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Hi, this is Jay P. Morgan. Today on The Slanted Lens we’re going to take a look at teleprompters, why you need one and how to use them. You know, teleprompters have been used in broadcast forever. It’s been a standard part of that industry. But as people have started to apply them to different uses, run and gun video, you have a CEO that needs to talk about their company but you want a very scripted message. If you have materials for a course that you’re teaching like a fitness trainer. You have materials you want to go through and you want to make sure you’re staying on point. Teleprompters have found their way into very, kind of, common YouTube applications. For most video applications there’s a way and a need for a teleprompter. Sometimes using a teleprompter can be kind of hard. So here’s some tips to make using your teleprompter a lot easier and make that flow really work on set.
So first off, which teleprompter is best for you? A lot of people start out with an iPad or a paper above the camera. You know, the iPad above the camera type of approach it just doesn’t work for me. Because if I’m looking here in the lens, when I start looking up there at the iPad my eye line is off. I look like I’m staring into space. I don’t like that approach at all. But what I do look for is something that is very compact and portable.
So we’re using the PT 4200 from Ikan which is a great model because it breaks down very quickly. It goes into a case from SKB that makes it easy to take on location with you. But it sets up very fast. That’s the number one thing for me. I don’t want something that’s going to be very difficult to set up. Now if it’s going to go in the studio, you set it up and you’re going to use it forever, then you’re going to go to a larger teleprompter and it’s going to sit in place. You’re not going to take it down and set it up. But those of us who are using kind of run and gun applications are going to want something that really breaks down and sets up very easily. You can get teleprompters out there that are just simply an iPad with a mirror. And that iPad with a mirror you can use a remote to run them. Those are pretty good applications. I find those a little difficult to run because you’re trying to look and run that remote and that makes it very difficult to be able to see. I like a mirror to a laptop so we can control the laptop, control the flow. That’s really important for me.
Number two, clean everything. Most people don’t understand how many surfaces there are. There’s both sides of the mirror, there’s the monitor that reflects into the mirror and then of course there’s the lens. Clean all that before you set it up and get it into place because once it’s in place you can’t get to both sides of that mirror and becomes very difficult to clean. Keep a microfiber cloth in your teleprompter kit. You can clean all those surfaces before you set it up. And that way when you get it set up you’re ready to go. A little bit of dust off doesn’t hurt. Spray the front of it. Clean all that dust off in the front of the mirror when you’re shooting. That keeps everything clean and looks really good. The last thing you want is a bunch of dust in front of your monitor.
Number three, make sure your teleprompter is flagged and the light is cut off from it. This is what makes it hard to use outside. If you’re outside and you’ve got sunlight everywhere you’re going to have to work very hard to make sure that you get all of the mirror area covered with flags so that there’s no light on the mirror. If you get a rim light from behind it can get into that mirror and it can really cause problems for you. You start to see streaks and flares that you’re wondering where are those coming from. So you throw up a flag to keep that rim light off from the front of the mirror. Ikan makes great little eyebrows that go around the front of the mirror. It keeps a stray light off from the mirror and keeps a stray light off from your monitor and you don’t get flares in the camera. And that’s what you need to avoid.
Next use large type. Now you don’t use large type just because you want to be able to read it very easily. But you use it because it fills up the frame and your eye doesn’t wander. Your eyes aren’t looking back and forth like it’s reading across. If you make it too small then the eyes start to wander as reading sentences across the screen. And it definitely looks like you’re using a teleprompter. They would be going, “Wow, that person is using a teleprompter.” If you get large enough type you’re going to look straight down the barrel right in the lens and you can just read the type as it goes through. And it just gives you a much cleaner look. You’re interfacing with the camera very easily. That larger type really helps that to happen.
Number five, I think it’s important to prep the script beforehand. And what I mean by that is a script’s going to have all kinds of cues in it. It’s going to have visuals. It’s going to have things you want to happen in this visual journey. And you don’t want all of that information on this script as a person’s reading from a teleprompter. It just confuses them. The old thing of seeing the politician who’s up there reading and it goes, “Pause and warmly smile at the camera.” You don’t want that kind of stuff in there because people stop and they do it. So I get rid of everything. I get rid of all the visual cues. I get rid of everything. It’s just the clean script. The problem with doing that is now sometimes you’re missing some prompts that you may need to know for scripting and for taking notes and for doing any kind of a slate. So you’ve got to have somebody watching the script making sure you get each section. Making sure you’re covering everything and you’re not missing something and you know where those sections go. So it’s really important that when you take all those cues out that you have somebody watching the script so you don’t miss something. If you don’t do that, more than likely you’re going to miss something. But if you leave weird things in you’re going to get somebody going, “Pause, because you’re handsome.” And that’s not good.
