108. How do you become good on camera? (f. Ashley Rowe)
Do you have dreams of looking effortless on video calls? 💁🏼♀️ If the answer is yes, you're in for a treat on this episode of Brand Therapy. Hosts Phil and Lauren meet with long-time friend, recent client, and all-around incredible news anchor Ashley Rowe to discuss the secrets of being effective on camera. From where to look, how to avoid awkward interruptions, and tips for getting your message across effortlessly, this episode is a must-listen for anyone who uses Zoom on a regular basis.
Episode transcription
Phil
Hello, welcome to Brand Therapy. I'm Phil.
Lauren
And I'm Lauren.
Phil
And this is the podcast where we help you position, build and promote your brands. It's an exciting day, I'm in a very echoey room, so if you hear that, I apologize, but that won't be distracting because the main event is here. She's already here on the line. She's one of the busiest women that are working and telling the news and sharing the latest up to date everything. And she's one of our favorite people. Is she not Lauren more?
Lauren
Without question. top three favorite people on the planet.
Phil
I would concur. Yeah. Ashley row, you're here today. You're one of our clients, but you're one of our BFF’s. And we are so happy to have you on Brand Therapy.
Ashley
I am so grateful to be here. Thank you for inviting me on. I genuinely don't think that I'm qualified to be on your show because you have such exceptional guests. So I feel like I'm in wonderful company, and it's a humbling and a great experience.
lauren
Class act. That’s Ashley for you.
Phil
Doesn't this take us back, Ashley to you know, the microphones and headphones doesn't miss just take us back to the days of what we called the newscast?
Lauren
The Big Purple Couch!
Phil
Well, no, not big purple. That's good but yeah, there was that. But also I was thinking more like Fanshaw News.
Ashley
We went to university or to an American, state college together. And I would say our experience with college radio, and university student council, and live talk shows really was the spark that lit the fire for my career.
Lauren
Are you serious?
Ashley
Sure.
Phil
Good news for Londoners. It's true, though. And I remember thinking I knew that you were going to be big. But I remember thinking, I wasn't thinking this, I told you this. I said, Ashley, you need to find a way to get rid of your Canadian accent because I just know you're gonna move to America. I called that.
Ashley
You also coached me through it when I did move to America and I had a very Canadian accent. And I still vividly remember one of the first phone calls that I had upon moving there was with you. And you said Ashley, you still sound too much like a Canadian. I kind of am proud of my Canadian accent. So I don't necessarily want to get rid of it completely.
Lauren
But it's like Barbara Walters, Lisp?
Ashley
Yes. I sort of like to think that it might be signature even though there's nothing signature about a Canadian accent. There's 37 million Canadian accents out there. But I still didn't want to say aboot on television every day. So we did have to work on that.
Phil
You worked on it. And you have it harnessed and you can have it and you can not have it and that is your decision and your prerogative.
Ashley
There we go. I love that empowerment. Thank you.
Phil
You're so welcome. You have so much knowledge in your beautiful blonde noggin to share with our listeners when it comes to a lot of things. But one of the things we thought about, one of the many things we knew we could talk to you about was communicating on camera communicating, right? People are on Zoom, we're on Zoom right now to be able to see each other as if we were sitting together in real life. Let's unpack that.
Ashley
You two actually introduced me to Zoom. And you also really coached me through my comfortability. So I thank you for that. Because before the pandemic hit, we were working on building a social media news presence. And how are we going to do that? Well, it had to be with the very tools that are now everywhere and in homes right around the world.
Lauren
I have so many embarrassingly specific questions for you, Ashley, about talking on camera. I know Phil's not going to ask them because he doesn't need the help. But I need the help. And I think that, well, I hope that our listeners also need the help too. So first, let's set the stage to the virtual stage. Is there a way to effectively speak on camera on Zoom, so that it feels like you know what you're doing? Are there some immediate tips off the top of your head where I should be, how far away the camera should I be from you? Just lay it all out there for us.
