Should I Use a Teleprompter? (Sharing My Experience)

[Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] are you wondering whether or not you should include a teleprompter in your home setup well today i'm going to talk all about this i'm going to flip the camera around and actually show you my teleprompter setup talk a little bit about the changes at the things i've learned and how i've adapted my teleprompter over the years well year and i'm also going to share a little bit about my diy teleprompter fail i even have some pictures to show you but i would love to give you some information some background and also what are the things you should consider if you were thinking about adding a teleprompter to your setup i have to say it's my second favorite piece of equipment that i've added to my home setup to help me do presentations and facilitation i say second because i do think i have to place the stream deck over top so today is going to be all about should i add a teleprompter should i use one what are the pros and the cons what do you have to consider and if you are new and we have never met my name is kat and i like to help people create professional and engaging online presentations and a teleprompter is a really good tool for this the reason being it allows you to make eye contact with the people you are talking to and that really does make a difference it up levels your presentation when people feel like you are looking directly at them and that is a lot easier when you have a teleprompter it's not impossible i actually didn't use one for a very long time and still really focused on making that eye contact but now my setup has made it so much easier if you are here and you're watching live please say hello i see we've got dr elo who is here watching today and edward thanks so much for joining i'm glad to have you here and if you do have questions just drop them in the chat if you're watching the replay feel free to put a question in the comments and i will help you out so i am curious do you use one so for those of you who are here i see brock just joined us do you use a teleprompter are you thinking about using a teleprompter or is it kind of a nah i don't think so maybe i will convince you over this next little section so first before i get into turning the camera around and showing you what i have set up for my teleprompter i do want to say a little thing about different types because if you are in the market and you're starting to look you may be confused about your options so there are kind of two types that you would really consider bringing into your home one is a more kind of professional type teleprompter where you have the glass and the monitor in one piece sometimes comes with a remote maybe a dial where you can control the speed of a script if you're using a script and and it holds the it's got a camera holder the camera is always separate and then you have what i would consider that lower budget option which is what i am using and this is where you have a teleprompter that is intended really for you to add your own device whether that is your phone your tablet or something like an external monitor and what i would say is really you have to think about your use case how are you going to use it if you did go with something that's more on the budget side that's just for your phone it's a little harder to grow into that so you do want to make that consideration and i'll talk more a little bit later about the considerations and things you want to keep in mind if you are considering investing in a teleprompter but if you are going to be regularly talking virtually if you're leading a presentation or you're running a workshop it is really a great investment and so i i love mine you'll learn a little bit more about why soon now it's also not easy or not hard for me to get excited about these types of things and i see alan is here not using one yet but considering it great i hope that i can help you make that decision today all right so let's turn the camera around now at the moment i have what we call a confidence monitor meaning directly in front of me on my teleprompter i am seeing exactly what you are seeing so that i don't have to glance down and look around i can actually just see what is on the screen so if i have a title or if i have a graphic i can see it i don't have to look anywhere else i'm going to turn that off for the moment because if i show you what you're seeing we're going to get that infinity loop so before i switch the camera i am going to quickly turn off that confidence monitor and now it's just a blank looks like an external monitor so this is also i'm going to be showing you this using a little webcam and before i turn this around i do want to say that this is what i used with my teleprompter for the most part when i first started i'd say about the first seven months that i had my teleprompter i was just using a webcam i also did have my phone set up on there but it is really distracting to have your phone and if you do get any notifications or anything you have to make sure to remember to turn those off so that if you are filming something you don't get a text message from somebody um so having a dedicated camera whether that is a webcam or a more advanced camera then that is a good idea oh i just bumped into my microphone all right so let's flip this around and i'm going to try to keep this as still as possible okay so this is what i am looking at right now and this is my teleprompter setup so below you can see here's the