I recently watched two videos of the same person, recorded at different times. In one, the speaker was alive — the face moved, the head tilted, the hands worked. In the other, the same person sat almost frozen, only the lips moving. Same face, same voice, two completely different impressions. One looked engaged and trustworthy. The other looked stiff and slightly absent. That difference is what I want to talk about, because with work from home here to stay, video calls and online interviews are now where we make a lot of our impressions.

The camera flattens you. In a room, people read your whole body, the way you shift in your chair, the energy around you. On screen, all of that collapses into a two-dimensional frame. That flat figure asks more of you, not less — it forces you to do the work that a real room would have done for you. There are three places to put that effort.

1. Be expressive — but naturally

You need more on your face than you think. In person, subtle expressions carry. On a small video window they barely register, so you have to be a little more generous with them. That means real eyebrow movement, small lip movements, the eyes shifting here and there as you think and speak.

One warning. Some people decide the answer is to smile constantly. Please don't. A smile only works when it is genuine — when it reaches the eyes and the cheeks lift on their own. A forced smile reads worse than a neutral face, because the mismatch between a stretched mouth and flat eyes is something we notice instantly, even if we can't name it. If you don't feel like smiling, don't. Let the expression follow the feeling, not the other way round. And keep the eye movement easy and natural — not the darting, shifty kind, which reads as discomfort.

2. Let your head move

This is the one most people miss. When the head stays completely still and only the mouth moves, you look robotic. The brain expects a head that nods, tilts, acknowledges. So let it move. A small nod to show you're listening, a tilt when you're curious or warm, the gentle head wobble we use so naturally in India to signal agreement. Head movement is what makes you read as animated — animated in the good sense, present and responsive rather than performed.

3. Keep your hands in the presentation box

Hand gestures change how you are perceived. When you talk and use your hands well, people find you more memorable, more honest and more energetic. But on camera there's a rule: keep the gestures inside what I call the presentation box. That's the imaginary area running from roughly the top of your head down to your navel. Use your hands there and they support your words. Let them drop below the frame or fly off the edges and they're simply lost — the camera can't see them, so they do nothing for you.

Three small habits, one strong impression

So, three things. Be more expressive, in a natural way. Let your head move and acknowledge. Use your hands inside the presentation box. None of these is a trick or a mask — they are simply ways of letting your real engagement show through a medium that hides most of it. If you're already doing all three, wonderful. If not, this is the time to start paying attention, because the next interview, the next pitch, the next important meeting is going to happen through that small flat window. Make it work for you.