When my new husband told me that he was going to be teleprompting, I had no idea what he meant. He said that it was like cue cards, but on a computer screen, and that it was used a lot not only by the media but also by corporations for presentations and videotaping commercials. Okay, that sounds cool, but how does it work?
After the speech is written, it is put into a computer so that it can be shown to the speaker without anyone in the audience knowing about it. I thought back to times when I had to give a speech and had to memorise everything I wanted to say and the order in which I wanted to say it. It usually meant that I had to practise a lot the night before the presentation or bring a stack of 3x5 index cards with me. Teleprompting has made this process easier for the person giving the speech. They no longer have to learn a speech by heart. Instead, they just have to be able to read it from a screen. Think of all the hours of practise and how much stress this takes off the speaker.
I was curious about how this happened. In the 1950s, Fred Barton Jr., Hubert J. Schlafly, and Irving Kahn made the first teleprompters. At the time, Fred Barton was an actor. He thought of the teleprompter as a way to help performers who had to learn too many lines in a short amount of time. The script was written on a long roll of paper that moved forward as the performer read.
In 1982, the first computer-based teleprompting system was made. It ran on an ATARI 800 personal computer with very specialised teleprompting software to work with the modified camera hardware. The teleprompter of today still runs on a personal computer and is linked to one or more cameras' video monitors. This monitor is right in front of the camera, which makes it look like the speaker is talking directly to the camera rather than reading from a script. Depending on the type of presentation, the displays used are very different from one another. The presidential glass is one that I'm sure you've seen used and didn't even notice. It is mostly transparent so that it will not block the view of the speaker by the audience or cameras. Teleprompter hardware has been used on stage by singers like Frank Sinatra, Bruce Springsteen, and Elton John.
Okay, enough about teleprompting's past and its hardware. I'm now learning that this is also a "art." Let me explain. The main idea is to have a script on the screen and have the speaker read from it. If you say this too often, it will sound like you are reading. Usually, this is not the message they want to send. A "seasoned" teleprompting operator knows how to get in touch with the speaker and tailor the speech to their way of speaking. During rehearsal, the person in charge of the teleprompter is paying close attention to the speaker's tone of voice to make sure they are comfortable with the flow. Sometimes, this means changing one or two words or rephrasing a sentence to make it sound more natural. A professional teleprompting operator knows how to get these results and knows that there's more to prompting than typing in a script and turning a knob. Finding a good teleprompter operator can save the day for the speaker.
