The Ultimate Guide to Zoom Recording CPD Lectures for Your Law Firm
John Nicolson MP gets interrupted by his cat Rocco during a UK Parliamentary Digital, Culture, Media & Sport Committee Meeting.
If there’s one thing we’ve learnt from the global pandemic, it’s a new respect for the many people who make up a film crew. Suddenly we found ourselves at the wrong end of a laptop camera with colleagues, bosses and clients on the other side.
The spread of video functions on our phones has seen an explosion in global events captured by homemade videos. This means that some level of amateurism has become not just acceptable but almost invisible.
That said there are still elements of video recording that can flip the viewer from engaged to disengaged and even annoyed. But with just a few simple steps you can err on the side of an engaging video that holds the attention of your Continuing Professional Development (CPD) audience and avoid annoying them.
None of this is a surprise for Learning & Development departments who are often at the forefront of new ways of learning. They just need to persuade their subject-matter experts!
Learn from The Experts – Rehearse & Prepare In Advance
It won’t be all right on the night if you don’t rehearse and prepare your CPD presentation.
Plan your video recording. Get to know your lecture recording tools so you’re not trouble shooting live. Have your presentation and all your notes to hand, ready to go.
Make sure you know your CPD audience, this will guide your tone, style of presentation and even how you dress. Get comfortable in your surroundings off-camera first. Are you sure that’s the right chair to sit in for 40 minutes? If you’re relaxed in that space now, before going live you’ll exude relaxed confidence to your audience.
Get The Sound Right
You might get away with less than perfect video images, but bad audio will immediately alienate any CPD audience. Start with a test recording and then listen back.
Remember, we can become ‘blind’ to noises we hear all the time so keep an ear out for the following top noise annoyances:
The rustle of paper, mouse clicks or other noises near the mic
Other sounds in the room like fans, hums, buzzing, air conditioners, clocks ticking and traffic. Can you turn any off or close a window?
Turn your phone to silent or better still turn it off completely, unless you’re certain you’ve turned off ALL your notifications
Turn off computer notifications
Background chatter of the kids or noisy teenagers. Not always possible to eliminate but a large ‘do not disturb – live recording’ notice on your door can work especially when combined with chocolate blackmail!
Are you too far or too close to the microphone?
Have a glass of water at your side and don’t record hungry. Depending on the tone, take a leaf out of daytime TV shows’ book where presenters have a mug to give a relaxed feel. None have tea in them, they all have water.
Oh, and that comfy chair you picked out – does it squeak when you move?
Not Happy With A Sentence? Don’t Start Again
Not happy with your recording or fluffed your lines? If you make a mistake when recording, don’t press pause or rewind.
This sound wave recording shows a single clap before the blue line and a double clap after, easily spotted in post-production
There’s a simple trick to manage this in post-production: take a breath then clap twice. Then, don’t start speaking until at least 5 seconds into the recording and continue with your CPD recording. The double clap leaves visual spikes in the editing timeline software. They’re a great visual clue of where the mistake is, so we can easily go back later and edit it out.
People often feel the need to fill a silence or worry that silence is uncomfortable. This is not the case when recording a CPD lecture as silences allow good quality editing to be done in post-production. In the final version the silences are removed.
It’s critically important that you leave at least three seconds of silence when starting or finishing a new topic, as well as at the beginning and end of a recording. Also, when turning a page and even when you have a sip of water.
These are all occasions when your voice can become misdirected and end up with the dreaded ‘unintelligible’ label. This is the last thing a key subject-matter expert wants! These small silences of two or three seconds give us the space to edit properly and ensure quality audio results.
Here are two worthy mentions that will send your audio recordings to an altogether higher level of quality: Room Echo and Wired Headphones.
Room Echo
The modern office and home are filled with echo creating hard surfaces which are the enemy of good audio.
The days of wall to wall carpets in many homes or offices are gone, replaced with so many hard surfaces of timber floors, tiles and concrete, high ceilings, bare walls and glass there’s nowhere for sound to be softened.
Essentially the modern office and home are filled with echo creating surfaces which are the enemy of good audio.
The preference for good sound quality is a sound-proofed space or a carpeted room with soft furnishings, sofas, book-lined shelves and even fabric wall hangings, anything that will absorb sound. If you’re remote-recording your CPD update this generally means the bedroom, sitting room, or the good room, for those of a particular vintage.
Wired Headphones
Wired headphones instead of laptop speakers & mics vastly improve listener sound quality.
If you use wired headphones instead of your laptop’s speakers this one act will shift your audio quality up there with the Hollywood greats and make you the envy of your legal peers.
Your laptop or PC’s speakers and mic are just about acceptable for individual calls but they will decrease the sound quality of a recording.
The sound coming through the speakers bleeds into the microphone and can make the audio unusable or impossible to edit in post-production. It also makes your expert lecture an unpleasant listening experience.
Use wired headphones for the best sound quality
Bluetooth headphones are a very poor second option. Bluetooth causes audio delay. This creates that strange experience when the sound does not quite sync with the conversation on screen. It creates a nightmare in post-production. Trust us we know.
And again, it makes for a very disconcerting and distracting experience for your CPD audience. If you’re not comfortable with the Mickey Mouse ears, invest in a quality webcam that captures video and audio and you can leave out the headphones.
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What the camera saw
Making the jump from in-person lectures to the virtual CPD classroom is quite a leap but not as difficult as it seems. You’re not trying to be the world’s greatest actor-director. As a key subject-matter expert you’re just aiming to deliver an engaging lecture with the minimum of distractions.