feed of my stream so i can look and keep an eye on the chat and then over here i've got my ecam so this is the feed that is going out to you and i've got a couple of notes down here but mostly i am paying attention up here and what would happen is everything that you see in this scene would be directly in front of me so that i can see exactly what is going out so we call that a confidence monitor really just knowing exactly what feed is going out now if you look here this is my monitor and i will show you in a moment what it looks like because i actually have a second one because the first one that arrived was broken and damaged and so they sent me a replacement but if you look underneath the monitor because this is my own monitor that i added you can see that there is a little tray where you can add a phone or a tablet and you can actually adjust this to the size and when i did my research about a monitor i found that a 10 inch monitor fit in actually i still have a little bit of room i could probably have gone just a little bit bigger but this allows me it takes up as you can see really nicely i can see the entire monitor here in the teleprompter and it's a really high resolution that i can change and scale if i like now let's peek a little bit behind the curtain and in this case my teleprompter so it's by a company called caddybuddy it actually does have a flap which is different than some of the other models so if we actually sort of pick up this felt oh my arm so now you can get a better look of the actual structure here we go so this is my camera so in my case i have a sony zv1 that i am using and so you can see right through the glass and so the camera is looking directly at me if we go around to the side you can see how the camera is mounted and that you can adjust the height of the camera there and you can also move it forward and back and i have mine set up so that when the lens is open it's almost at the glass and obviously when it's closed it's not like that so in this case this is oop this is hard to do in this case mine does have that little felt flap so that when it is covered and dark then all i'm seeing is the reflection of the glass and not the camera so that is what mine actually looks like and there are a few other ones that i have heard great things about so um the other one that has people i trust have shared with me that they are really happy with their teleprompter so mine is caddy buddy which is from the us i actually ordered it last fall so 2019 i was seeing a friend who lives in buffalo i'm in canada if you aren't aware of that so i actually had it shipped to her house in buffalo because i was visiting anyway now i have looked on their site and apparently they do ship to they ship internationally and so that is a great option the cost is around 165 u.s for the caddie buddy teleprompter now the other one that comes highly recommended which i have listed below is called the glide gear tmp100 now there are smaller models that maybe hold an ipad or a phone but i would say that if you are thinking about investing in this it's nice to have the option to grow now the monitor which i purchased was actually a really recent purchase and i said i would show it to you so i will so this is actually this is the first one that came in so you can see this is the 10 inch monitor it's actually pretty light it did come with a little mount on the back so i just unscrewed that and i took the mount off and for the longest time i actually used my ipad now i want to say a few things about the ipad so one is that i would have this connected by a cable so just a lightning to a usbc in my case so i had my ipad connected that way i cannot use sidecar which is for apple users sidecar is attaching your tablet to your desktop or laptop and it extends the monitor but my ipad mini is too old by one generation so it's not compatible with sidecar so when i was using this if i wanted to use more of a confidence monitor where i can just see the output i can see exactly what i'm seeing which actually i should turn back on because i do want to see that this was something that i actually needed a software to do that so the first piece of software that i used was something called duet display and it is for mac only and duet display allowed me to either extend the monitor so acting like a third monitor or it would mirror the monitor there were pros and cons to each of them but duet display did not actually flip the image because of the glass of the teleprompter you need to actually invert or flip or mirror the image so that you see it the right way otherwise everything's flipped now if you're just looking at output if you are maybe having a zoom call and you're just talking to someone it doesn't actually matter if they are backwards but if you are let's say reading a title or slides it is important to flip them so then i switched and i downloaded another software onto my tablet which was called air display because that did have an option to flip it and then i was able to actually see everything the right way so that did make a difference however i did not actually find myself using them very often because running a software on your computer that extends the display is a little bit of a drain so it was taking up some of that computer processing power and it was making the fan kick on and run because i had a lot of things going on at once i would have a zoom call open i would have maybe ecam open and it was just all a lot it was really a lot going on so oh i'm seeing did the audio