Teleprompters are often the butt of jokes, or blamed for gaffes. When politicians stumble over their speeches, its not that they were nervous, it’s that the Teleprompter glitched. In the movie Anchorman, Ron Burgundy is disgraced when he reads verbatim from a Teleprompter that’s been altered to include an f-bomb in his standard send-off. Head over to YouTube, and you’ll see similar instances – and they’re pretty funny! But what everyone forgets when they make fun of Teleprompters is how much they can ease the process of video production.
Often when we film, we work interview-style. A producer sits off camera and asks the interviewee questions. They repeat the question in their answer, and use their expertise to discuss the topic on hand. Most of the time this works out really well! But there are some occasions when the interviewee needs to speak at length, and address specific talking points. In those scenarios, Teleprompters can be huge time-savers. For instance, our client Sister Eden does talking-head videos where she shares advice on ways to green your daily life. She recently talked about her wedding, and all the steps they took to reduce waste and conserve energy. Having planned it, she obviously knew what she wanted to talk about – but there were specific things she wanted to mention about each choice that would have been hard to remember while being filmed. So we brought out the teleprompter! Having a pre-written and thought out script allowed our client to speak at length about her wedding without stumbling over ideas or losing her train of thought. What could have required multiple takes ended up only needing two.
Our Teleprompter is actually a combination of technologies. We have a glass teleprompter mirror that is readable up to 12 feet away – perfect for those long shots of speeches as well as close-up interviews. It has two coatings – mirrored on one side to reflect the text, and anti-reflective on the other so that the camera doesn’t catch any reflections. The text is projected from an iPad – it plays on the screen in reverse so that the glass reflects the image in a readable format. A standard Bluetooth-connected keyboard controls the speed of the scrolling text – you can speed up, slow down, or reverse the script to a previous section.
The most important part of using a Teleprompter is the coordination between the operator and the speaker. The operator has to pay attention to the script and the speaker’s progress so that they can keep up with the text without speed-reading or stumbling through it. Without that coordination, the situation can quickly become a comedy of errors, with the text speed varying wildly and the speaker struggling to keep up. But with a good rapport between operator and speaker (and some practice with the controls) the Teleprompter becomes an essential tool in interview-style filmmaking. We’re happy to include the Teleprompter in our arsenal, and look forward to using it in future shoots!
Curious how teleprompters operate? How Stuff Works has a video explaining, here. Enjoy the 1990’s fashion and technology – I know I did!
Image Credit: Robert Scoble