Virtual Reading Tips

Planning to participate in a reading remotely via Zoom or another platform?  

Here are some tips to help you towards a professional presentation.  I hope that you take them with the intended humor but also take them to heart. 

Log in to Zoom (or your preferred platform) and create your own meeting (with yourself or a very good friend) to check your Zoom presence, and adjust it, before the Zoom meeting begins: what you see is what the audience will see.

              
Check for and avoid in the background: 

                          -- Objects growing out of your head (ceiling fans, plants, etc.)

                          -- Bright lights behind (windows, mirrors, lamps)

                           --Glaring colors which distract from your beautiful self

             
Want to eat, sip a drink, pick your nose or need to leave the room?  Have a still picture to take the place of your live video (or just turn video off to display your name until the picking is done! (Ok, now I have set you up to think that I am picking my nose whenever I project my still picture, but really I am probably knitting!)

              
Mute yourself when others are reading/speaking (the host of the meeting can mute you also); Practice muting and unmuting with your practice partner, and while you are at it verify that your vocal volume is good. 

             

Locate the camera in your device and look directly into it as much as you can—visualize your audience there—that is where they are; make “eye” contact (your camera probably looks like a little eye) as much as you would in a live room.  Try to avoid an angle that looks up your nostrils.  

              
Make your presence known on the screen—sit as close as possible, but not scary close; try not to cut off your head or chinny chin chin. 

              
Put your pets/partners in appropriate kennels so that they are not howling or parading in their underwear in the background!

And a final comment related to reading itself:
Practice pausing for 3 seconds after your last line so that the audience has a chance to really hear it.