drop off can you give me a heads up if you can still hear me did something accidentally mute let me know in the comments oh oh it's back but maybe it dropped off okay well hopefully we are good to go and i want to say hi to sunny um thanks for joining all right so what i ended up doing often when it came to the ipad is that i would not necessarily run that if i had a few things going on which was disappointing because i really did want to be able to see exactly what everyone else was seeing right in front of me now i also want to share with you the uh the software that i used on my ipad when i was reading scripts because if you are thinking about a teleprompter there's a very good chance that you are thinking about wanting to read the words or maybe see your notes directly in front of you in the camera and with scripts you also want to make sure that you are flipping that because you want to be able to read it and so not every teleprompter software actually does that for you so the one i ended up choosing was something that's called prompt smart pro and i can actually show you on i can share my screen so let me just get this broadcasting so on this ipad which i will connect in one moment okay let's open prompt smart pro so prompt smart pro here we go this is my ipad and in in case anyone's curious i'm connecting this through ndi but i can answer that question later if you want to know more so this is prompt smart pro and the pro allows you to mirror the screen and it also has voice so that when you're reading something it will actually follow you for example i did script out my channel introduction for youtube because i wanted to make sure that i wasn't going on and on and on and actually it ended up being even shorter than this but if you press play when i press play you will now go into teleprompter mode and in teleprompter mode it would actually flip it's not flipped right now because i'm not set up for that but if i actually press play on this you will see if i start to read it it will automatically scroll on its own so let's try that oh yes do you have an important message to convey to an online audience maybe you teach run webinars or lead workshops and i'm guessing it's important for you to create high quality and engaging presentations that to that allow you to not only teach effectively but also keep your audience's attention so it's scrolling on its own and i actually stop and i'm no longer saying the script and it's not going anywhere so this is an automatic software and if i were to start up again then you would actually go back to that and if you are interested in using prompt smart pro it is really easy to add a script you can either import a script on its own just one and it connects to your google drive dropbox box onedrive or icloud and the or you can do a bulk import let's say you're teaching a bunch of you're recording a bunch of lessons and you have that all out you can do that or you can just hit new script and type your own so really it is a great tool if you are looking to do that now one caveat to prompt smart pro and it is a paid app is that if you are saying the same line let's say a couple of times maybe you're repeating a point that you really want to drive home or you're teaching a lesson it can hear that phrase and jump to the next one so there are occasions where i have had to learn the hard way when i'm recording say a lesson or recorded video where i wanted to make sure that i had i just picked a scrolling speed instead and i'd love to hear from you has anyone used a teleprompter software i know there are teleprompter softwares or software options that you can just read from your phone near a camera etc obviously the optimal version is being able to look directly at the camera all right so now i want to make sure that i talk about why i love this setup and i think a lot of people will automatically default to this idea that a teleprompter is meant for reading scripts and that is not really that is the smallest that i use this for or the the least common use for me so the reason i love it is if i am running a workshop with a group of people i can either see exactly what they are seeing so i know if i am on a certain slide or if i'm sharing a specific key point on the screen but also i love to see the people in the workshop so if i am running a zoom workshop let's say with a handful of people i can actually put the zoom call on this monitor and this teleprompter so i can be looking at the camera but also seeing the people who are in the meeting i can see if someone raises their hand i don't have to be constantly glancing down to see if anyone's asking a question or the chat or whatnot so that's the main reason is workshops and zoom calls but also if i'm recording a video so i will often record a tutorial i also have a second youtube channel about my gray hair and so i record videos for that so it's really nice to be able to see graphics and what is going on when i am doing that because i record most of my videos using ecamm software which is the production that's how i put up things like this and so i actually put all of those together first and then i record the video that way so i don't really do a lot of editing after the fact i actually set it up this way all right so this is the main thing that i love and also live streams right now i am doing a live stream and i can see exactly what you see directly in front of me so that i don't have to look down as much i do obviously want to look down at the comments and i want to be able to