The PowerPoint Team Blog

The answer is part of a larger topic I've been wanting to cover somewhere; general stage management and use.  But to answer your specific issue, I think you've made part of the question self-evident.  That is that panning and refocusing are tricky things to do unless you've got a professional on staff.  When done well, the pan usually zooms into the moving presenter, they're taking emphasis away from the visuals at this point anyway, and by zooming in there's less disorienting background zipping by.  

Focus must be maintained, losing focus makes us aware that we're viewing this via camera, takes us "out of the moment."  Just shouldn't happen.  One of the best ways to cover this is to have several cameras and a producer who can switch between them as needed.  There's usually one or two set wide shots, and perhaps one or two hand helds, which are simply mobile fixed units, not typically used for panning.

Of course many of us are in this position without the support of a staff, so the answer is simply that you must choose.  Are you going to be a talking head, superimposed over a corner of the presentation, or will you let your presentation define your stage, a fixed boundary that you move within?  The latter is probably the most natural feeling.

But, as I said, this is just a brief summary. If you're looking for good, inspiring examples of stage and camera use, I'd suggest you check out the videos from the TED conference for examples of good camera work. http:http://www.ted.com.  Of course, there's plenty of other ideas and techniques to mine from the TED conference.

Cheers,

-Ric

Yes, Garr made a point about talking about the issues he got from readers and presented a few.

Not sure if the Pop-Up question was covered during that meeting, I'm assuming that was the question you were concerned about?

The question of pop-ups over the presentation is an interesting one. We've done a bit of work but the "right thing" to do is not always clear-cut. For example, several types of "pop-overs" arguably shouldn't be suppressed.  Virus checkers probably should be allowed. Laptop battery low power notifications are another that as a presenter you'd want to see.

In the last few releases we've done work to suppress Outlook messages that come up previewing mail as it arrives, as well as MSN Messenger pop-up messages. We're not saying the situation is wholly under control by any means.  Internally we discuss handling message pop-ups during PowerPoint presentations as "whack-a-mole."

Still, the best advice I could give a presenter would be to simply turn off messenger and mail applications before starting a presentation. It's simple and sure.

Thanks,

-Ric