On camera from your desk

Get the camera to eye level

A laptop on a desk looks up at you. The audience sees your chin, your ceiling and a slightly superior expression you do not have. Raise the laptop until the camera is level with your eyes: a laptop stand, a box, or a pile of books all work. Use a separate keyboard if you need to type.

If you use an external webcam, put it on top of the screen you will actually be looking at, not on a second monitor off to one side.

Frame yourself properly

Aim for head and shoulders, with your eyes roughly a third of the way down the picture and a little space above your head. Too close and you fill the screen uncomfortably; too far and you become a small figure in a room. Sit about an arm’s length from the camera, square on, with both shoulders in shot.

Sit on a chair that does not swivel or rock. Movement that is barely noticeable in person is exaggerated on a small screen.

Put the light in front of you

The single most common mistake is sitting with a window behind you. The camera exposes for the bright window and turns you into a silhouette. Turn round so the window is in front of you, or to one side and slightly in front.

After dark, a lamp behind the laptop, pointed at a wall in front of you, gives soft light that flatters everyone. Avoid a single overhead light: it puts shadows under your eyes. A small ring light or LED panel is inexpensive and useful if you do this often, but keep it at eye height and turned down; too bright and it looks clinical and shows in your glasses.

Sound matters more than picture

Audiences forgive a slightly soft picture. They do not forgive sound that is muffled, echoing or clipped, and they stop listening. The built-in microphone on a laptop is designed for convenience, not quality, and it hears the room as much as it hears you.

• At the very least, use wired earbuds or headphones with a built-in microphone. Wired, because wireless ones can drop out or switch to a low-quality mode on calls.
• Better, a USB microphone placed about a hand’s width to a forearm’s length from your mouth, slightly off to one side.
• Choose the room for its sound. Soft furnishings, curtains and bookshelves absorb echo. Kitchens and empty offices ring.
• Headphones on for any interview or podcast, so the other person’s voice does not come back through your microphone.
• Silence everything: phone on silent, computer notifications off, other apps closed, door shut, a note on it if necessary.

Choose a real background

A tidy room with a little depth behind you (a bookshelf, a plant, a picture) looks natural and gives the image some life. Remove anything you would not want frozen in a screenshot: laundry, whiteboards with notes on them, a visible address, family photographs you would rather keep private.

Switch off virtual backgrounds and blur for anything that might be broadcast. They shimmer around your hair and hands, and producers will usually ask you to turn them off.

Look into the lens

On a video call, everyone looks at faces on the screen, which means everyone appears to be looking slightly down and away. When you are making the point that matters, look into the lens instead. To the person watching, that is eye contact.

For a remote broadcast interview this is the rule, not the tip. You may hear the presenter in your ear and see them on screen, but the viewer sees you. Look into the lens for the whole interview. If seeing yourself is distracting, hide your self-view.

Remote broadcast interviews

• Expect a test call. Producers usually connect early to check your picture and sound. Be ready fifteen minutes before your slot.
• Allow for the delay. There is often a short lag on the line. Let the presenter finish, pause a beat, then answer. Talking over each other is the most common remote-interview problem.
• Stay in position after your answer, and after the interview seems to have ended. You may still be on air.
• Keep the producer’s number to hand in case the connection drops. Agree in advance what happens if it does.

Podcasts

Podcasts are long, conversational and often lightly edited, which makes them both easier and riskier than a news interview. Easier, because there is time to explain. Riskier, because the length tempts people to relax, and the whole conversation may be published.

• Keep a steady distance from the microphone, and do not touch or knock the desk it sits on.
• Prepare stories as well as facts. Long-form conversation rewards examples people can picture.
• Know your key messages as well as you would for a news interview. Our interview planner works for podcasts too.
• Ask the host whether you will be recorded on video as well as audio. Many podcasts now are.

Do a test recording

Before anything important, record thirty seconds of yourself answering a question, using the same room, light, camera and microphone. Watch it back with the sound on. You will spot more in thirty seconds of playback than in thirty minutes of setting up. It is the same principle as the playback we use in training: people correct their habits fastest once they have seen them.