A teleprompter can be a life saver. And can really be a super cool tool to get lots of video content filmed efficiently. There are some things to understand about them however. Here are a few points we at Waves have experienced and can offer as advice on best practices.
Knowing When to Use One
TelePrompters can serve our purposes well but not everyone will be savvy with how to use them. People who appear to be reading or seem robotic may do better with a different video style (This could be a sit down off-camera interview set-up for instance)
Prompters should not be used simply because they are available either. If a portion of a script is short enough, not using it may produce a far more natural video result.
When you have tons of short scripts to do in a day however, well… TelePrompters kick butt!
So if you need to use a prompter here are some tips…
Eye-line and Natural Movements
Of course we all know we don’t want to give away the fact we are using a prompter. A few good tips are:
- Keep your eye-line at the top of the screen or lens behind it. This keeps it in a consistent place and allows for you to see the words coming below the line you are reading.
- Don’t force it, but let you head move slightly from time to time while reading. Stationary faces with just lips moving can give away that you are reading. Slight movement can cover some of the eye movement too. Remembers it’s all a trick being played on the viewer anyway!
- If you have the space in the camera’s frame a little hand movement from time to time can aid in keeping it feeling natural.
Prompters and Software We Recommend
We love this compact prompter due to both it’s price and size. It quickly screws on a stand and the fabric pulls nicely over the camera lens.
Prompter People and Glide Gear make some nice and affordable options as well.
As for software, TelePrompter + has worked nicely for us over the years. It works well with a remote keyboard controller as well.
One other that we just bought is PromptSmart. It can be set up to be voice activated which is super helpful with longer scripts. It will go at your pace!