Don’t be tempted to record audio only. Feedback from our learners is that they much prefer to see the speaker and listen to the audio. More importantly positive learning outcomes are also much higher.
Here’s the things the camera will capture. If managed to a reasonable standard these elements will ensure people are engaged with your CPD expertise rather than get distracted from what you’re saying.
What you wear matters, Dress …
Dress professionally and comfortably and in a way that will make you and your audience engage and connect. That smart shirt or blouse you like may work when standing at a lecture, but does it behave the same way when sitting down?
Avoid fabrics with narrow stripes as these can create a distracting shimmer effect for the viewer.
Does the space between the buttons gape when you sit? Or maybe it suddenly becomes uncomfortable or unflattering when you’re seated.
If you’re wearing a jacket and shirt or blouse always, double check that your collar is properly tucked in under your jacket collar before you record. Or perhaps both sides are tucked out, if appropriate. Is there a gap between the top of your tie and the collar, or is your jewellery lopsided?
Are you wearing ‘noisy’ jewellery or some other accessory? This is sometimes only obvious when you start recording which is why a rehearsal is so important. Multiple strings of a necklace, bangles and even a loosely worn metal watch are all classic culprits.
You may have a more flamboyant personal style but if not properly managed it becomes distracting. Dangling earrings are a classic example of this. There’s a reason you never see a newscaster wearing them – because it’s all you can see, and sometimes hear!
When it comes to colours solids are a must. Avoid fabrics with narrow stripes as these can strobe or moiré – a sort of shimmer effect – on the viewers screen. Clothing with writing, distracting patterns, large logos and creased fabric will all draw the viewer away from you and what you’re saying.
There’s more to lighting than meets the eye
You’ll look much better on camera when there’s a good light source. Lighting is all about technique and not expensive equipment.
Bright lights can create a shine on the forehead but unlike RTE news anchor Aengus MacGrianna it's best to powder this out when you’re not live on air.
Daylight is the best light but it shouldn’t be shining directly on you or behind you. It’s better bounced via a light coloured surface or wall either side to you.
Try and stay away from rooms with low light or too much backlighting or you’ll end up with a zombie or shadowy washed out look.
Light yourself from the front with softer lighting or better still bounced light. This is easily achieved by propping poster sized white card on the opposite side of your light source.
Take care with your Background
Look behind you. What can people see? Does it look untidy and disorganised? You’ve been looking at it for so long all the teetering piles of documents have become invisible. Take a photo of what the background looks like and it quickly reveals all the distractions.
If the background is embarrassing or revealing it will take from your presentation. If you’re stuck for time you only have to tidy the part the camera sees!
On the flip side you can prop your background to match the image you want to portray. Consider enhancing your online lecture with a virtual background giving you total control over what people see. Or indeed, a virtual background of your office when its tidy.
Eye Level
Your laptop is perfectly placed to get a clear shot up your nose! Ensure the camera is at or above eye level, no higher than your hairline. You may need to prop your laptop up on a stack of books. Make sure it is secure before filming.
Eye Line
Learn from the experts. TV and film actors are directed to look at a spot just above the huge black camera lens. Otherwise they’ll look like they are looking down at everyone.
It’s similar with your laptop. The screen isn’t recording you, it’s the tiny camera at the top. Establish where the camera lens is and talk to that. Don’t guess where it is, you’ll look shifty and distracted.
Failure to do this subtly tells your learners that at best you’re not really interested and at worst you’ll look weird. And probably both.
Curious to see how we take your video & make it look pro?
Framing
The most common problem people have when recording a video is poor framing or shot composition. The good news is that it’s easy to fix. Don’t sit too close to the camera. Position your webcam far enough away to capture your shoulders and your entire face, with some room to spare.
Centre yourself in the frame with not too much empty space above your head or you’ll appear to be sinking. Too little headroom places visual emphasis on the person’s chin and neck.
There should be just the distance of a fist between the top of your head and top of the screen. So, place your fist on your head and adjust until it fills that space above. Clearly, this is done in the rehearsal part.
The bottom of the screen should just take in the full round of your shoulder, about two thirds up from the elbow. This means the viewer can still see some movement but avoids a lot of distraction from hand movements.
Follow the rule of thirds
The rule of thirds is a guide used by visual artists to help them create dynamic and engaging images. It’s a rough guide partly based on the idea that the human mind finds uneven numbers more pleasing than even numbers. We’re odd like that. Ask the three little pigs, or make three wishes or measure-up the Parthenon.
You can practice this on most smart phones’ cameras as they have a function that will divide your image into three sets of three, or nine equal parts.
By placing key parts of your image ie your face and body, at the intersections of these nine squares, it creates a more interesting and arresting image.
When recording your lecture you want your subject, that’s you, in the cross hairs of the top two intersections of the lines. This type of shot is ideal for learning.
Centre yourself, but keep the eye-line on the top line. Any further away, and you start to lose that personal contact. If you move too close to the camera, it gets uncomfortable for the viewer. You may recognise this from some great movies but that’s not the effect we want here.
Perfection Is The Enemy Of Done
Our above tips may seem like a lot to learn but a combination of several marginal improvements can often deliver a vastly improved overall learner experience in your CPD audience.
Craft the guidance to suit your Learning Management System but keep in mind that ‘learning’ is the key, allow for some imperfections. That’s why we support the dictum: don’t let perfection be the enemy of done. And, of course, the more experience you have the more improvements you’ll make.
For a full briefing on how LegalEd can help you create your own Learning Management System academy and achieve your CPD deadlines contact us here or schedule a consultation.