Lessons From Moving to the Front of the Camera
And why a smile was all it took to be myself.
Being in front of the camera, rather than behind it, in a documentary production context is a novel experience for me - but take that context away, and it is not all that unfamiliar. I have always been a talkative person, and have enjoyed presenting and conversations, especially to strangers. Perhaps keeping in mind that conversations with strangers were mostly fleeting gave me the confidence to be more like ‘myself’ regardless of the outcome!
I think a key reason for this insecurity is due to my voice, which. I have never liked. To be fair, nobody likes the sound of their own voice, which sounds foreign to them as everyone registers their own voices uniquely due to the vibrations within their ear drums. But a big part of this insecurity was cultivated by years of casual comments that my voice just can’t cut it for documentaries or any other mediums that demands for a “good voice”.
And yet, I’ve enjoyed talking, presenting and having conversations with others in natural settings. Perhaps this was because I was not being recorded. When the camera is on, all my doubts start flooding in.
This was when a pivotal yet simple tip came from a friend: “Smile More”. I received this tip many years ago when I was in Secondary 2 (2007). My form teacher, Mr Ong, one day pulled me aside, and told me to keep my smile, as it would be the source of my greatest strength. I still don’t know what motivated this conversation, but I was glad it happened.
In 2020, I had the opportunity to be on Money 89.3FM to talk about my documentary storytelling journey thus far. It was a short 15min conversation, The questions were prepared - and in all regards, the answers expected for me had come out of my mouth for years by this point.
Personally, I felt I tanked the interview, as I wasn’t being myself. Due to COVID-19, I could not see my interviewer face-to-face, and I over-prepared to compensate. I also felt as though I was in a foreign environment. This was what prompted a friend who listened to my interview to simply reply with the same tip. “Smile More”. And then everything clicked.
That tip has since been expanded into a technique in which I use an initial facial expression to dictate the tone of what I am saying. And it is also a very easy way to remind myself to be myself. By trying to be myself, ironically, it forced me to be otherwise. You wouldn’t think about being yourself in a natural scenario, that’s just a given.
Perhaps I’ve naturally smiled at people when I speak to them.