Ashley
Well, the first thing is lighting. You need to have good lighting. The best lighting that you can possibly get is natural lighting. The worst thing that you can do, is have your back to a window on a bright day and have your camera lens facing that window because you will be in shadow the entire time. And nobody looks good in shadow. You can kind of look cute in silhouette, but that's scary when you're on zoom, so that's just not going to happen. So you need to have good lighting. Your listeners are very savvy people. So I would imagine by now the majority of your listeners have ring lights, if not, it's a definitely worthy investment, because it just gives you a flood of light on your face, you're guaranteed to look pretty good. That's number one, good lighting.
Number two, look at the lens, don't look at yourself speaking, look at the camera lens, because that's what everyone else is seeing. So when you're looking at the camera lens, it's as though you're looking right at the people or person that you're talking to. It's also much less distracting for yourself. Because imagine you're looking at yourself on camera while you're trying to get a point across, now all of a sudden, you're thinking, is my hair in the right place? Is my lighting, okay? Am I looking really goofy? What's behind me? What's this distracting thing behind me? If you look at the camera lens, you don't see any of that. And everything just feels much more natural.
Lauren
It's so interesting, you say that I always get nervous that something stupid is happening behind me. And so you can see my nervous eyes are like always moving towards myself or to see the reaction of people on the other side of the camera. So how do you balance looking at the lens and also looking at whoever's on the other side of whoever's watching your call to make sure that they're engaged and listening to you? Or does that even matter?
Ashley
I don't worry about that. They're either going to be engaged or they're not. That's the one unfortunate thing I think about virtual communication is you just don't get to read those same physical cues as you do if you're on a stage. Or you're in a boardroom, or you're at a meeting of any type around a table. And you can understand those social cues, those sort of body reactions, that stuff is so helpful, you don't get that you have to really trust yourself with virtual and you have to trust that what you're saying is engaging. But of course, I think the one thing to keep in mind is, remember what it was like when you were being spoken to and lectured to in school. Like we all had short attention spans God, I still have a short attention span. So keep it concise in your rehearsals in your thought processes, make sure you're talking in a concise way because nobody wants to sit on Zoom for too long, or watch a video on YouTube or whatever for too long. So just try to keep it as tight as you can.
Phil
These are all such good reminders. It was just this morning that I did a podcast interview, that was also a video, and I noticed the host was staring in the camera, so I started staring into the camera. And while it felt uncomfortable for 30 seconds, I realized, I mean, kind of because you can't see yourself looking in the camera because you're looking in the camera, not at yourself looking in the camera. But it's uncomfortable for the first 10 seconds, and then you get over it and it looks so much better. And I was just thinking about how refreshing it is to have a conversation with you here right now, because your answers are all so short.
Ashley
Well, thank you, I do have a tendency to repeat myself. But really, I think that's because I just try to drive it home. One thing that I think is pretty amazing about virtual communication, whether it's Zoom, or any other sort of platform, or whether you're recording a social media video for Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, whatever it is that it's forced everyone to become extra conversational. You know, I'm a television broadcaster, by virtue of being in a studio being a news anchor, I am broadcasting, I'm projecting my voice, I'm trying to speak in an authoritative manner. Whereas when I'm speaking to a camera that's a foot in front of me, you don't need to project that way. So you can really know, the one thing that I was taught, and I know Phil, you are taught the same thing is when you are broadcasting Who are you broadcasting to always know who your audience is. And frankly, that audience person should be a friend or family member. So thinking of that person. Now that's really forced on you because you don't need to project you are speaking to that one person that's a foot away from you, which is actually your computer. But you have to think about it that way. I'm speaking to one person who's in the same room as me who's in my home.
Phil
But then you go and do this on television, which is so much additional pressure, I guess is what I'm thinking about, yes, helpful for Zoom. But how different is it when you're under pressure? I think about you all the time. How do you deal with that, because it's live?
Ashley
Well, what's really changed for me, is I now have been broadcasting remotely from my home from my living room. And so not only am I trying to worry about the content that I'm broadcasting, am I getting the scripts right, am I getting the actual integrity of the story correct, am I talking to the right reporter, all those kinds of things, but you also are now your own teleprompter operator, audio person, engineer making sure that the transmission of the video signal actually gets to the station, which can then get sent out to the rest of the world.
