You will be able to set up a simple space that looks and sounds clear on video.
On a video call, you have probably seen most of these. The colleague framed from below, so the call is mostly ceiling and nostrils. The one sitting in front of a bright window, a dark shape with a voice. The one whose audio sounds like they are speaking from inside a bathroom, or who drops out every time the air conditioner kicks in. Their ideas might be excellent. It is still hard to pay attention.
When you present online, your camera, light and sound are the room. They decide whether people can see you, hear you and stay with you. The good news is that a clear setup does not need expensive equipment. It needs a few minutes of thought and a willingness to move your laptop. Wei Ling now presents to the regional management team by video once a month, from a small HDB study room at home, and this lesson follows the changes she made.
Put the camera at your eye level, or very slightly above. Most laptop cameras sit well below eye level when the laptop is on a desk, so they look up at you. That angle is unflattering, and it makes you seem to be looking down at your audience.
The fix is to raise the laptop. A laptop stand works, and so does a stack of books or a sturdy box. If you use an external webcam, put it on top of your monitor and adjust the monitor's height.
Then frame yourself from around mid-chest up, with a little space above your head. This shows your face clearly and leaves room for your hands to appear when you gesture, which helps the audience read you. Too close, and you fill the screen uncomfortably. Too far, and your face becomes small, especially on a phone.
Wei Ling's first calls were from her laptop flat on the desk. After one look at the recording, she put it on two thick binders.
Light is the single biggest factor in how clearly people can see your face. The rule is simple: put the main light in front of you, shining on your face.
A window is often the best light source during the day. Sit facing it, or at a slight angle to it, so daylight falls on your face. A bright window behind you does the opposite. Your camera adjusts to the brightness behind you and turns you into a silhouette.
If you present in the evening or in a room with poor light, put a lamp behind your laptop and point it roughly towards your face. Another option is to bounce a desk lamp off a white wall, which gives a softer light than aiming it straight at you. Overhead lights alone tend to cast shadows under your eyes.
Wei Ling's study had a window behind her chair, so she turned the desk round to face it, and on cloudy days and in the evenings she angles a desk lamp at the wall behind her laptop.
If you only fix one thing, fix your sound. People will put up with a grainy picture, but they struggle to follow someone they cannot hear clearly. Bad audio is tiring to listen to, and the audience starts missing words, then sentences, then the point.
Laptop microphones pick up everything: the room's echo, the keyboard, the fan, the traffic outside, the neighbour's renovation. A headset with a microphone near your mouth, or a simple external microphone, makes a large difference. Even the earphones that came with your phone are usually better than the laptop's built-in microphone, because the microphone sits closer to your mouth.
Choose a quiet room if you can, and close the door and windows. Rooms with soft furnishings, such as curtains, a bed or a sofa, have less echo than bare rooms with hard floors. Mute yourself when not speaking during calls with several presenters, and unmute just before you start.
Arjun discovered from a colleague that his laptop fan was audible on every call. A pair of wired earphones with a built-in microphone fixed it.
On a video call, eye contact works differently. When you look at the faces on your screen, it looks to the audience as though you are looking slightly down or away. To them, eye contact happens when you look directly at the camera lens.
You cannot look at the lens all the time, because you also need to see your slides, your notes and the audience's reactions. So use the lens on purpose for the moments that matter most: your opening, your core message, your key points and your ask. Look at the lens as you would look at one person in a room, for a sentence or a thought. Lesson 5.3, Eye contact, stance and gestures, covered the in-room version.
A small trick helps: put your notes or the window with your slides as close to the camera as possible, near the top of the screen, so your eyes never travel far from the lens.
Most video call tools let you preview your camera before joining, and most phones and laptops can record a short video. Before an important online talk, record yourself for thirty seconds in your setup, then watch it back. Check where the camera sits, how the light falls on your face and how you sound. In the activity, you will set up your space this way and fix the one thing that stands out most.
Set up your space with the camera at eye level, light in front and a headset, record 30 seconds, and fix one thing.
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