Don’t Be That Guy (Part 1)

I’ve been focusing a lot on webcams lately, mostly because I have a new book out on the topic, Mastering Webcam and Smartphone Video, How to Look and Sound Great in Webinars and Videoconferences. As the title suggests, the goal of the book is to help those without media training look and sound their best when broadcasting with their webcam. 

I also watch a lot of webinars and web interviews, for personal and professional learning. As I get more and more into natural medicine, I’ve had a blast listening to and watching multiple interviews from the outstanding Future of Healing Virtual Online Conference. From a content perspective, all the interviews I’ve listened to are absolutely fabulous. From a production standpoint, not so much. Here’s one that I spied this morning. 

don't be that guy.jpg 

On the left is one of the conference’s two hosts, with a great background, nice solid clothing, solid lighting, good rule of thirds positioning, and what looks to be a high quality Apogee Mic with a pop filter that I reviewed here. On the right is a physician with a textbook case of backlighting, which made his face so dark that I really didn’t need to blur it out. He’s also positioned in the middle of the frame, rather than in rule-of-thirds position, and the camera is pointing up at him, rather than being positioned at eye level. 

Again, it was a fabulous presentation which I listened to while driving, and didn’t watch, so appearance didn’t detract from the message. He’s also a talented physician freely sharing his knowledge, which I greatly, greatly appreciate, and I mean no disrespect. My goal here isn’t to criticize, but to help others avoid the same problem. If you were using your webcam for marketing or sales and looked like this, it would be a disaster. 

So, don’t be that guy. My book is available for $23.99 on Amazon with a Kindle version available for $9.99.

About Jan Ozer

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I help companies train new technical hires in streaming media-related positions; I also help companies optimize their codec selections and encoding stacks and evaluate new encoders and codecs. I am a contributing editor to Streaming Media Magazine, writing about codecs and encoding tools. I have written multiple authoritative books on video encoding, including Video Encoding by the Numbers: Eliminate the Guesswork from your Streaming Video (https://amzn.to/3kV6R1j) and Learn to Produce Video with FFmpeg: In Thirty Minutes or Less (https://amzn.to/3ZJih7e). I have multiple courses relating to streaming media production, all available at https://bit.ly/slc_courses. I currently work as www.netint.com as a Senior Director in Marketing.

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