So you are chief in charge of all of that stuff. So you really have to be on your game. And boy, oh, boy, I'll tell you there have been a number of times when the shot has dropped, and now I'm not on the air anymore. And I've got to figure out how to troubleshoot in literally 30 seconds because we're going back on the air or we're in a reporter package. And they said, Ashley, we can't hear you anymore what's going on and I've got to try to figure that out while also trying to maintain composure. And you also don't actually know when you're on the air, because you're looking into your flippin iPhone, I'm broadcasting guys from an iPhone, that's crazy.
Lauren
My palms are so sweaty, I would crack on live television within three seconds and the thought of having to also troubleshoot. And it's not like you can curse because you don't know if you're actually live. It sounds like a nightmare, actually.
Phil
And you have to read and you can't screw up when you read. I mean, if you do, you have to recover. And reading sounds easy, but when you do it, and you can't make a mistake, it's a whole other game.
Ashley
But I think everyone can sympathize with my experience, because we're all having little micro versions of that every single day in our business meetings, family Zoom calls, whatever it is based on. Technology is great when it works, right? When it doesn't work. It's the bane of everyone's existence. And everyone's just trying to figure out how to troubleshoot. And it applies to really every one.
So I think when people watch something go down on television, that doesn't seem like it was supposed to happen, and it happens, right, people are a little bit more sympathetic. They get it now. And so I'm grateful that there are certain things not a ton, but there are certain things that COVID has actually been beneficial for.
Lauren
Yeah, yeah. So I have a question about scripts. I am someone obviously I'm not a broadcaster, I don't really film or record videos other than what we do for the podcast, I go into all of my meetings with clients on video. So, the only stuff that I can prepare for is really what I'm communicating, I can't repair it all for what the client is saying on the other side. So do you recommend that people over prepare for any type of video meeting, for example, if you're going to be on video and need something powerful to communicate? I was just thinking because it's if you norm naturally follow a script so that you can hammer a point home then, is that something people should bring with them into work?
Ashley
I think so I don't think that you can over prepare, if you need to stick the landing with whatever it is that you're doing, whether you're trying to record a marketing video that's going to get shared on social or whether you're in a meeting, you need to be well rehearsed. You need to know where you want to start, where you want to finish. If you know those two things, generally you can navigate yourself through the rest. But know where you want to start, know where you want to finish, and just your ultimate goal of the whole thing.
That's what I always say, the best communicators are people who don't read, but truly communicate the message. And so you want to think about what is the message that I'm trying to get across? Not Am I going to read every single word the way that I had originally crafted it two days ago when I was sitting at my computer writing it, but am I going to get that message across. You need to speak with authenticity. And again, we are all now welcoming our colleagues and everyone into our homes or into a space that is much more intimate than perhaps what we could have ever expected before. And so you need to treat that with the respect that it deserves, which is I'm going to be as authentic as the surroundings that I am in. And I think that that can go a long way.
The one trick that I have is if there are certain talking points that I really want to drive home, I will actually put my computer that has those speaking notes, maybe it's a tablet or whatever, I will put that behind my computer or device that I'm going to be recording on whether it's my phone or another laptop or something. I'll stack that computer or device on a whole bunch of books or a chair and I'll put that behind the recording device. So even though I'm not actually looking at the lens when I'm reading those talking points, I'm reading the talking points which are behind and above my computer. But you can actually see that the viewer the audience can not really tell that I'm looking two inches above because that's Just the beauty of the way that these cameras work. So that's one trick that I really try to do. And with all of the events that I've been emceeing throughout the course of the last seven months, that's how I will make sure that their message that they are trying to get across to their audience is being properly relayed by me. So I think that that's one little trick of the trade that is essential for me. And the way that I'm able to scroll through those speaking notes or the PowerPoint presentation, or whatever is I have a Bluetooth operated mouse that allows me to control that camera remotely.
