00:00:00] Welcome to the making sense of podcasts. This is Daniel Douglas, your host, bringing strategies, tips, and interviews, covering technology, photography, video, and all things multimedia. It starts right now. Due to the global pandemic, more people are recording podcasts, creating video presentations, or just attending meetings and conferences, but they're doing it virtually working from home has become the new normal, and it just maybe that way for the foreseeable future.

My next guest is a communication expert and founder of master talk. Master talk has one unique goal, and that is helping you to overcome [00:01:00] your fear of public speaking. We're talking today with Brenden Kumarasamy about techniques to get you ready to present on camera. Welcome to the show Brenden.

Brenden: [00:01:12] Thanks for having me, Daniel.  It's great to be on. 

Daniel: [00:01:15] Yeah, Brendan. I'm happy to have you on the show today. You're in Montreal, Canada, correct? 

Brenden: [00:01:22] That's it. 

Daniel: [00:01:22] Yeah. So a great town loved that city.  I’ve actually been there twice and I, I really do want to come back and enjoy all of the sceneries. So, I want to, before we start, I want to, play a quote and it's a quote that, you actually.

Recorded on one of your YouTube podcasts. So, let's just take a listen to that real quick 

Brenden: [00:01:53] video is universal. It allows people around the world to communicate, [00:02:00] share, and exchange ideas. Chad Hurley, co-founder of YouTube. 

Daniel: [00:02:06] I thought that was. Prolific actually, because with the new normal now with the pandemic and everything, that's going on, a lot of people are staying at home when I heard that.

And I said, man, that's a great little sound bite there. So can you elaborate a little bit more on that quote? 

Brenden: [00:02:24] Of course I'm happy to. And for the record, like I mentioned, the video, I wish, I wish I was the smart guy who came up with that one, but fortunately I just came up with the tips, not the quote. Chad did a great job there, but, but to elaborate on his eloquent point there, I think the magic of video is it allows you to add an add value to a lot more people than you would otherwise.

So let's say for example, In my case when I started Master Talk, I was just coaching maybe 20, 30 people individually because of the competition program as a part of in business school. So we did, [00:03:00] presentations are fun essentially. And. By the time that I'd finished university, I started the corporate role.

I probably helped over a hundred people, but my friend came up to me and he said, do you have time to coach everybody in the world who needs their help? And I said, no. Right. Cause I was going on to work, a really lucrative corporate job. So, I was like, Oh look, I don't really have time for any of this.

And he said, that's what you need to go on video because video allows you. To reach people that you otherwise wouldn't be able to teach. And I think that's the beauty, whether an append IMEC or not, I think that's the magical opportunity that awaits us with this medium. 

Daniel: [00:03:32] Yeah. And I, and I agree, one of the things is because of the pandemic now, and, and I I'll tend to go back to that a little bit more because we were faced with the new normal now.

And, and when you and I first, exchanged emails about coming on the show, I kind of thought, how can this guy fit in with what I'm trying to talk about? And you came back with a very good idea [00:04:00] about that. And I said, Hey, listen, you have to present on camera. it's not easy to do for sure. And I know I'm.

Probably one of the worst people to present on camera. So, this will not only help me, but it will help other people as well. Let's, let's talk about a structure, a good habits versus a bad habit. 

Brenden: [00:04:25] Absolutely. So, so good way of starting in the conversation for presenting on cameras, acknowledging this idea that everyone's stinks at the beginning, including myself.

So, when I was presenting at audiences, I had a lot of practice, frankly. I was a bit cocky. I had the confidence and bravado just because I'd presented so many times in front of an audience, but when I sat down in my mother's basement, yes, my mother's basement. And I was opening my phone up to do my first video.

I remember how horrified I felt. And the reason was because there was nobody to talk to. I did it how to move the camera. I had no idea what was going on. I didn't have money for [00:05:00] lights and I was, I was terrible. So, I can definitely. I can definitely acknowledge the difficulty that you have at the beginning.

And I think the easiest way to push through that is by having the clear intention of why you want to be on video in the first place. I don't know a single YouTube or influencer or somebody who wants to be on camera. That has been amazing the first time it's by doing it over and over again, what I call.

Progression becomes your obsession in the sense of the more that you do, the more, the mission becomes a lot more real with master talks. In my case for six months, I thought it was a stupid idea. I had 10 subscribers, no one was watching my stuff, but then the two, three people who were watching myself were saying, Oh, I watch all of your videos without question.

So, I just said, Oh, I have an idea here. I think I can help, help our people. Then I got a lot more passionate and now we record years in advance, right? So, it's, it's, it's a process that begins with the following question. How would the world change if you were on camera, if you made the decision to be on camera and the more [00:06:00] specific you are about that person, the more confident and incentivized you are to keep pushing through the hard battles.