maybe glance and see if there's a note in particular that i know i want to talk about next but really it keeps me organized now when it comes to the monitor versus the ipad because i know a lot of you might not have it in the budget maybe you can afford a teleprompter but you want to use a tablet or your phone that is great but the reason that i would prefer if i could start if i could get this monitor a long time ago i would be much happier but we just do this when we can so this is something i have added on more recently and it does have that option now this monitor has a mirrored screen and if you are in the market to say get an external monitor then i would make sure that it is able to flip or mirror the image because not all monitors can and you do not want to be looking at a backwards version of the screen and so the one that i've linked to really really happy with this company especially as you saw i got one it was broken and they replaced it right away and were excellent customer service so it's beetronix they're based in the states and they have one also in europe the other thing is less drain so it doesn't run the fan because it's just hooked up like a monitor it's not running software or program in the background and sometimes it's nice to be able to use the ipad like right now i just did a demonstration using my ipad some people like to use their ipad as a teaching tool or a whiteboard and so you'd be able to do that instead of using it as your confidence monitor so that's another another thing you'd want and i see sunny says you can also use your ipad or iphone to control prompt smart pro yes that's a great point thank you for pointing that out sunny you can use a remote control that links up with the prompt smart pro the other thing i've done is actually used a track pad so the apple magic trackpad i use a mouse with my desktop but my computer came with the trackpad and so i have actually linked that up directly with my ipad and so i can actually i've got my right hand with my mouse and my stream deck and then my left hand could just slowly control the scroll so i could manually scroll whether that's notes that i'm looking at or if i wanted to control the prompt smart pro so that it didn't skip ahead but thank you for including that sunny that's great okay so what are some considerations so i've already mentioned a few things but a few things i really want to highlight so one of that is there is a cost this is an investment into your home setup and i think it's a worthwhile investment if you are someone who is often speaking to groups if you are running presentations whether that's to sell something or to teach people whatever that is it is a really great way to be organized and make contact with the people you're speaking with the other thing you need to consider is are you going to use your own device like an ipad or a tablet or a phone or would you rather use a monitor and you want to think about that when you make the purchase so if you are buying a teleprompter is it going to grow with you um i that's my only caution so if you decide i want to go cheap and get one that just works with the phone well what if you do want to use a tablet or you do want to get a monitor and then the other thing is what are the inputs so when it comes to inputs um how are when i say that i mean with your computer so you you always have to think okay if i'm adding another thing how is that going to connect do i have enough do i need a port do i need a hub am i going to have to extend this because every time you add a cable it needs to go somewhere and they need to talk to each other so it's good to think about that in advance do i actually am i able to connect all of these and there are other expenses as well so some of the associated costs one is you need to hold it up so you have to invest or use a tripod if you maybe you already have one for your camera that's great but if you don't have a tripod you have to consider that as well it needs to go on something and you might need cables and adapters to connect them so in my case i am using hdmi and then i have to have an adapter i i'm using adapter to usbc because my hdmi port is already being used by my monitor and then you also if you are going to be wanting to read a script you might want to buy prompt smart pro which is a it's not a big investment but it is an investment and if you are looking to mirror an ipad display let's say most of the apps that do it well cost money not a lot of money but these things add up so it's not just the cost of the teleprompter itself okay i promised that i would tell you the story about my oh one more thing before i tell you my fail i really do want to drive home the point that if you are intending to use a teleprompter so that you can read scripts whether you are recording videos or maybe recording lessons for a course or if you are talking and you want to have your notes up there actually presenting and reading is not as easy as people think if you are focused on reading the words on the screen it's often the energy might drain out of you and that is something that you really need to practice often we don't sound natural maybe we actually write the script and we're more robotic or it's not how we would talk you're going to struggle so some of the things i would recommend with scripts is to write it as if you were speaking it sometimes i just practice saying what i would want to say and then typing that up you always want to practice it read through multiple times so that you get