I went to a presentation evening at a secondary school last night and watched a senior teacher make what I consider to be a basic presentation blunder which should be a sackable offence.  The stage was set with a projector centre font, showing the school logo and flooding the stage with light. As the platform party walked on, huge shadows were cast behind, large lumbering silhouettes of strangely shaped monsters and aliens, like that scene in ‘Close Encounters’.

The projector was used to show a slide show of the learners from the academic year which was put together quite well. After which the stage was cleared and the projector moved for the procession of learners to make their way to the stage to receive their awards.  The projector and laptop were on a trolly which was simply wheeled out of the way… while the desktop was still projected, causing the video to blind the stage party and whoosh across the set like some doped out projection from a 1969 Pink Floyd gig.  I should know, I was there.  The trolly had to move about 10 metres and with each change of direction the image swooped and swirled across the stage.  It looked highly amateur.

This is easily avoided.  There is a button, probably on the remote control but also on the top of the projector called “A/V mute”.  This temporarily silences any audio and turns the screen to black until you ‘un-mute’ with the same button. It’s a key tool during presentations, when you want the class to listen to you rather than to stare blankly at the screen, use this button.  It’s a life saver. If there is no button, it might happen anyway, when you close the lens cover.

A further rule for giving presentations, please, the audience should never, ever, see your desktop…