Daniel: [00:06:07] How long did it take you to really be comfortable on camera? I know for me, I'm still going through it and I've presented to groups in the past, but on cameras, totally different. 

Brenden: [00:06:21] Absolutely. So, I would say one, one benefit. I can give people if you happen to be good at any other element of public speaking, public speaking, just so everyone's on the same page here.

Isn't about presenting on stage. Let's say you're a great conversationalist. You like to have deep, meaningful conversations. People you like to get coffees with people. What's great about the skill in general is it's very versatile in the sense that if you're really good at one component of public speaking, it automatically makes you better in everything else.

So, it took me around four years to get really good at presentation specifically. And that's because they didn't have a coach or resources or really anything. So I was pretty much poor and a student set it out though that access that [00:07:00] a lot of people can have these days. But what happened with camera is it probably took me a year to get.

So that same level, just because I had the background one, but second, I want to emphasize that I've presented over 500 times on camera in that one year. Why? Because I'm very unique as a YouTuber in the sense, not in a good way or a bad way in the sense that I don't like editing videos. It's not my thing.

So, when I started making YouTube videos, I was one-shotting videos. So, let's say I was five minutes into a video. Daniel knows a 10-minute video and I would mess up. Well, I would just start at the beginning again. So obviously this is, this could sound very daunting for most people, but what this did for me is it accelerated my growth curve because I was presenting each video average 10 times.

And since there's 52 videos in a year, you know, once every week I'd presented over 500 times and I also want to add. That's for those who have Instagram on your stories. I was presenting on the stories every day as well. So that really added the reps and I was able to find out my style really [00:08:00] quickly when I went professional.

Daniel: [00:08:01] You mentioned Instagram because I was going to ask you about that. So thank you for putting that in. let, let's talk about preparation, in preparation. Would you say folks should have a script and no script? What about maintaining eye contact with the camera? A lot of YouTubers flail their hands and it's, to me it's kind of distracting when they do that.

and what about your personality and, and what should you wear when you're on 

Brenden: [00:08:33] camera? Absolutely. So, so let's start with the basics here and the basic for me, and for, I would say 95% of people that I usually talk to in a podcast, you don't have to worry about any of that stuff. I think the priority is really about figuring out what your mission is while you're getting on camera and just posting every week, despite how terrible it is.

And if you don't believe me a great example, I can give you is also by myself, but I'm not a very big YouTuber. So I think MKBHD is a good [00:09:00] example here. So he has a 10 million subscriber channel and. The first hundred videos he made was the first hundred subscribers. So he literally made a video for each individual subscribers.

So he was terrible and he still has videos up online for people to see the journey. And obviously now he has like a $50,000 setup, but it's, it was a decade long journey. So I think for most of us listening, it's not about the tactics. It's about the religion. Why am I doing this? What am I trying to achieve?

What outcomes am I trying to get on camera? And then go on camera. Now let's talk about tactics for the people who are already creating. So what happened with me, Daniel was when I started. The, what I realized fairly quickly is there's a big difference between in-person presentations and video content and the big difference.

There has nothing to do. It's really the information you're sharing, but the interaction you have with your audience. So let's say you're giving an in person presentation and you're confusing. Let's say 10% of the time. [00:10:00] Well, you can ask me a question, say, Hey, Brian did this slide right here. I don't really get what you're trying to achieve here.

Can you just read, elaborate? And I would be happy to, because we have that interaction right. Front of you. So I can answer your question, but on video because it's scalable. Well, since you don't change, you don't exchange your title for teaching people and people can watch the same video, hundreds of thousands of times.

Literally, you need to make sure that you're so crystal clear on it. Ciara that no objections come up. Because they can't ask you directly. Sure. They can, if you have like 10 subscribers, but if you go up to like 10, even just a couple of thousand, it's really hard for you to go through all of the clarification.

So that's why I highly recommend people, especially those who are creating educational content to really script out your videos word for word, you don't have to use a teleprompter or anything, but you just want to see how your thoughts are structured. So that it's much. Easier for you to present on camera.

And it's a lot more efficient too, especially if you're working with a video, like a creative director or something like that. And then of course, there's other tips [00:11:00] like, you know, you want to make sure your eyes are on the lens at all time or else you don't seem credible as a speaker. You seem like you're looking all over the place.

And then of course, there's other things like the way that you developed your own unique personality is not something you worry about in the first six months, but it's something that you'd learn over time. So it's a lot like public speaking, where you copy a lot of different speakers, you take a little bit from everyone, and then over time you realized your style.

So like you take someone like me, I'm somebody super energetic. I'm extroverted, I like bringing life. Into this extremely boring and mundane subject of communications. I want teenagers to get excited. I want people and that's just my style. I like being in people's faces and like Gary V right? Some people like that, some people don't, but then you have the other side of the spectrum.