Phil
That makes sense, I will sometimes if I'm doing a webinar, I'll have my notes up on an iPad on like, almost as a second screen, just separate from what you're doing on your computer, in case anything happens or Windows close, I've got that reliable other source, and just put the bullet points, it's that same idea that just you have that. And when you look away, I try and like I guess learn this over the years just like looking away as if I'm thinking but actually, I'm reading notes. and then I'm looking down, and then you get the note and then you deliver it. That's a really interesting point, though, and not just for broadcasters or podcasters. But so often people will script something for themselves, and no one knows that script except for you. So why are you putting undue pressure on yourself?
Ashley
Absolutely. And the same goes for when there's a technical mishap. If there's something technical that happens, that's not what you had intended it to be, oh my gosh, I still cringe at some of the ways when I was early on in my days of broadcasting, and I would see something go wrong. And I wouldn't know how to recover. And so my face would go so red, I mean, I'm pale to begin with. So when I go red, I look like a freaking tomato. And I would just start sweating, I would feel like any curl that was in my hair would just go fall flat, because the whole thing was just so traumatic for me.
And then I realized people don't really care. At the end of the day, something goes wrong, it's live, it's happening, it's okay. The best way to recover is to acknowledge it, whether you want to articulate it or not is up to you, but acknowledge it in the moment and move on. It's okay. And if you need to take a second to figure out what you need to do to recover, let's say you're speaking, you're doing a presentation, I don't care whether it's virtual or whether it's in person, if something goes down, your PowerPoint slide doesn't go, and now you're feeling like Oh God, I've got to dance, this is the most exhausting and traumatic thing ever. You can say to your audience., oh, this clicker doesn't seem to be working very well. Make a joke of it. I mean, just be okay with acknowledging that technology isn't always going to work on your side. And I'll tell you what, I guarantee you 90% of people who are watching or listening will commiserate and will be like, oh, no worries, it doesn't matter.
Lauren
In fact, it might even make them relate to you even more.
Ashley
Right? Exactly. So those days of me freaking out going beet red sweating, like oh my god, I needed to carry deodorant around with me everywhere I went, they’re over because I'm okay with saying something went down. Something happened.
Phil
Are you saying that you don't carry deodorant around now?
Ashley
Well, yes, I will say I'm just, I'm just gross. I just smell, that's all.
Phil
I think it's actually super relatable for people that even someone like you that people see on TV, things go wrong. And they even happened to you. You know what I mean? Can you tell us a funny story about when you think about the things that have gone wrong? And it's funny. What is the funniest thing that's happened to you where you had to recover quickly?
Ashley
The power went out, that power in the entire studio went out. And we were in silhouette in the broadcast studio, and we didn't know why the power had gone out. And I had never dealt with anything like that before. So I'm waiting for some sort of cue from my director, my producer as to what I'm supposed to say, but they're freaking out too. So there's just nobody telling me what to do. I'm sitting here in the pitch black in a massive studio. My co anchors equally freaked out like oh my god, are we being attacked? Is there another blackout of what year was that? 2006 or something? I don't know. Anyway, totally freaked out. And then I didn't know how to recover because it had never been something like that had never happened to me before. And you really don't know how to handle these things until they happen until you get over that and until you're willing to stop fearing God running around with you. And so I stumbled my way through that whole thing. The people at home were just as uncomfortable as I was because I didn't properly acknowledge the moment. Now 10 years later, I would have been like well, this is what we heard you know, and I would have acknowledged it and made fun of it and said, now we're gonna do shadow puppets and tell ghost stories on live television because what else are you supposed to do? The alternative is what I did, which is to mumble and stumble my way through it.
Lauren
Good advice.
Phil
I'm happy I asked. I'm happy to have asked for the story.
Lauren
I have a few more very specific questions. So the first one is related to verbal tics. Have you ever had a verbal tic? Or have you always been an incredible communicator? And if you did have one, follow up question, how did you get over it? Or at least get past it?
Ashley
Phil, you might know better than I do about verbal tics. I can't think of one so well, Lauren, you would know too.
Lauren
Well, I yeah, I do know. Unfortunately.
Phil
We both have verbal tics.
