As a video journalist, you’ll often deliver a “piece to camera,” communicating directly to and making eye contact with the viewer through the lens of your camera. Eye contact is essential.

Christian Jarret’s article “The Psychology of Eye Contact, Digested,” which appeared in the British Psychological Study publication back in 2016, gets it right.

Jarret wrote: “Whether or not other people make eye contact with us changes the way that we think about them and their feelings. For example, we are more likely to remember faces with which we’ve experienced mutual gaze, and we consider displays of anger and joy to be more intense when shown by a person making eye contact. In fact, when a person or human-like entity (such as a human face morphed with a doll) makes eye contact with us, we assume that he/she/it has a more sophisticated mind and a greater ability to act in the world, such as to show self-control and act morally, and a greater desire for social contact.”

Knowing this, video journalists need to know how best to deliver that piece to camera—while confidently maintaining eye contact. In this short video, Dann Hurlbert, founder and owner of Little Prompter and a Media & Design Specialist at an impressive little midwestern college, provides suggestions on maintaining that eye contact for video journalists.

While interviewing others, however, it’s best to have them framed comfortably and looking slightly off camera, which Dann demonstrates in the short video, Framing Your Subject on Camera.

So for journalists, keep in mind that the Eyes Have It—whether they’re your eyes, or your subjects’.

For more information on Hurlbert or the Little Prompter, check out www.littleprompter.com.