People on television use it every day, even the President of the United States uses one during speeches. While watching TV at home you never actually see it but without it, the people in front of the camera would look like they did not have a clue. Can you guess what it is? It is a Teleprompter, short for television prompter. You never see it onscreen, but a teleprompter is one of the most valuable tools for someone that must speak to a camera. The reason a teleprompter is so important is that the onscreen talent does not have to memorize their lines. A teleprompter is used mainly for live action programs like news, talk shows, or other presentations in which someone is speaking to the viewing audience. These programs differ from movies, TV dramas or programs involving actors in that people are intentionally aware of the camera’s presence. The camera is their only audience in most cases.
In the early days of television, people held their script and read from it on camera. While it is not too distracting to view onscreen, it is more difficult for the person reading. Imagine trying to read the words mainly to the camera, and quickly looking back down every so often to find where you left off, for an hour of news five days a week. Walter Cronkite (I’m aging myself) made it appear so natural. Later on a teleprompter was invented to make it easier for the talent to read their lines. The first teleprompter had very little in common to the ones we use today. While they made life easier for the onscreen talent, it became more difficult for the poor production assistant.
Think of a piano roll. Okay I’m aging myself again. How about a roll of bathroom paper? It is very simple, really. The original teleprompter was a small metal box on a stand, with motorized electronics inside. Connected to the box on a wire was a small control with a rotating knob. The box was adjustable and could be placed over, or under the camera lens. Here is where the fun begins. There is a small roll on the bottom of the teleprompter, and a space for another on top.
Every day before a newscast, a roll of yellow paper was brought out, and the production assistant would write by hand, the anchor’s script, word for word. The roll was then taken and placed in the top space of the teleprompter and attached to the bottom roll. The production assistant or news crewmember would then adjust the speed of the script, going up or down while it was being read with the controller. Now, it was imperative that the production assistant should have excellent penmanship. There were very light white lines on the paper to guide size and spacing, but whoever wrote the text had to make sure the words were in readable print. They could not be sloppy. This job usually went to an intern out of college. College students were expected to have proper penmanship.
Then someone happened to hit upon another simple idea. It was not really a new idea. In fact, many spiritualists and sideshows used the technology quite often in the period overlapping the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The trick was discovered in the early days of photography, and was used to magically make people and things appear. Sometimes it was just for the fun of it. Sadly, often times this simple technology tricked desperate people out of their money. The technology is also used in the world of magic and illusion. They do not call it the ‘magic of television’ for nothing. In fact, this same basic principle is still used on a teleprompter today.
All you need is some type of display monitor that is connected to a computer, a mirror, and a piece of glass. First let us look at the computer. When the first computerized teleprompter was available, it was a specialized stand-alone system with a purchase price in the thousands. A lot like today. The computer running the teleprompting software was not the smartest computer around. All that was needed to run the software was about the equivalent brain of a PC 486, the stupidest computer around at the time in terms of graphics and audio. For those video producers without a lot of money, this fact is important to keep in mind as this article progresses.
The next things you need for a teleprompter is a mirror and a sheet of glass. The glass is placed about a foot in front of the lens. The mirror is placed above the lens at an angle on top, and the monitor is mounted below facing the mirror. This results in the camera lens being surrounded from top to bottom by all three. This is the basic setup of a teleprompter. How this setup works is a very simple illusion. To begin with, a normal camera lens can only focus on things that are at least a couple of feet away. Anything closer requires changing to another type of lens called a Macro. Television cameras have a built in macro lens, but it is only adjustable by hand, and when the macro is engaged the lens cannot easily focus on things farther away. A macro lens is normally only used for static shots of tiny objects or small print.
The theory of how a teleprompter works can be explained with an old trick used by film photographers. Let’s say you are taking pictures of your kid’s baseball game. You want a closer picture so you walk down to the backstop, and place the camera lens right up to the chain link fence. If you focus your lens on any player in the game, it can easily be done. The chain link fence only appears slightly fuzzy, and out of focus. You hardly even see it. The same principal is used by a teleprompter. Only the goal is for the camera to not see it at all.
