Hi
For a long time now I have recorded my videos without a script. I’ve usually written one but rather than memorising it (impossible!) I’ve ad libbed around the main points.
That has served me well for the best part of ten years.
But I recently wrote a video script for a project I’m working on with a friend. We decided it would be best to actually read from the script for this as we would be taking turns talking.
We tried reading the script from a laptop near the camera then tried an autocue app on another laptop but it just wasn’t happening.
As someone who used to do autocue professionally I know the importance of looking at the camera when reading a script.
In the big pro systems this is done with a reflector screen mounted in front of a camera. The presenter is actually seeing the script scroll in front of the camera lens so it looks perfectly natural.
Try as we might we just couldn’t get the laptop close enough to the camera to get this effect and we struggled to follow the script.
Sooooooooooo
I went looking for an Iphone app that might do the trick
And I found one!
In case you missed my previous mail on this …..
Its called Teleprompter and is available on the app store - it’s superb
You do need the paid version - a snip at £17 - to get all the features and to load scripts longer than 750 characters but if this is something you could use, its a bargain.
It works exactly like the pro camera set up with the script running on your phone screen.
You can move the script nearer the camera on the phone, turn it into subtitles after you record and add texts and logos.
One of the things this makes possible for our project is shooting separate videos for our script then editing them together later.
I’ll probably do a video on this app soon as there a few other tips I can share about getting great quality sound outdoors using this set up - even when its windy
I will always use my DSLR and field sound recorder for some things but I’m seriously loving how quickly I can get up and running with this approach.
Bests
Dave
