So you’re recording
If you don’t know what a teleprompter is, it’s a device that will show you a script while you are speaking and while public figures but also used by pretty much all news anchors so they can look directly at the camera without looking at his or her notes. But heck if you’re after definitions I would suggest that you visit
When recording videos it will allow you to look like a pro while looking directly at the camera and engaging with your audience. And also, it’s a gadget that you can pimp up your
Damn they’re expensive
Well one excuse could be that Teleprompters are frigging expensive easily costing thousands of dollars for just the entry products.
Now I’m for a cool gadget just as much as most other guys, but in a budget video studio I really can’t justify that the most expensive item is a teleprompter that I only use every now and then.
You could of course just go
So I thought I would share my teleprompter budget solution with you and show you how I use the teleprompter in my video studio.
So are you using a teleprompter on all your videos?
The last year or so I’ve been recording a lot direct to camera mainly for my
But the short answer to if I use it on all my videos is: No, not by a long shot. Since I’m the “just do it” type, I prefer to simply get a few talking points, turn on the lights and the video camera and then talk about these points for 10-20 minutes.
My problem is that while the video would probably improve if I stuck to a script, it would also take forever to record even the simple videos as every word had to be written in a script. And I’m probably a bit too lazy for that.
So instead I’ve mainly been using the teleprompter to do sales pages and opt in pages. When that is said I didn’t bring the teleprompter with me to Thailand (we’re traveling with two small kids so we had the suitcases stuffed with diapers
But if you want to see the first video I did with the teleprompter you can head over to
So the short answer is that I try to use the teleprompter when it comes to me having to sell something because here the message needs to be super clear, but doesn’t use a teleprompter when I’m recording content videos for products.
Not thereby saying that my content videos are crap, I often just need a few more words to get to the point:).
Cheap Teleprompter Setup
So how do you get yourself a nice teleprompter without you having to bust your bank account…?
Well I have good and bad news for you.
The good news is that you can get a super professional solution for less than $150, but the bad is that you need an iPad which will set you back probably the same as an entry level teleprompter.
So I’m sorry but this will only work with that nice iPad you bought for your kids for Christmas…
The setup consists of:
- Teleprompter that has a cradle for the iPad
- iPad teleprompter software
I assume that you already got a tripod for your video camera; I needed to go out and find a new one because I couldn’t replace the screw in the bottom of the top plate (required by the teleprompter mount).
So I ended up ordering this baby right here:
Mine is actually an older version that has a different mount (and I also think it was a 10-20 bucks cheaper at the time, can’t remember).
For the software part there are a ton of iPad teleprompter applications, but the one I ended up buying and that I see most people recommend is:
There are a few things that annoys me about the app, but in all it does the job.
Nice…
So there you have the setup I thought I would just end this off by showing you a few pictures of how it looks in my studio.
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) is running for the gate.
While there was some speakers on different topics such as how you build a business to sell and growing a language blog to the number one in the industry, it was really a social event where everybody was pretty much talking with everybody over a German beer, or in my case, a couple (ok probably more than a couple) of white Russians.