Ashley
You two, would know if I have a verbal tic?
Lauren
No, I was meaning more like I know, because I have probably about 10, personally not. I don't think you have any Ashley.
Ashley
Here is the one tic that I did have. When I would be broadcasting live out in the field reporting. I would bounce while I was on live television, one foot would raise repeatedly while I'm reporting live, like up on my Hill about one Hill. So I like, reporting live in downtown Toronto. Ashley Rowe, CTV News, when I was working in Toronto, and the entire time, my head would be bobbing. It was the strangest thing. And I don't actually know how long it took me to get over that. But I think it was actually over a year.
Lauren
You started sitting in a studio. That's how you got over it.
Ashley
But that was a tic that I used to have. Yeah.
Phil
People cringe watching back the recordings. We all do. I mean, I've included that even though I don't hate it as much as others because I have to listen to myself quite often, but even if it makes you cringe, you should listen back anyways, because that's when you start to hear how you sound. I know Lauren listens back. She cringes, but it helps us become aware of what we both do. I say I mean, anyone who listens to the podcast knows our vocal tics, Igor helps us remove them. But I say ‘By the way’, that's my thing. Lauren goes ‘like’, and what else do you say?
Lauren
Um.
Phil
Um, that's right.
Lauren
I used to say, you know, it's funny, but now you've taken that on, which brings me such joy. Because maybe the stakes feel a little more equal. Now.
Phil
It's funny, cuz that's true. And I call him out as well.
Lauren
You called me out, and then I dropped it. And then you inherited it.
Phil
Ashley, who completed this triangle actually called me out on one of my verbal tics. When I saw her in person last time. And I remember it, it was, I was saying, to be honest, I think it was to be honest, or it was like one of those times.
Ashley
To be honest. Yeah.
Phil
Yet To be honest, or to be totally honest. It was something like that. And I said it like that because we both listened, like our ears are trying to like to hear those things and cut them out.
Ashley
I remember I remember, I remember what I said to you. I said, Well, what are you not honest with me the rest of the time?
Lauren
Phil took that. Because one time I was writing Phil's like an email for Phil to sound like a hard one. And then it started off with like honesty or like, honestly, or to be honest. And I remember Phil told me, he said, he said, take that out, you're implying that I'm not honest all the time. So I guess that actually comes from you, Ashley?
Ashley
Well, can the lesson to be learned here, guys that, on this podcast, we have now declared that we rely on our peers and our friends to call each other out on those little verbal tics or bobbing while talking or whatever, in order for us to get over them.
Lauren
Yeah.
Phil
That's the good moral of the story here is that we all have them. Even esteemed news anchors have their own verbal tics.
Ashley
There you go.
Phil
Now, this just gives us all something to work on.
Ashley
I love that.
Lauren
I have a few more questions. And then I promise we'll let you go. My next question is about interruptions, I find with delayed connections, and just with getting used to someone's speaking style on Zoom, sometimes it can be really, really hard to know when someone's done speaking or when they're starting on a new point. In your experience interviewing people, do you have any advice on reading or knowing when someone's done? Do you generally wait until you hear a pause? And then you chime in? Like what do you do?
Ashley
Yes, well, especially with virtual communication, it is really hard, right? Because whether you're in speaker view, or gallery view, or however it is that you're communicating, if it's over the phone, or what, you don't really have that opportunity to sort of give that physical cue that you want to start talking, you can't put your arm out or raise your hand or whatever. It's all kind of delayed and so I find myself on virtual communication platforms, even if I'm doing a live interview recently, I was doing a live interview with the Lieutenant Governor of New York, and I really needed to take that extra beat to pause and make sure that she was indeed finished. Because it can get really sloppy on virtual communication platforms, if you don't take that pause, because then people are talking over each other, but you can actually hear the talk over it's really weird, and especially uncomfortable for everybody who's paying attention and watching.
So I do think that what you lose in the natural flow of communication, when you can kind of interrupt you gain in just the overall clarity of the conversation and respect, if you just take that extra beat to make sure that they are indeed finished.