People are way more successful than me who are extreme introverts. And some examples that come to mind are. Roberto Blake is a very well known YouTube. He has probably, I think he has 400 K subscribers. He's probably the most introverted guy I've ever seen at a YouTube video, but he makes it work.

Daniel: [00:11:59] Right. I've seen [00:12:00] some of his videos now that you mention it. And it's almost, he's almost hypnotic when you're watching his videos. 

Brenden: [00:12:10] Right. I, you know, I'd even as go as far as an encouragement to people, he is boring. Like he really is. But I think the key to Roberto that I think the lesson we can take away from him is not that he's a bad creative, but rather the goal should not be being energetic on camera, but being comfortable on camera that works for you.

But 

Daniel: [00:12:32] it's his content. I mean, going back to Roberto, his content is just, this content is good. And, you know, he doesn't fail it, flail around with the hands-on camera, like some, some guys and, you know, and, and women, on YouTube that I watch. But his content is just on point. So when you say scripting, I guess, you know, this is a question, should you [00:13:00] anticipate questions that folks would ask.

Brenden: [00:13:06] That's a great question, which is more meta. If you think about a question of a question, but it's, the idea is simple here. The way I think about this is it's definitely. Important to think about the questions that people can ask, but you want to, you don't want to stress yourself too much with us. I think a good way of looking at it is you want to just add some problems with the top three questions you think you would get by impersonating that person, that individual, that you're trying to help.

So let's say for example, when I make a video on the fear of public speaking, I answered those objections up front in the video as well. Right. So for instance, I play that person shoes. I see that they're nervous. I see that they're afraid. And I mentioned that in the video look, I know it's not something that's easy for people, so that would you want it?

The, I think the way we want to steer this conversation down, it's not necessarily directly answering questions that people might have, but. Roleplaying and putting ourselves in the shoes of the outcomes that you want from the video and that your audience wants from the video. And as long as those outcomes are met, if people ask you questions after that's more of a, that's more of a not, it's not a, a hit against her video, but rather ideas for future ones.

That's kind of the way I look at it. 

Daniel: [00:14:21] Amazing. Absolutely amazing. Now I want to move on to the next topic, and this is a topic that's near and dear to me, and you'll hear it in this podcast. We're talking about controlling, full of words, and I have a humongous problem with one filler word in particular.

You know, and I had to train my brain and I'm still working on it to stop doing that. [00:15:00] Now it's easy to go in, especially on a podcast or even video, because I do like editing videos to get that stuff out, but that's time-consuming. So. I've watched some of your videos about controlling those filler words, but if you can just speak on that for a minute and I just did it again.

Can you just speak on that for a minute? 

Brenden: [00:15:23] Oh, of course, you don't. It's funny, you mentioned that Daniel, for some reason, whatever about a podcast, people are very self-conscious, especially the host. I go, don't worry. It's all a journey. Well, try to learn. Don't worry about it. It's all good. So, so the idea with.

With ums and AHS and filler words like, you know, and like, and all that stuff is, I don't want people to get bogged down by this either. Like the way that I see it, that I had, didn't say it, my videos that I'll say on the show is the goal is not to remove all of them, but reduce them so significantly that they don't matter.

So that once they get reduced. So, so significantly, at some point it just becomes zero. Like someone like me, who's been doing this for for many [00:16:00] years. So in that, in that line of thought, the way I want us to start the conversation is by, by figuring out what the best way of removing those filler words are, and the best way, and most speech coaches agree is to replace them all with pauses and silences.

But let me add a layer to that thought. The way that you do this is by mastering. Silence is first. So we need to understand that this is a tool in our toolbox, but if we use the screwdriver for the wrong thing, it won't work. Right? So one, one area of focus that I want to challenge people on is what I call the endless gaze exercise.

What you want to do since we're all at home now is with a friend or a partner. You want to look at them, the eyes. For 20 seconds longer than you would normally. So this does for most people and not for the best speakers in the world, but I would say for 99% of people out there is, it makes them feel very, very high level of discomfort.

Like for example, get examples. And one of the it executives, I coach, and I told them to do this. He's like, well, what Brent did. [00:17:00] I never looked up my wife for that long for the eyes. And I was like, well, you got to start learning pal. Right. So what happens is not only does it, it, does it help you your life because women especially appreciate that.

But also in the sense of. To help others feel seen. And you also get very comfortable in this idea of not speaking for an in depth for a long period of time. And one secret that I tell people is that the difference between the best speakers in the world and the ones who are average is that the best speakers in the world could pause forever.

Obviously we don't have for every of it, take my word for it, but we can pause for indefinite periods of time. And what I do in those workshops that I have in person is I literally stare at everyone for 10 seconds each and say nothing just to prove my point. So what happens is when you get comfortable with silence is use the more effectively your presentations.

