Seeing your own body language on camera...

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I had a session on filming and editing today at University, and we had to work in groups where we took turns to film each other. Unfortunately, as always I looked awkward on camera.

We were filming introductions, where we had to look directly into the camera, introduce ourselves, and explain our surroundings. Sounds easy, right? You'd be surprised. Thankfully, it only took two takes to get it right. It felt really awkward looking directly into the camera, and when I watched the footage there are several times where I randomly glance at a wall for seemingly no reason (I didn't even fully realise that I was doing this when we recorded it).

For people that have been filmed before/ work in this kind of area- anyone else find looking into a camera lense or at the person working the camera, to be quite awkward? It's weird, watching yourself on camera. You pick up on things in your body language, that you've never really thought about/ have never truly registered with you.

Any advice on how to act more natural on camera? Right now I don't seem to move my arms enough, so it comes across as slightly fake. Then again, sometimes I move my arms too much and end up coming across as nervous...

I should really practice keeping my focus where it's meant to be, and not randomly glance at walls, haha.

Thoughts?

Ickity ick ick. I hate seeing myself on camera. Even worse than the body language for me is when I hear my own voice. I am a performer, so I get to do this a lot. The amount that I over do things is just fine for live stage, not so much for film. Yes, actors do practice how to use the right amount of body gestures and focus with eyes. I feel
what I'm supposed to be doing and then tone it down a few notches to be more subtle.

When I saw myself on camera I felt I looked unnatural too. When I'm anxious I tend to slouch, cross my arms, put my hands in my pockets, rub my forearm, and look at everything in the room. When I'm tired to tend to want to slouch. What's weirder than all of this is when I'm in front of a mirror, I try to readjust my posture or my body language.

Lost Dragon you don't have any physical health problems based on what I'm reading. I think it really is possibly just anxiousness.

I'm a ham,
and I've spent years role-playing in character
and being on stage in costume at Star Trek conventions.
So if I start to feel nervous on camera,
all I need to do is to imagine that I'm Q from the Continuum.

Now if someone were filming me with a hidden camera in my normal daily life
without my knowledge,
I would probably not have the most impressive body language.

When I see myself, I think it's a different person. I mean, I know it's me, but it just doesn't fit with how I visualise myself at all. I'm bigger than I imagine and I move in a very odd way. It's weird.

But worse, as someone has already said, it's if I hear myself. I sound horrible! It's nothing like how I sound in my head. It's awful and I get embarrassed

I saw myself on camera once for high school project more then 25 years ago. It was one of the most awkward things I've ever seen myself do and I'm still trying to figure out what the hell my eyebrows were doing all over the place. I could barely speak properly.

My head was down and staring at the sheet that I was reading from so yeah. It was painful and awkward and I wanted to shoot myself in the face.

I got caught in a few seconds of footage from a school field trip. To me I looked like a crippled spider walking/moving around. Not that it came as much of a surprise.

Candid shots and videos ...
I try not to noticeably stim in public, but in private at home, I stim.
So you can guess what happened ...
At a family holiday gathering, somebody filmed me stimming.

Although it can be odd to see your own body language on camera when you know you are being filmed, it's even weirder when you're mostly unaware or completely unaware of it, since it's something you consciously think about when you know that a camera is filming you and as a result your body language changes.

However, there are some people that seem to present on camera the same way that they present the rest of the time.

Typically, the kind of thoughts I have when I see myself on camera tend to be; Do I really sit like that? What am I doing with my arms? Why do I keep glancing at the wall and/ or floor in conversation? Do I usually do that, and just not fully realise? Wait, was that a head flick? Do I really shake that much? Was that a bow? Ugh. Who even does that in conversation? I sound so unenthusiastic, don't I? A bit slow paced as well, and what was that hand action? Dammit me.

I showed our final video to a friend of mine and they just said "Aw, bless". Not the kind of reaction I was going for, but oh well.

You're probably much more attractive than me on camera.

I always look ten pounds heavier LOL

Trust me....I don't need more weight than I have on me right now!

I struggle with the opposite, keeping weight on. Usually yo-yo between a healthy weight and slightly underweight. Don't exercise that often, but I do fidget a lot. I guess you could say I'm somewhat lanky.

I'll give you ten of my pounds

I wish I could give you 10,000 Pounds Sterling.

I'm the short/stocky type.

And in case the YouTube embed isn't working again ---> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAHhpMJbfxQ
That's basically me on camera, heh. Body language is probably one of the most obviously autistic things about looking at me. Like that example, my body language doesn't match what I'm saying or doing. It's like it's going off on its own and doing random things which seem unconnected. Most often with my hands/arms.
I dislike looking at cameras directly too. I recently had to get license photo re-done, and the guy kept saying "No you have to look straight at the camera."
But I hate cameras altogether so not so good on advice. I like using them myself a lot, but can't stand anyone videoing or taking pictures of me.

Turns out this isn't a recent thing for me, I was looking through photos on a camera recently and stumbled upon some really old ones of me, and oh dear...they were certainly funny lol. My friends and I laughed when we saw them. I'm not sure why younger me thought posing like that was a good idea, haha.

Despite the fact that I was a "raging autistic" when I was 2 1/2 years old, a picture of me at that age shows me as a "very normal kid."

Interesting. So far I've found that most of the pictures of me 7 and over are more normal, whereas 6 and under there's some odd photos. Not sure why, but there are a few ones where I'm clenching my other hand as if it was heavy and it looks almost as if I'm struggling to hold it with my other hand, but I never had any issues with my strength so I dunno why I was doing that.

Quite a few with my back turned to the camera, now I understand what my parents meant when they said that I was hard to photograph when I was younger, haha.