Roll On

Regardless of whether the shoot is held in a studio, in an office or on the street, the same number 1 rule applies . . . safety comes first.

Look out for cables on the floor, light stands, heavy rigging and awkwardly placed props. There’s a good reason for the bright lights. They are very hot so best to leave well alone!

Upon your arrival, the Director will fill you in with all the details on how the set is actually set up and make all the crew introductions.

If you’re using a teleprompter or auto cue, you should have at least a four member team . . . the sound operator, the camera operator, the auto cue operator, and of course, the director. You probably won’t have any role in any of the technical matters and most of the tricky stuff will be for before you arrive and after the shoot is completed.

Your first stop will be makeup and wardrobe, but if you do have any last minute changes to the script, get these to the teleprompter operator these as soon as possible.

The main function of the teleprompter is to take a screen of text from a computer and project a smooth scrolling page of text onto a screen. Editing functions are limited, so give the operator plenty of time to make any necessary changes. For single, this is quite simple to do. If new pages need to be included though, it takes time to either type these out or copy from a file.

When the script is finalized in the teleprompter, it’s your time to act. A glass of water and when the Director says “3-2-1″… it’s action time.

When you are ready to bring your presentations in-house, use professional teleprompter software . . . it will make a huge difference to the success of your production.