Seeing your own body language on camera...

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I hate seeing myself on camera, we take a lot of family movies, and I just never look or feel natural, I have awkward pauses where I'm trying to think about what to say so my words don't flow naturally. If it's my birthday or Christmas I am trying to act happy and excited, but doesn't quite work.

I don't know if this is relevant but people always think they look worse than they really do. Also it's pretty normal to look weird in photos because sometimes they catch you while changing body positions or changing facial expressions and it makes it look weird in the photo. I have photos where I look normal and photos where I look different and everyone has always told me that is normal and everyone looks odd sometimes because of the shots. Plus people always think they look worse in photos than they really do.


I did film today in class and I did my monologue too fast and I couldn't understand every word I said until the third shot and I did better. I looked fine on camera and I never looked at it while doing it with another person. First time I had to look directly at the camera, second and third time, I had to look at the person in front of me. It's weird but when I am doing acting, I have no problems with any body language or facial expressions or eye contact but in home movies, I looked odd and my body position. But like I say, lot of people think they look weird on camera.

I once had to do a individual video interview for a group art exhibtion and it was later put on YouTube.

I watched myself back once they put all the video interviews up (I cried at my awkwardness) and you could just tell I was not right. I thought it was my anxiety, but lookimg back with the information I now know about autism, I can just see it. My mouth wasn't moving correctly, you could not clearly understand my speech, my eyes were darting around nervously, my speech was flat, my posture horrible and I had zero body language. It was completely different to everyone else's. I refused to share the video on my Facebook for my art.

(Long story, the entire exhibition was a nightmare for me anyway, everyone else had a great time, had friends to come support them and it seemed nobody wanted to come anywhere near me and my work. The organisers decided my spot at the exhibition was to be at a dead end of the venue, next to the toilets. I felt like I was put in as a joke. I don't understand why they asked me to exhibition. There was so much that went wrong for me.)

We also had artist head shots taken. Everyone's was edited beautifully, they all looked like models, smooth skin and great everything. Mine looked like they were purposely unedited or edited to look worse. Mine was taken completely different to everyone else's, yet it was all done by the same person and I felt like everyone hated me. If anyone thinks this couldn't possibly be, PM me and I'll actually show you. Everyone I have ever told this has not believed me.

I had prints specially printed so the ink was raised. You can touch a picture and feel the smooth ink raised in areas. I was excited about this and the few people that did come close to my work, I encouraged them to touch the art work and feel the textures. (They didn't, they walked away and never came back)
I now look back on this and wonder how nobody I had ever met in my life ever mentioned that Autism or Aspergers to me.
I occasionally touched these when they were on the walls at my house, as nobody bought any of my work. I don't have them up anymore. I took them all down when I was having a meltdown and they reside in a closet.

Hearing my voice in recordings throws me off. Sometimes I get the Chicago accent pretty strong.
I haven't seen too many videos of myself, and I'm usually involved in a task in those, so body language gets sort of buried. Found it really interesting to watch my face while I play the guitar on camera. Other than that, not much to go on.
When I was younger I was in a documentary, and have been really interested in finding a copy of that lately to see what I looked like and how I moved when I was twelve. Wondering if I'd spot any tell tales.

Slightly off topic, but when I was at uni I had to transcribe a recording of myself giving an interview. I sounded very, very Australian. I had hoped my accent was less pronounced, but oh well.