Lauren
Okay, I took a beat there.
Phil
You did a good job.
Lauren
Thank you.
Ashley
One friend of mine goes 123 and just waits. 123. Okay, go 1230. Okay, go.
Lauren
I love that. I love that. Okay, my final question that I prepared is related to keeping interviews on time. So a big challenge that I personally have is with clients, keeping them to our set, call time. And it's tough, because when clients are paying a lot of money for strategy, for example, and they're right in the middle of thought, or in a really, really good place, and we're needing to wrap up, it kind of feels almost like a disservice to them. And so, do you have any tips on how to keep interviews, on time, or potentially suggest that someone wraps up their thoughts in a certain amount of time?
Phil
Good questions.
Lauren
Thank you I really prepared because I knew that with Ashley here I needed to bring my A game.
Ashley
You’re a really good interviewer.
Lauren
No, I'm not. It takes me 10 minutes to ask a question.
Ashley
It does not but your line of questioning is good. You see, you went from simply getting the interviewee comfortable and then hammering them with the tough question, because I don't have a friggin 'answer for this one. But I will try. So I think there are two strategies. One is right off the gate. Even if this is not true, you say, I want to make sure that you know now I have a call at let's say your call with them is at four o'clock in the afternoon, I have a call at 4:30, and just to be respectful of everyone's time, I'm going to wrap this up at 4:29. And we're just going to end so you've already set the precedent, you've laid the groundwork that you're going to wrap this up so that if it is 4:29, and they're still talking, at least they're prepared for you to interrupt them. The other thing that you can do is as you are thinking about that call, thinking of it like this interview, Lauren, that you have so beautifully curated with your line of questioning, think about how you want to curate this call. So if you want to ask them a series of questions, try to think about okay, well, I can only get three questions in, in that 20 minutes. And then I want to leave that last nine minutes as a bit of buffer time. So that if we go over what my expected time is, then now it's now it's 4:24, and you've gotten those three questions done and they've answered or you've had your conversation that you need to have. And then you utilize those last five minutes to not ask them any questions, and instead for you to do the kind of recap and next steps. Just do yourself a favor and do not end the question with the question that all reporters are supposed to do, which is ‘do you have anything else that you want to add’? Don't do that. If you are on a hard time limit, don't do that. They will take up that time because people like to hear themselves speak, especially when they're paying for that time.
Lauren
Fantastic. That's true.
Phil
Really good advice. And even doing it on TV, it adds that extra element where you literally don't have the choice to go for a minute. You have to pull the hook off the stage because you have to interrupt the person at times.
Lauren
Sometimes I'll hear Judy on PBS NewsHour go 30 seconds. I don't think I don't think I could do that to a client though.
Ashley
It's brutal. It's brutal. Just imagine a producer in your ear during that call with a client saying rap rap rap. If it's a 30 minute call, make it a 20 minute call in your mind and give yourself that buffer and then you finish the call. Not them.
Lauren
Brilliant.
Phil
20 seconds.
Lauren
Wait..for this?
Phil
It was just a joke. Oh, what a fantastic conversation we've had with Ashley Rowe today. We talked about Zoom, we talked about keeping calls on time, we've touched so many layers and elements of communication. And this has been so fun. Thank you.
Ashley
This has been so wonderful. And guys, I'm serious when I say this to anyone who's listening, I am being my authentic self, as I say this, you two helped develop me and my comfort level with virtual communications because of the work that we did to try to get my exposure with broadcasting and new storytelling out to a larger audience. So I thank you for all that you have taught me.
Lauren
The pleasure is ours. The classiest guest we've ever had.
Phil
It's the perfect segue for people to go look at your project. They should go look at you. They should follow you on Instagram. We have your full project on our brand new website and it looks amazing. We're so proud of how all of that came together and people should go check it out and they should follow you and they should send you a little message and say I heard you on Brand Therapy.
Ashley
Please do. I would love to hear from you.
Lauren
Thank you.
Phil
Thank you, Ashley for hanging out with us on Brand Therapy and we will chat with you soon.
Ashley
Thanks, guys.
