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Videosocials.net and phoneBlogger.net COO and Co-Founder, Mark Bullock explains the importance of speaking extemporaneously on video and provides some tips on how to get comfortable doing so.
This video is part of an online course for Videosocials members. To view the complete course, click here.
Transcript:
So do you need a script to record a video — one of these headshot videos on Videosocials?
I’m Mark Bullock with Videosocials.net and phoneBlogger.net . And I’ve done numerous videos on this topic, so I’m just going to switch this around a little bit.
What we suggest and what you should be practicing is improvisation. It’s speaking extemporaneously. So why?
Well, you’re having a conversation with your audience and you want your audience to be able to connect with you and relate to you. That being the case when you’re having a conversation, you’re not doing it via script.
Now, a couple of points or ideas around improvisation, being improvisation. So, as you may know, this video and virtually all of the videos that I’ve ever done are improvisation. So how did that come to be? That came to be through Toastmasters for me because 35 years ago, whenever it was that I first joined Toastmasters, they have a program called Table Topics where somebody will introduce the topic to you and call on you. Well, they tell you they’re going to call on you and then they introduce a topic or ask a question and then you’ve got two minutes to come up with a package, as it were, speech to do that. It’s terrifying the first couple of times that you do it and it just scared the jesus out of me. And I realized though with practice, in other words, being called on to do it a couple of ideas. One was I could switch the topic.
You know, the whole the whole thing is, you know, do you have the gift of gab? The gift of gab is through practice. It’s through coming up with it.
When you’re having, when you’re having a conversation with another person, it’s all improvisational. Right? So if you think in terms of you’re having a conversation with whoever’s on the other side of that camera, whether they be watching it now in Videosocials , or whether they be in your meeting or whether they’re going to be watching it two years from now on Youtube. Whenever it is, the fact that matter is if you can imagine that you’re having a conversation with somebody, it’s going to be improvisational, it’s going to be off the top of your head.
So you’re not gonna be staring at the camera. You’re going to be, you know, you’re gonna be looking at the camera, but you’re gonna be thinking. You’re going to be considering. You’re going to be bringing your life’s experiences to whatever topic it is that you bring about.
So what I often do is I have an idea of what I want to talk about, kind of like Table Topics in Toastmasters. I have a topic that I want to jump on and it’s really helpful to kind of have an opening and know what question you’re going to ask or what statement that you’re going to make when you get going and also have an idea of how you’re going to close. And then the rest is just a conversation really. And I know that sounds, if you haven’t done it before, that sounds just overwhelming. But I ask you to try it on. Consider giving it a try because if you do… once you do it a few times, it starts to become easy. I started to love being called on because I found it like a game. And ultimately what I’ve done in close to 300 videos now is exactly that.
So if you found this useful, I would ask you to consider going to Videosocials.net/academy. And that is where you’ll find many other videos like this that on all different types of topics on shooting videos. Again, Mark Videosocials.net phoneBlogger.net. Have a great day.