Most studios that shoot corporate video already own a teleprompter screen without calling it one. It’s the iPad in a drawer at the office, or the Android tablet left over from a trade show.
Put it under a sheet of angled glass, or just next to the lens, let someone scroll from a laptop, and that covers most interviews and talking-head pieces.
How the script is written and how the presenter reads it are covered in our guide on how to read a teleprompter naturally. This post is about the hardware.
In short
- Under glass the text has to be mirrored, and on a loose screen next to the lens it doesn’t.
- Allow about one foot of distance per inch of screen, so a 10-inch tablet suits a presenter about 10 feet away.
- Run full brightness, light text on black, auto-lock off, the charger plugged in and Do Not Disturb on.
- A browser-based prompter needs internet on every screen, so test the location’s network or bring a phone hotspot.
- With several screens, set mirroring and a name screen by screen.
Glass in front of the lens, or a screen next to it
A tablet can work in two ways, and they need opposite settings.
Under glass, the tablet lies face up below a beam splitter, a sheet of partly mirrored glass at 45 degrees in front of the lens. The presenter reads the reflection while looking straight into the camera. The reflection flips the text, so this screen has to be mirrored.
Glass makers usually rate prompter glass at 70/30, meaning about 70% of the light goes through to the lens and about 30% bounces toward the presenter. Losing 30% of the light costs the camera about half a stop, so open up or add a little light.
As a loose screen, the tablet goes on a clamp or a small stand right above or below the lens, with no glass and no mirroring. It’s quicker to set up, and it’s the natural choice for an interview where the subject answers someone sitting beside the camera.
Before you buy a rig, check the largest device it takes with the case on. Then lock the screen rotation before mounting, because a tablet lying flat can’t tell which way is up and a bump on the tripod can flip the picture.
Screen size, distance and letter size
Autocue’s rule of thumb is one foot of distance for every inch of screen. That puts a 10-inch tablet about 10 feet (3 meters) from the presenter and a 6-inch phone about 6 feet away.
Closer than that, the eyes travel across the lines and the camera sees it. Further away, the letters have to grow.
Bigger letters mean fewer words per line and fewer lines on screen, and that’s where a phone runs out. At a size you can read from 6 feet, a phone shows only a few words per line, so the presenter is always close to the end of what they can see.
A phone is fine for a short piece shot close. For a full block of script, a tablet is more comfortable.
Side margins shorten the line without changing the letter size, which helps when a large screen sits close to the presenter. Set the size with the presenter in their chair, at the real distance, because from the laptop it always looks fine.
Brightness and reflections
Turn the brightness all the way up and switch off automatic brightness. Inside a hood, the light sensor sees darkness and dims the screen, and under glass the presenter is already reading a reflection that carries a fraction of the screen’s light.
Use light text on a black background. Black pixels give off almost no light, so the glass reflects only the letters, while a white background floods the hood with light that can find its way into the lens.
The hood, the fabric around the glass, also stops the lights behind the camera from bouncing off the glass. Frame a test shot at the widest focal length you’ll use, since the edge of the hood can creep into the corners.
With a loose screen, look at the presenter’s glasses. A bright tablet next to the lens shows up as a white rectangle in each lens. Lower the brightness until it goes away, or tilt the screen down a little.
Keep the screen awake and quiet
A tablet that goes to sleep halfway through a take costs you the take. On an iPad, set Settings > Display & Brightness > Auto-Lock to Never.
On Android, the screen timeout under Display may stop at 10 or 30 minutes depending on the brand, and the Stay awake switch in Developer options keeps the screen on while the tablet charges.
Plug it in, whatever you’re running. A tablet at full brightness all day drains faster than you’d think, and one sealed inside a hood is a pain to swap. A long cable or a power bank strapped to the rig sorts it out.
Then turn on Do Not Disturb (Focus, on Apple devices). A WhatsApp banner sliding over the script in the middle of a sentence is enough to lose a good take.
Browser or app, Wi-Fi or no Wi-Fi
Apps installed on the tablet often run offline, and many pair with a Bluetooth remote or a foot pedal so the presenter can scroll alone. That suits a solo creator, or a location with no signal.
A browser-based prompter needs nothing installed. The tablet opens a link and someone else drives the scroll from a laptop, and any device that turns up on the day can join as a second or third screen. The catch is that it needs an internet connection.
On location, test the network before the presenter arrives. Hotel and event Wi-Fi often has a login page that has to be accepted on every device, which you don’t want to discover with the tablet already sealed inside the hood.
A hotspot from a phone with good signal is a solid fallback, since what travels is text and scroll commands, not video.
One laptop, several screens
Whoever scrolls should sit at a laptop with a real keyboard and, ideally, a view of the camera, so they know the presenter has started without waiting for a nod.
A second screen pays off in two situations. One is a confidence monitor, a screen with the same text on the floor or beside the camera, for a presenter who moves around or stands at a lectern.
The other is a second camera position. When the presenter talks to the wide shot in one block and the close-up in the next, each camera needs its own screen, and often one is under glass and the other is loose.
So mirroring has to be set screen by screen. Give each screen a name, too, so the operator knows which one is “Cam B” when something goes wrong.
How this works in RecReview
In RecReview, the operator opens the teleprompter from the shoot plan on a laptop and is the only one who signs in. The tablet scans a QR code or opens a short link in its browser, with no app and no login.
The “Open on this machine” button opens a screen window on the laptop itself, for a monitor plugged in by cable.
A session takes up to 10 screens. Each one can be renamed, mirrored or disconnected on its own, so the tablet under the glass can be mirrored while the confidence monitor isn’t.
A new screen starts unmirrored, and the device remembers its name and mirroring for the next shoot, unless the link was opened in a private window.
Every screen shows white text on black, and text size, margin, bold and alignment are set once for all of them. A tap on the presenter’s screen does nothing, so a stray finger won’t stop the text.
The operator plays and pauses with the space bar and changes the speed with the arrow keys. The preview on the laptop takes the shape of the presenter’s screen, so the lines break where they break for the presenter.
Next to it, the operator can watch up to four cameras or shared windows, with a level meter for sources that carry audio.
Every screen needs internet, because it connects through RecReview’s server rather than straight to the laptop. The upside is that the tablet and the laptop don’t have to share a network, so one can be on the venue’s Wi-Fi and the other on a phone hotspot.
If the connection drops, a “reconnecting” marker appears in the corner, the screen keeps trying on its own, and once it’s back it picks up where the operator is.
There’s no offline mode, so a location with no signal at all needs a plan B. The teleprompter page has the rest.
