No hiding behind a mic …
The past few weeks have been a departure, spent trying to catch up with the social media times.
Having a website is one thing. Staring into a camera while speaking? Far from my comfort zone. I did this, however, for the purposes of speaking directly to authors about the importance of making their books come alive using a voice actor —what to expect, where to look for them, and why they probably shouldn’t narrate their own books unless they get serious coaching.
I’m no doubt not alone saying it’s a whole ‘nother ball game to be on camera if all you’ve done is narrate audiobooks. While it’s not a stretch for me to give live presentations to local writer groups (I used to be an IRL sales trainer in another industry), doing a social media video became disasterized in my tiny mind. What do I wear? How can I cover what I want to say without making it LOOK like I’m reading notes? Those were the biggest things in my mind — not what actually hit “tilt” with me after seeing my first attempt. Why?
For one thing, I never put all the variables together: The color of my platinum hair against a tall white desk chair against a milkshake colored wall. I disappeared. Or my burgundy shirt bunching up at the shoulders when I sat down, with the intended punked collar not exuding the cool I’d hoped for. Remember the Albert Brooks scene in the movie "Broadcast News?” when he took a stab at being a fill-in anchor? Okay, I didn’t flop sweat, but it certainly offered me shades of Holly Hunter’s reaction to it
Add to that an overly seriously demeanor, having a mic attached to my iPad teleprompter making swishing noises each time I paged up while spewing out a semi-canned delivery, and it was just as much of a disaster as I originally imagined.
Fast forward a week, Down but not out. Notes become bullet points to remind me of what I want to say. A frumpy shirt becomes a more elegant funnel-neck sweater in a better color. And now I’m in a professional sound studio with a black wall behind me and huge teleprompter screen almost directly above my head. After some editing to boil down the length a tad and get rid of my bloopers, it was ready for YourTube and the first few unsuspecting viewers.
Bottom line? Not perfect, but good for a first stab. Capable of being broken up into more digestible bites if I work on it more.
In other words, I didn’t hate it but I have miles to go before I sleep, Not sure how I’ll present it on Instagram, but it’s a start. Semper fi.