really comfortable with it and you don't get tripped up and when you are practicing you'll usually notice oh that's not how i would actually say that in conversation and you can make those changes before you actually record and then the other thing you want is to make sure you're keeping your energy up because the camera robs a bit of your energy so if you are just reading from a screen when you watch that back you'll think why do i sound so flat and boring so reading scripts is definitely a skill okay but let me tell you about my diy fail so the diy fail was me looking into a teleprompter knowing that i would likely want to be recording lessons that's the big thing for me as i thought i want to be able to teach people i'm going to record some lessons and i'd really like them to be succinct and well thought out and make sure i've got all my thoughts in there and i'm not just going off the cuff so i started watching youtube and i noticed oh you can just make a teleprompter you don't have to spend all this money on a teleprompter you can make one for 40 bucks so i watched a bunch of videos and i found one that i thought would work well for me so this is my the picture i took i was very excited i gathered all my things so i actually bought a i went to michael's and i bought a frame this is two kind of eight by ten side by side and they're already hinged which is what the video pointed out which i thought was brilliant i also bought some black foam core so that i could kind of create like a little dark tent around it and i had my tripod i in this case i was holding up my phone i was using my ipad as the little tablet the screen that i would mirror um and then i also had some black felt fabric that was in my house so i gathered all this together i was very excited this is on on my kitchen counter which is a new kitchen new ish and we got a renovation not that long ago so i was building it all in there that part comes into play later this is what it actually looked like so sitting on my kitchen counter i have a little laptop stand that you can just kind of sit down and put it around you so i had this laptop stand so that's what the little teleprompter is sitting on this teleprompter is being held open with a pencil so the blue thing if you look right into the far side you'll just see a blue stick that's a pencil i literally just propped it up with that pencil and the bottom i took the glass out of the bottom so i could just rest my ipad on there and i had the prompt smart pro that's what you're seeing in this picture and then i had the glass on the back and then i had my ipad was or so my phone was on a little tripod tucked behind and then um that had the felt over it so it's all set up actually very similar to what you see here but what you it's hard to tell in this photo but the glass it's not meant the glass for photos is not meant for a teleprompter because regular glass kind of has a double effect so it doubles everything so it's really blurry and it's actually quite difficult to read the words on the screen if you're just looking through normal glass so i didn't know that and nobody really mentioned that which i thought was very misleading for all of these diy teleprompter videos on youtube no one mentioned that you're going to have to squint or have extra big writing but the actual fail is not so much there is the blurry definitely not good and i and once i look into the actual glass by that point i might as well just buy a teleprompter that has the appropriate glass that you can clearly see through but the fail was that when i opened it up the glass fell backwards it cracked and then it shipped my quartz counter and so i have a lasting memory of my diy fail i think within 24 hours i was ordering my catty buddy teleprompter and having it sent to my friend's house so i would strongly caution against doing the diy primarily because the readability you want to be able to see what you're looking at now if you are simply wanting to have the confidence monitor meaning you just see the video that other people are seeing or maybe a zoom call where you don't have to make out all the details of the people on the call then yeah maybe a diy teleprompter actually could work for you as a stopgap i would make sure you secure that glass so that you don't chip or break anything and really though if you are in the business of presenting and speaking or running workshops then i highly recommend just go with an actual teleprompter it's got the right glass and it's all set up for you all right i hope that you found this helpful i really do feel like this is a worthwhile investment into your setup if you are speaking it allows you to make that eye contact which really does help you connect with your audience and it's not an easy skill to look at a camera that's far away from your computer but it can be done and so until the time comes where maybe you're ready to make that investment i encourage you to practice looking directly into the camera no matter what whether you can see anything or not but if you have any questions please let me know leave them in the comments i'd be happy to answer them and i hope this has given you some information and maybe a little bit of extra info and considerations when it comes to buying a teleprompter so that you can run more professional and engaging online presentations you

Channel: Cat Mulvihill

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Id: Rhe0A4qKgys

Length: 32min 29sec (1949 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 03 2021