The monitor displays the text from below to the mirror. The mirror reflects the image onto the plate of glass. The glass is close enough so that the camera cannot see the text image reflected on its surface, but whoever is in front of the glass can read the text with no problem. One factor in all of this is that everything must be blackened behind the glass. A professional teleprompter is one unit, with a frame that everything mounts on. Black material covers the frame to block out anything facing the glass. The unit is rather large and bulky, but a teleprompter used in a studio is attached to a dolly, which in itself is a large bulky tripod with pneumatic risers that the camera is mounted on. There are weights on the back-end of the dolly camera mount to offset the teleprompter’s weight, so that the lens will not fall forward from the weight in front.
There are smaller teleprompter units available which are lighter, for independent stations and studios. As cameras get smaller, so does a teleprompter. Even so, the complete unit with software runs in the thousands to purchase. As for those of us with little money, it is possible to find a used teleprompter unit for a good price. A little warning, you still have to mount the big ol’ heavy thing on something. As for the software, there are many applications to choose from, and here is the interesting thing. What a stupid Apple II computer could do twenty years ago, now requires software costing over a thousand dollars. Maybe they have written something special in the programs, I do not know.
All I know is that even a hundred dollars is a ridiculous price to ask for teleprompting software, and here is where this article gets interesting for those of us with no money. Before I begin let me say that I do not know a thing about making a teleprompter. I work in studios with a budget, so there is no need for me to make a teleprompter. I have no idea about the details of how far the glass is from the lens, or what angle the mirror is set at. However, the theory behind a teleprompter is simple enough. A person with some ingenuity and manufacturing skills could whip one up in no time. Today’s flat screen monitors are much less bulkier than those we had to use before. This would make for a lighter unit, although still heavy enough to be of concern with a small camera tripod. Even a pro-tripod for a Beta camera would need some type of offsetting weight from behind, but it is possible to make a homemade teleprompter.
Okay, now for the software. A word processor will not work, because you need controllable scrolling and speed to smoothly move the text up and down. Hitting the mouse button will not suffice. In addition, you need white text with a completely black background, something a computer program like a word processor is not designed to do. Hmmm. Maybe with PowerPoint? I guess you could create a page that scrolls, and the speed can be controlled. But you will still not have any control or ability to pause and move back up during the playback. These are features needed for a proper teleprompter. You may be able to use computer programs such as these if you have nothing else, but the results will not be very satisfying.
So why did I bother to bring you all this way? Because there IS a way, and the computer program works just like a teleprompter costing over a thousand dollars! Best of all it is completely FREE! Well… it may cost you for an HTML program, or you may have to learn how to write HTML language yourself. The secret of this teleprompting software dilemma is JAVASCRIPT, in particular CSS Styles javascript. There are javascript authors who generously write little scripts and post them on web sites for everyone to use in their HTML programming. I will not get into the details of HTML, nor will I provide copies of the script for a teleprompter, but there are many resources out there on the web available if you know a little about creating HTML web pages.
One resource in particular is where I found the teleprompter script. This very useful site is called the JavaScript Source. As quoted from their site, “The JavaScript Source is an excellent JavaScript resource with tons of ‘cut and paste’ JavaScript examples for your Web pages. All for free!” Their web address is http://javascript.internet.com and you will find the teleprompter script under their miscellaneous category. The script is graciously written by Jeremy Keith, (http://adactio.com/) and can be used with any PC running IE 5.0+. This means you can even use that old computer just lying around in the closet. All you need to know is a little HTML, or have software to do it for you. The skill is also very useful today for other income opportunities involving marketing or multimedia creating, so it might be handy to know.
I have personally tried the script. It is keyboard driven, easy to use, and mimics a teleprompter just like the big boys. It perfectly displays white text and a completely black background. You can cut and paste RTF or text from a word processor. All you have to do is put in the breaks and change size using HTML coding after pasting it in. A few other steps, and you are on your way. So if you are low on budget, creative and handy with tools a teleprompter is possible to make for your production at little cost. Now go have some fun!
