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Prompter UniversityPO Box 11929
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Uses of a Teleprompter While the teleprompter was initially designed to capture riveting eye-contact during news presentations for early broadcasters, the modern teleprompter has found its way into many aspects of entertainment. The newsroom Teleprompter still is the easiest and best way to present the news at your local or network station. However it also offers a lot more, from 'pacing' a news show, to controlling the timing and content, without the news anchor skipping a beat. Additionally, the teleprompter can assist in creating a terrific interactive interview environment by display an image of the guest and host on opposite ends of a remote feed. The guest is looking at the image of the host and the host is looking at the image of the guest, and both are looking right into the lens of their respective cameras. Riveting interviews with riveting eye contact. The poor weather guy, standing in front a 'blue' or 'green' screen (a specially colored device to allow live video -say,the weatherman- to be superimposed over live video or graphic -like the weathermap), without some kind of help, has no idea where he is pointing. Typically, stations will place one monitor on stage left and stage right, off-camera to assist the weatherman in positioning himself. Alternatively, feeding the teleprompter monitor with program video (showing both the weatherman AND superimposed background map) allows the weatherman to be looking right into the camera lens while correctly positioning himself on the set. For shows that rely heavily on roll-ins (like sports shows), by displaying program video on the teleprompter monitor, the host can stay in sync with the roll-ins. Public Speakers use teleprompters all the time. They use a special form called a Podium prompter which consists of a large a/v monitor resting on its back with a small diameter extendable pole attached to it with an acrylic reflector on its opposite end. The pole is extended such that the reflector reflects the image from the monitor into the speaker's eyes. The beauty of the system is that the acrylic appears clear to the audience, so they can see right through to the speaker, and hardly notice the thin supporting pole. A little less grandiose, but still effective, is a teleprompter monitor built right into a podium itself and controlled by an off-stage technician. This way, pace can be maintained, last second changes can be implimented and still be clearly readable to the presenter, with little chance of out-of-sequence pages due to a wind gust at the podium redistributing the presenter's notes. To the audience, it appears that the presenter is reading from printed notes. More and more, teleprompters are replacing the stage left and right cue cards that stage production companies are using. Prompting lines can easily be seen from large distances while an operator keeps the text in sync with the unfolding play. No doubt you have seen the large auditorium presentaions on television (Oscars, Emmys, etc) where presenters (either because of vanity, or their agent forgot to remind them to bring along a pair of glasses) are occassionally seen squinting at the camera located at the back of the auditorium. In fact, what they are trying to see is their lines on a superlarge 52" projection screen teleprompter located at the back of the auditorium, just over (or under) the camera. Likewise, musicians are learning that a small teleprompter monitor placed on a stage in front of them may look like a stage audio feedback monitor to the audience, but allows them to always have the lyrics of their performance at their disposal in the event that they forget a line or the name of the next piece in the program, or, heaven forbid, the name of the town they are currently playing.
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