And once you start to use the more effectively you realize how the screwdriver actually works, you start to go, Oh, let me just. Use this instead of [00:18:00] an MRI, let me use this instead of a, you know, and by the time, you know it in two months of practicing this and just focusing on that one thing, the number of your followers will exponentially go down.

Daniel: [00:18:10] There was one video that you had on your YouTube channel, and I'll have a link to this in the show notes, because it, it blew me back on the silence you stopped and you stared at the camera. You said nothing and it freaked me out, you know, it really freaked me out and I looked at it and I played it again and I played it again and I played it once more and I started laughing and I said, you know what?

This guy is. Right. I felt so doggone uncomfortable with him staring at me. And he's just on camera, you know? So if it is anyone thinks that he's kidding. Click on the link in the show notes and make sure you leave me and Brendan a comment on that because it's just. Well, I'm lost for words on that, because it just freaked me out, but I'm, I'm happy that you mentioned that and I'll make sure we have that in the show notes. 

Brenden: [00:19:16] I appreciate it. 

Daniel: [00:19:18] Brendan. I know, that you do coaching, for students and businesses.

Can you talk a little bit more about, your, your, coaching. 

Brenden: [00:19:30] Yeah, of course happy to do so. So the way that this is for most people listening, as I don't think most people should be investing in public speaking services just yet. So in my opinion, here's the kind of the order and how I would go about this for people.

I would start. By watching the free videos that I have online by researching content like this podcast and learning about communication. The next thing you want to do is you want to start creating content. If you want to make, be on camera, if you want to start a podcast, you want to start creating. Cause now's the best time.

[00:20:00] Then after that, what you want to do is you want to find yourself a community of accountability. So what I recommend usually for people is a Toastmasters club. Because it's not very expensive. It's probably like 70, 80 bucks for six months at a time for three months at a time. So it's a great way for you to meet a lot of great people.

And it's a great way for you to practice public speaking and always be in that mindset that I need to get better all the time. And then as you take on that journey in Toastmasters, you've realized that you have a really big impact that you want to make in the world, that you have a really important message to share only in that context.

So that's why a lot of my students end up being. You know, CEOs of companies or people who are leading movements or, executives of companies, you have a very strong reason why they need a master public speaking or podcasts. Those two who have really big followings. So they would hire someone like me to come in and help them with their speech.

So if you're in that type of category, And you're looking for that extra help, then Fulford a message on Instagram, master your talk, [00:21:00] but feel free to also message. If you just have any questions I'm always open and happy to take any insults complaints, comments, questions I'm always open for anything.

Daniel: [00:21:08] Sounds good. Do you, practice in the United States? 

Brenden: [00:21:13] Yes, I do. So, so a lot of my speaking engagements are in the U S and I, and I have a lot of clients there as well. 

Daniel: [00:21:19] Great. So Brendan, I know you're pressed for time. I really do appreciate you coming on the show. It’s always nice to have a, a chuckle and not be too serious on these podcasts.

So in closing, is there anything that you'd like to add? something that we didn't cover in this podcast? 

Brenden: [00:21:40] Yeah, for sure. I always like to end with my favorite coat quote, Daniel and the quote is as follows. Be insane or be the same. Like, if you want to be like everyone else, that's totally fine. But if you're listening to this podcast, if you're listening to this conversation, you probably want to make a difference in the world.

So my question to you is don't you find it odd that as a 22 year old, I started a YouTube channel, not on blogging. Not on comedy, but on public speaking communication tips. And then I went on to coach well executives at the age of 23, but I still live in my mother's space. I still don't own a car. And I still make a decent living think for myself, but I don't plan on moving out of my house until I'm 31.

So why do I. Those decisions. I make those decisions because I believe and what I want to achieve with my life. So I encourage you all to be a bit more insane to make more counterintuitive choices with your life. And you might just find something really interesting to do. 

Daniel: [00:22:35] Great. So in closing, just give us one more time, links, websites, anything that people can reach out to you.

And we'll also have those in the show notes. 

Brenden: [00:22:48] Absolutely. So, so feel free to message me directly on Instagram. That would be master your talk. I answer all my DM. So don't be shy to just comment and let me know how you thought the show went, that if you have any feedback for me, [00:23:00] and if you want to check out a YouTube channel, that's master talk into one word where I share all of my tips and tricks over there.

Daniel: [00:23:07] Great, Brendan really appreciate you coming on the show and listen, anytime you want to come back, just give me a shout out. This has been Brendan with master talk on the making sense of podcasts. If you like this show, please subscribe. Leave us a comment on iTunes, Stitcher, or any podcasts that you listen to catch you next time.

 

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