My name is Gersh Gershunoff. What’s in my SKB case? The Holy Grail of snare drums. 1980s Tama Bell Brass. When you see Dave playing at the induction of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for Nirvana this is the snare he’s playing. It’s incredible. And I wouldn’t trust it in anything else but an SKB case.
Number six, on a teleprompter, the type is very simple, it’s very basic. So how do you give cues to the person who’s reading off the teleprompter when you want them to change their performance. Well, obviously a comma means you take a break. We use quotation marks if you want to emphasize something. “I live in a van down by the river.” you know. So use quotation marks to say, “I want to emphasize this.” You can underline things. You can bold them. But a lot of times that bold doesn’t look as bold as you might think. You can put a dot, dot, dot, dot, dot if you wanted to give a long pause. And just come up with kind of your method on how you want to communicate and stick with it. Use it every time you shoot so it’s the same and you understand it. It’s easier to communicate to the actor and help them to understand your system so that they can follow it and practice it. But the most important thing you can do is rehearse a little bit with it. Just start talking. Get them in the flow. Help them feel the cues in your script and just see how they play with it. So that’s the important, most important thing. But come up with your way to be able to communicate to the actor how you want their performance to be changed during the process.
Number seven, make your script conversational. It’s really important to sit down with the actor to read through the script and make sure it feels conversational, it feels comfortable, it feels like it’s coming from them. The problem with this process is when you sit down and start reading these things together sometimes people start to want to work on the script too much. And they want to be able to make changes. “Well I wouldn’t say that word, I would say this word.” Try not to get into the weeds in this process but just help them feel conversational. Say, “I don’t want you to project and make this into a performance. I want you to just talk as if you’re talking to, you know, someone that you know really well, a good friend. With a teleprompter the reason you look into the lens is because you want them to connect with the viewer. You want to have that connection. You don’t look off to the side like a documentary. You look straight at the camera. That’s why you use a teleprompter. So you want that to be conversational and personal and really resonate with the viewer. So make it conversational.
Number eight, give the person who is operating your script, the teleprompter operator, some time to work with the actors so they get into a rhythm together. They’re going to be the one who speeds up or slows down. You can set an automatic speed so it just rolls. But that automatic speed for me just doesn’t work as well as someone who’s there to slow it down and speed it up and to get into the flow of what the actor’s doing. A good actor who’s been on screen a lot, it just rolls through it. It’s not a problem. But it’s much more difficult for a CEO or someone who’s not used to being on a teleprompter. They’re going to have a harder time being able to make that connection with the teleprompter and the speed. So it’s going to be a little different experience. So you got to give the person who’s operating time to be able to get into that flow with them. There are programs out there that will follow the voice of the actor. Those are excellent because they just stay at the pacing of the actor. The problem you have though is when the actor goes off script then they can start to get confused. Sometimes they freeze. That can be a little bit of a problem. But they become much better and it makes it easier for them just follow the pacing of the actor. But it’s pretty hard to replace a person who just sits there and follows and kind of keeps control of that. But it’s another person you got to pay and that becomes another, you know, just another line item. Whereas that voice follow allows you to follow along. I would try that. See what you like and see what works for your flow. And I think that voice follow could be a pretty great solution.
Number nine, just because you’re on a teleprompter does not mean you can’t use your hands. Don’t get your person all stiff and stand there like a robot. Let them use their hands. Let them be comfortable gesturing. Some people are more comfortable with that than others. But if they are I would definitely do it. It makes it feel more comfortable. It makes it feel more real. So don’t let them become a robot. Let them have their hands in motion and relate to the audience. It’s important even though they’re on a teleprompter that they do that.
So Ikan has a lot of great teleprompter models. I chose the one that I thought was going to be portable and quick to set up because that’s so important to me. I feel like if it doesn’t do that I’m not going to use it. It’s just going to, if it becomes hard to set up, it becomes too heavy to carry around, it’s just going to become too difficult. And I’m not going to deal with it. You may have different needs. You may have something you want to set up in a studio and leave it there all the time. And that’s great. So you’re going to choose something that really fits what you’re doing and what your needs are. Ikan did not sponsor this video. I called them up and said, “Hey, I love these teleprompters. Send me one, I’d like to use it in a video.” They sent us one, but they didn’t sponsor the video. So there’s just some tips on using teleprompters. I mean, I’m not an expert but I’ve used a lot of teleprompters. I’ve done 15 days, you know, 20 days of teleprompters every single day. And you start to learn a few things because you’re doing it day in and day out. And that experience comes up with these tips that we shared with you. So take a look at these tips. Hopefully they’ll help you avoid some problems and help you get into the world of teleprompters. So you keep those cameras rollin’ and keep on clickin’!
