The Art of the Pitch

 

The story

A good, well structured story will captivate an audience.

Being prepared well will result in being able to present a good story with a beginning, middle, and end. This should be well structured in different chunks, with an opening slide, fluent middle slides explaining your projects, and a possible conclusion slide.

The project work is the meat of a sandwich, and the opening slide, and conclusion are the bread of a sandwich.

 

What Makes a Good Presentation?

A good presentation needs to be:

  • Coherent
  • Simple
  • Memorable

The presentation should have a key-point that people can remember and take away from it.

 

Planning

The best way to go about creating a presentation is to plan the narrative. This allows you to get the timing right, and create a logical sequence. Create a rough cut at first to check timings and content.

You have a limited amount of time to present, so you need to tell them everything you want to in the allocated time. In order to get everything within the time, you want to practice your timing, and run through it so that you understand and know your material.

 

Using Slides

Including slides when presenting can help divert the gaze of the audience so that they have something to look at, other than just you. It would be quite stressful if they stared at you the whole time. Slides also supply a visual aid to your presentation.

Less is more. Don’t overload the slides with information so that they distract from what you’re saying. Using minimal imagery and content is the best way to go.

 

Slide Crimes:

  • Too much text
  • Too many slides
  • Misspelt words, and bad grammar
  • Badly aligned content

 

Supporting Material

If a presentation needs supporting material, hand it out to the audience afterwards so that they can look at it afterwards and not during – this could be distracting.

 

Rhetorical Techniques

Rhetorical techniques can make your points more memorable to the audience. Good techniques to use are:

  • Repetition
  • Rhetorical questions
  • Metaphor
  • Alliteration
  • Humour

 

Confidence

Practice makes perfect. Practising your presentation will make your delivery more confident.

Breathe the room. Look at the back wall of the room, breathe in, and paint the wall a colour. This distracts your brain, as well as allowing you to slow your breathing.

Be enthusiastic. If you’re enthusiastic about what you’re presenting, your audience will feel the same.

Own the stage. You’re in control. Move people to the centre of the room, right in front of you. This makes it easier to see everyone, and feel more connected to the audience – making presenting less daunting.

Consider personal appearance. Dress appropriately.

Introduce yourself. Helps build rapport, and make the audience trust in what you have to say.

Try not to use a script. A script can impede your delivery, and mess up the rhythm. Use your slides as mental cues.

Use your eyes. Making eye-contact with the audience makes them feel more connected with you.

 

Powerpoints are not a method, but a tool.

Order of priority:

  • Design
  • Story
  • Symphony
  • Empathy
  • Play
  • Meaning

 

Rules for Our Presentation:

  • 10 minutes – 5 for each project
  • No sounds or videos
  • Cover portfolio & elements project

 

 

Update:

Here is a PDF of my end of term presentation:

Uni Presentation of Work