Let’s be clear – using Autocue with glass panels or monitors doesn’t do away with need for rehearsal and preparation. Teleprompt is like having notes on cards -you just glance occasionally to keep on track. So to be a good presenter, and use it effectively here’s what to do.

Read the script several times out loud – if you’ve written it yourself you’ve got a head start, but reading it aloud shows up the weaknesses, tangled sentences, and frankly even the bits where you bore yourself!

Divide it into sections making sure you know what the point is of each section.

Decide what your attitude is in each paragraph – for example, are you being positive and enthusiastic, critical and full of foreboding, or fairly neutral with non contentious material. You may well find other attitudes depending on the nature of your speech.

This will give variety in the way you present, and break it up in your mind (this incidentally makes it more interesting to present too). Your job is to lead the audience through those breaks, but your changes of pace, body language, tone of voice, facial expression etc. will give a lot of clues.

To make it look good on Teleprompt load the text in (download the free software below  for rehearsal).  With a fairly large font stand back from the screen(s) and see how much of the text you can deliver looking to one side or the other of the screen(s). Just come back to the screen(s) when you need to.

Try to read ahead so you get a good look away from the screen(s)

At first it’s quite hard, but the more familiar you become with it, the easier it gets. Stock phrases or information you know, will be easier to deliver without looking at the screen.

Think of the screen(s) purely as reference notes. If you find you’ve slightly departed from the printed text, see if you can seamlessly get yourself back on track without panicking or stumbling over the words.

If you get a chance to rehearse with full Autocue and two screens, concentrate on talking to the whole auditorium, again just glancing at the panels for reference. This way you will have much more contact when there is an audience there. The same applies if you can freely move about the stage, and monitors are rigged at the side and rear of the auditorium. Many people will not realise you are using any from of prompt at all. Your presentation will be more interesting, have more impact, and make all that rehearsal worthwhile.

See also Using Teleprompter/Autocue to camera
Practice using Teleprompter/Autocue free
10 top tips for using Teleprompter/Autocue at a conference or other live event

Continuing this series of tips about using Autocue or Teleprompter what about a conference, or similar event where there is  an audience?

The difference here is that instead of looking straight in to the camera lens, the script is reflected from floor monitors up on to glass screens placed in front of the speaker.  You will be familiar with those screens (once believed to be bullet proof protection!), and used very skillfully by Tony Blair and Barack Obama.   If you want to get an idea what your speech looks like on a teleprompter screen see Using Teleprompter/Autocue free

The screens are placed either side of the speaker at about a 45 degree angle The reflected script is visible to the speaker, but of course invisible to the audience who are on the other side of the screens.

• The key thing to remember with these screens is to check if they are in the right place for you to see them, but also a good portion of the audience is behind them

• If they are placed so that your eye line is above the audience, this gives the impression you are aloof, and can’t bear to look at your audience

• Alternatively if they are too low you may be speaking to the front rows but ignoring the back.

• If they are too wide apart it could give the appearance you are talking to the walls!

• Ideally they should be placed so that a good proportion of the audience to your left and right are behind the screen. Then when you look at the glass and read the script the impression is given that you are speaking directly to that portion of the audience.

• The exact position of the screens depends on the size of the audience, shape of the auditorium, rake seating, or a stage for the speaker

• Switch betweeen the two screens about every 5 to 10 seconds.

• Remember that you will have a favourite side probably linked to your dominant eye, so try to even things up.

• Have a hard copy of the script nearby in case of problems. I’ve had blank screens, jumbled up words, a virus in the software, and a power failure. Often for big occasions there’s a parallel system running as a back up, but you may not have that, so a good old paper script or bullet points comes in really handy.

• Finally delivering a speech or presentation using Autocue isn’t an excuse to avoid preparation. It’s human nature to think all you have to do is read it, and the audience will get the message. But we’ve all watched dire presentations where someone has gone through the motions, read from the two glass panels and bored everyone. To be successful you need to be so convincing the audience forget the panels are there, and you appear to be talking “off the cuff”

Of course, this presumes you are speaking from a fixed point, such as a lectern. The alternative is to place the monitors on stands at the side of the audience, and perhaps a large one behind the back row. The same principles apply – just watch out though. If you stare at the monitors too intently members of your audience will turn round to see what you are looking at. See How to Rehearse with Teleprompt/Autocue for a Conference

But if you go to www.cueprompter.com you can get something approaching the real thing – for FREE!!

If you have a script you want to practice, copy and paste it into the white box on the page.
Underneath choose BIG for screen size option, BIG for font size, and WHITE text on black background.

Then click START PROMPTER

The screen changes to the look of a teleprompter with a control bar along the top. If you click the FORWARD control the text scrolls upwards. There are different speed settings. I found 3 to be the most realistic.

Step back from the screen about 2 or 3 metres and start reading – this is where the large font comes in. If it’s going too fast or slow adjust the speed.

This is a really good way of practicing using a prompt without the pressure of doing it in public. You can get a feel for the way the words come up, how you need to space the text, where to put emphasis or marks into help, and the importance of decent punctuation

But there are two caveats. On a real teleprompter/autocue, the operator adjusts the speed to your delivery, which means you don’t have to stick to the same tempo. This is a major way of introducing variety and emphasis into a presentation.

Also most professional set ups have a little cursor on the left of the screen to guide your eye to the line you are reading on ( particularly handy if you look away from the autocue then back if you are conducting an interview).

But apart from those points it’s a good alternative, and a great way to find out how it feels, and what your strengths and weaknesses are. If you’ve got a camcorder why not video yourself to keep improving.

