Using A TelePrompter or Autocue & Mobile Video

Posted April 22, 2018

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Anna Brees is a former ITV reporter who has embraced the whole MoJo or Mobile Journalist (or as we say around here), VJ mode of working.

When you work for a big broadcaster like ITV, you have to do a lot of stand-ups or to camera pieces. These are the bread and butter of conventional news production.

We are not great fans of standups, but a lot of people are, and if you are a working VJ, you may be called upon to either do one yourself or produce one with a reporter.

If so, then the TelePromter or Auto Cue is going to be a precious find.

This is also true if you are doing lives.

When I was at the networks in the US, TelePrompTers (which is how we spelled it then) were massive machines. They required the script to be fed into them, and then a great one-way mirrored device, with a mirror hung at a 45-degree angle over the front lens of the camera, projected the printed script before the lens so that the 'talent' could read the script whilst staring into the camera.

Expensive! You bet. Complicated? Unquestionably.  Take this thing out fo the studio and into the field and you needed a van just to move the gear, AND, at least when I was at CBS, you needed a separate TelePrompTer employee (unionized) to run the damned thing.

Fortunately, times have changed.

Now, like everything else, there's an app for this that puts the script right on your smartphone screen and so allows you to read while you shoot yourself, (or someone else).

Anna Brees, who I met through the Mojocon site here on Facebook, has produced a wonderful video that explains all.  

Check it out!