- Hey, it's Justin Brown here from Primal Video.
Teleprompters are a great tool to help you
create more content faster.
They help you structure your content,
so that all your planning and thinking
is actually done before you're in front of the camera.
But if they're not used well,
then they can have a negative effect.
First off, you'll lose authenticity from your video,
because it's gonna be obvious you're just
reading from a script.
But also, you'll lose that important
connection with you're viewers.
So in this video, we're gonna cover some
tips on using teleprompters, so that it doesn't
look like you are.
(techno music)
So there's two main ways that people are gonna know
that you're using a teleprompter.
If your eyes are wandering around,
and they're not making direct connection with your audience,
or if it sounds like you're reading.
So let's tackle the first one first.
Now it's gonna be pretty obvious if you're reading,
as we said, if your eyes are moving around.
But more so, if they're moving off camera.
So if you're actually reading,
and your eyes are going either side of the camera lens,
then you're really breaking that
connection with your audience,
and it's gonna be really obvious,
because you're not looking at them.
If you're having a conversation with someone,
normally you're gonna make eye contact,
and you need to keep eye contact
throughout your videos as well,
because you are actually talking directly to your audience.
So, this is normally caused by text from your iPad, maybe,
that's being projected to either side of your camera lens.
So it's wider than your camera lens.
And when you're reading that text on either side,
then your eyes are wandering beyond that point.
So the quick fix here, is to try and use a narrower device.
Something that's as close to the width
of the camera lens that you're using.
So it could be a smaller tablet, or it could be your phone.
If you don't have access to a smaller device,
then some teleprompter apps will let you
adjust the width of the display area, for your text,
so you can shrink it down so that it's gonna
be a lot closer to the camera lens that you're using.
So if you then make sure that the text that you're
reading off your teleprompter doesn't go
outside the area that your camera lens is picking up,
then it's gonna look like you've got eye contact
with your viewers the whole time.
Another option you have, is to increase the distance
between yourself, or whoever's presenting,
and the teleprompter, which is gonna
make it far less noticeable, if your eyes do
wander outside of the camera lens area.
And this is actually how they do it in a newsroom.
There's quite a lot of distance between
the people presenting, and the teleprompter itself.
So now, on to the second tell-tale sign, the delivery.
If it sounds like you're reading,
then you most likely are.
You need to be confident, you need to be conversational,
you need to be engaged with your viewers.
And a lot of people lose that the moment
they start reading from a teleprompter.
So, in order to get over that, the words
that you're reading, need to be your own.
The moment that you're reading something that
someone else has prepared for you,
and there's words in there that you wouldn't normally say,
then you're gonna get tripped up on them,
and it's gonna be pretty obvious then, that you're reading.
So it's really important that if you haven't
written the script yourself, that you at least
read it three or four times before you present,
so at least your brain knows what's coming,
and that you're prepared for any words that
are in there that you may not normally use.
More ideal than that, is that you re-write
the sections that you wouldn't normally say,
to words that you would use in everyday conversation.
If you're reading from a script that's
all in your own words, it's gonna be much
easier for you to present.
There's gonna be no surprises,
no words that you don't know how to pronounce,
that are gonna trip you up,
and it'll allow you to be a lot more relaxed,
and really be animated for your viewers,
so they get that deep level of personality
and connection coming through in your videos.
Now if you're struggling with the speed
that your teleprompter is scrolling at,
and it's stressing you out 'cause it's
just moving too quick, you're trying to keep up,
so you're not getting any emotion,
or any connection through to your viewers,
then I would suggest that you
stop the scrolling all together.
Just work through, paragraph by paragraph,
take it slowly, and just scroll as you need to, manually.
Once you get comfortable presenting that way,
then you can start to turn things
like the auto scroll back on,
and then speed it up as you need to.
And one more thing you can do,
is instead of writing your script out
word for word, and reading it out word for word,
is to just use dot points.
So just put key points for the topics,
or things that you need to cover in your video,
and talk to those.
So that way, there's no chance of it sounding
like you're reading, because you're not gonna be reading,
you're just being prompted for the topics,
or sections that you need to talk about.
If you're looking to improve the quality
and the speed of your videos,
then make sure you grab our free guide,
Covering the Ultimate Video Editing Process.
There's a ton of tips in there to help
you create better quality videos, faster.
And it's absolutely free.
I'll put a link on screen now,
and in the description below.
I'll see you next time.