STOP PRESS I have discovered an even better prompter, which is a free download for a basic version. It has many good features and once installed doesn’t need internet access. Follow the link below

Many of us have never lived through a period of sustained deflation, such as the 1930′s. Its effects on spending can be crippling – why buy today if it will be cheaper next week? So consumer spending, and even capital investment projects are delayed adding to the downward spiral.

Remember taking on those large mortgages, on the grounds that in a few years inflation will have eaten into the real value of the debt? Well, in a deflationary economy the real value of debt rises!

So are policy makers now in a better position to avoid the mistakes of the 1930′s?

Roger’s views are always worth listening to. In the last podcast he suggested interest rates should fall dramatically, even to 0%. This was well before the large cuts took place.

David Riley

Files can be stored as wav or mp3 ( if you also download the LAME mp3 encoder as well).

It’s quick to get to grips with, easy to use, and stable.

Audacity has a reasonable help file, but a much more useful way of learning tips and tricks with on screen demonstrations is at guidesandtutorials.com I’ve found this very helpful.

It’s clear, informative, and not over complicated.  It also explains about the LAME mp3 encoder and how to add it.

David Riley Voice over, presenter, actor

• The picture has already been edited and the guide voice over has been recorded usually by the director/producer.

• The guide track is then played back through the voice over’s headphones, so the trick here is to set the level in your cans low enough to not overpower your own voice.  This gives an idea of the speed of the narration and where any pauses occur.  This isn’t like lip sync where you have to fit exactly.

Listen to this example of what it sounds like, working with a guide track
Guide track demo

• As the guide starts you start to speak a word or two behind. It can sometimes be a relief to hear the guide so don’t jump in or try to catch up. This makes you suddenly sound tense or rushed. Just keep pace more or less with the track and don’t be tempted to try and beat it to the end. The editor can always slide your whole track back a second or two to make it fit.

• Watch out for any pauses. On the script it may look like a continuous paragraph, but there may be pauses to allow the action to continue, or bring up the next stage in a process. Ideally a script will show these but pressure of time means they are very rarely marked.

• Watch out for changes to your script from the guide. This often happens when a preview using the guide track has been watched, and somebody has rewritten the script. All you can do in these circumstances is listen out and hope you link up with the guide again. It’s not your fault. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, but it can always be recorded again.

• Probably the biggest challenge to anyone not familiar with it is trying to deliver the script with inflexion, contrast, and clarity, with a voice in your ear a fraction in front of you.  As you can hear from the example, it sounds very confusing and just a jumble of sound until you get used to it.   Not conducive to giving your best performance.

• The advantage?   It can be a time saver for the studio and director. The voice track will fit their film without needing to do too much more editing. This saves both time and studio editing costs.

• The disadvantage is that unless the voice artist is used to this method they can sound strained or distracted trying to work with the guide track.

There are several other ways of recording a voice over. A visual cue such as a red light, or time code on the screen corresponding to time code on the script are commonly used. Or the voice over can be recorded “wild” - in other words, without any reference to the picture then slotted in to place as appropriate. If necessary the video is re-edited to fit the words.

Is it dying out – or  becoming less popular?  Let me know what your experience is.

Except the whole thing was fake. The studio anchor had recorded her piece to camera several hours before. There was no link up, and my “report” was tightly scripted and on Autocue.

The news item was being made for a construction consortium to include in their pitch for a stake in the building project.

I filmed one piece to camera showing the positive headlines resulting from their involvement. The second report was a bad news item, reporting on overruns, delays, cost escalation and poor management – to highlight the sort of unflattering reports which would flow if less experienced competitors were used.

It’s a graphic way for one consortium to differentiate itself from the others. Was it successful? Well I’ve worked on similar projects where it’s done the trick. As for this one we won’t find out until later in the new year.

David Riley

The live event from the Mermaid Theatre, London was a great credit to the staff at the Brit School and the students themselves. Hard to believe they are still only 17 or 18 year olds, sounding much more like final year drama school students, or young professionals.

The Brit School is the only free performing arts and technology school in the country. My son Joe (16), is a student there, in the year below, so he hopes to be perform next year if the concert is repeated.

The Beatles? Well, Joe was lucky enough to be asked to photograph rehearsals, at the famous Abbey Road Studios. The sound of the BBC Concert Orchestra and the sixty strong chorus of students made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up!

Congratulations to everyone involved for a memorable evening.<a

Whilst there are plenty of commercially available audio editors around, they cost money and are often quite complicated to learn.

But a programme called Audacity offers many of the same features and is pretty simple to use. It’s free, open source software and works with Mac OS X, Windows and Linux. Here are some of it’s features mentioned on the Audacity website.

* Record live audio.
* Convert tapes and records into digital recordings or CDs.
* Edit Ogg Vorbis, MP3, WAV or AIFF sound files.
* Cut, copy, splice or mix sounds together.
* Change the speed or pitch of a recording.

It really is simple to record, edit, apply effects, and then save in a variety of formats including mp3.

I use it a lot, particularly for recording mp3. It’s stable and doesn’t take up much processing power. The Audacity website has screenshots too, so you can see what it looks like.

Give it a whirl!

To find out more about David Riley click here

But more and more companies are requesting audio files are sent by e mail.  In effect the voice over artist is becoming producer, audio engineer, and the talent!  The audio is recorded probably as a wav file, most commonly using a computer, compressed into mp3 format and forwarded as an attachment.

The benefit for clients is that it saves on studio costs, and is often quicker – many voice artists offer same day service.

The downside is that not everybody has fantastic equipment, or the engineering skills to make a good recording.  Mistakes in reading and editing can creep in because there is no external producer’s ear to guide and check.

Sadly some clients are not even bothered about quality – they just want a recording as cheaply as possible, expecting it to be used on the web and heard through low quality speakers.