Media Training — Eeeeeeeek!
I blog for a living…. My sister interviews, hires and manages people for a living… so when we have down time, we play around with the flip cam and she’ll interview me about random stuff. We do this because my dream has always been to have a voice. To be able to get up in a room full of people and command the audience in the same way that Iyanla Vanzant did during her speech at Black Girls Rock. The way she speaks inspires me.
Unfortunately I have a long way to go because I’m a little timid in front of large groups of people..and also when cameras are around. My speech at the Female Success Factor Tour in 2008 was a huge step for me. Also, I am from a really small town and we were just a little “country”. So when I graduated high school and entered college, people would mistaken my thick “country” twang and the way I pronounced words as me being illiterate. And they would tease me…I would cry every day and it made me shut down when I was in front of people. I wouldn’t talk unless I was around close friends because I was scared of being made fun of. Over the years, I lost the accent but I still have that insecurity from college.
Over the years I’ve joined Toastmasters (which is good training for public speaking) and I’ve done media training, a speech class here and there but I still have a lot of work to do. Anyway, my sister offered to record me every other day so that I can get better. It also allows me to see what type of facial expressions I use when I talk, if I use a lot of filler words such as (um, errrr, like, etc) so that I could work on that. I also noticed while watching the videos that I am really expressive with my eyebrows. They have a mind of their own like Drake’s right hand. I have to work on that..lol
In the clip above, I am explaining that I watched interviews of celebrities like Beyonce, Monica, Brandy etc when they first came out 10 years ago and how they’ve evolved through media training, especially Beyonce (I love her!). In the particular interview that I watched of hers, she was smacking on grapes, bad mouthing ex- group members etc..it was a train wreck but now she’s a pro when it comes to doing interviews. Even though she’s still shy, she’s pretty much mastered the art of it. Gives me hope…
By the way, here’s the interview I was referencing. It gets pretty funny around the 3:14 mark
