Whether it’s for a school project, a presentation, a course video, self-tape for audition, content creation or any other reason, for many, the course of being in front of a camera and recording themselves is a scary task. 

“What to record myself with?” “Where do I put the camera?” “In what format do I record?” “How do I record good audio?” “Lights?” “Where do I look?” “Do I have to learn my lines?” “How can I read my script and maintain eye-contact?” “How do I edit my video?”

These are just a few questions of many when it comes to recording yourself and these are the technical ones. Acting natural in front of a camera is also a skill not everybody has naturally and even the most confident person can get intimidated by the presence of a camera which is normal. Watching back the video tape is like looking in the mirror, only that we don’t control how we look, our posture, the gestures of our face because by default we act and speak as if we would in real life. Ideally. This ideal state is where you have to put in less effort to master this skill by using your voice efficiently, using your voice to convey your message and content. A different tone for each genre. 

How do you keep the audience engaged? In a way it’s like public speaking only that your medium that carries your voice is not an open space but a camera – that can be just as hard to send it through. 

The less ideal state is if one gets tense and loses their naturalness. In these cases what happens is that one starts changing their habits on purpose trying to cover up their blemishes and act a certain way. The reason it’s counterproductive is because by doing that you can pick up habits which will be hard to get rid of. That’s why starting from a neutral state is key.

Tensing will not only make you look less engaging but will give you a hard time speaking for a longer period of time resulting in vocal damage.

Being confident on camera is a skill you develop by doing it but doing it efficiently especially when it comes to your voice.

Filming yourself is being a one man crew. You are your own DOP, director, sound engineer, gaffer, editor and most of all actor. It’s a set of skills that are complex enough in their own. Of course you don’t necessarily have to be proficient in all of them. If you have the possibility to work with other people it’s much easier but that isn’t the case especially when just starting out.

At the FilmYourself Academy I’d like to share my experience and knowledge in this field to help you stand out with the videos you record right from the beginning.

Having been creating videos for 12 years, directed several short films, working as a professional video presenter, spokesperson accompanying with my BA and MA degree in Film directing and my current acting studies help me in giving you a broad perspective on this seemingly easy task. Overtime, I’d like to develope a video course package but while that is in the making I will be sharing articles about various topics regarding filming yourself.

I hope you find value in the content on this site that will help in your development.

Dom