Transcripts
1. Why you need this masterclass: You've ever stood in front
of a camera and fumbled your lines or felt like
a deer in the headlights or even spent hours
just doing take after take just to
get one usable clip. Well, learning how to use a teleprompter is the game changer that you've
been looking for. It'll completely transform
how confident you feel on camera and
dramatically speed up your entire video
creation process from filming right
through to your editing. In this training, I'm going
to take you through the exact teleprompter workflow
that I've developed over years of trial
and error so that you can film polished
professional videos faster. Now, we're going to
cover everything from our pro setup process and the natural delivery
method through to script preparation and
gear recommendations. And my favorite part,
the chunking workflow that will take all the
pressure off your recording. Now, if we haven't met before, I'm Justin Brown, and along
with my brother Mike, we've built our primal
video YouTube channel to 1.9 million subscribers. And after years in
professional video production and running our YouTube channel, we've distilled all the important stuff that
you need to know. Be presenting like a Pro with a teleprompter in
this master class. So if you're ready to
stop dreading being on camera and start
delivering confident, natural takes that look professional and save you
hours in your editing, then I'll see you
in the next video.
2. Why Teleprompters Change Everything: Passive welcome
to this training. I'm going to take you
through everything you need to know to master your teleprompter and to level up your on camera delivery. So if you've ever stumbled
on lines or you've struggled to keep eye
contact with the camera, then this is for you. But I'm going to start off
by sharing a quick story with you because when I
started my video journey, way back years ago now, I was a behind the
camera person. And I'm someone who hated having my photo taken, let alone speaking in front of a lot of people or speaking
to a camera. The thing just felt
so foreign to me, and it was one of
the biggest fears that I had looking bad, sounding bad, not making sense. So I was fumbling
through scripts. And in our early videos, I was just looking like
a deer in headlights. I had no energy. At the time, I thought I was doing
what I needed to do, but those videos
were absolutely. They're still there
on our channel, if you want to go for a laugh, but then I discovered
teleprompters, and it really changed
everything in how I was creating videos and approaching creating videos from then on in. It made it so much easier for me to articulate things better, to be better on camera, to maintain eye contact with the viewers and overall
to sound more polished. But it also allowed me to
speed up the filming piece, which by having less
footage, obviously, we're saving time, it also meant that there was
less footage to edit. So it not only sped
up the filming piece, it sped up the editing piece, allowing us to get
to the end goal, creating a great video much faster. So that is why I am a massive fan of teleprompters. At first, I was a
little hesitant to using one because
I thought it kind of felt like cheating or there's a lot of myths
and things out there as to what's good and
bad about these and why you should or why
you shouldn't use them. Obviously, the risk of coming
across and sounding robotic or looking like
you're reading from a script is not what
we want at all. So in this training, I'm going to take
you through step by step how to use one like a pro. And I want this to be
really actionable for you. So in here is everything
you need to go and put this into practice for you. And this is the stuff that
I wish I knew when I first started out using a
teleprompter, fumbling trying to figure everything out, trying to make it look real. I've got this all packaged down and did this training
for you today.
3. What is a Teleprompter: So first up, I just want to
cover off really quickly what a teleprompter actually is.
And it's really simple. Essentially, it's
a tool that puts your script or your text right up in front of
your camera lens. So in its most basic form, it's a mirror or
a piece of glass that the camera shoots and
records straight through. But you're able to see that
text or whatever it is you want to look at right there
in front of the camera lens. So you're making eye contact
with the camera lens, but you're also able
to have whatever key information that you need to make the video or to maintain eye
contact, as well. All of that is happening
just instantaneous. With the end result
being that your viewers feel like you're making
eye contact with them, which is really important. If I was reading a script
off to the side here now, it just looks weird. I'm not talking
directly to you guys. Or if I'm looking
at notes down here, it's not the same as me
making eye contact up here. So, yeah, a teleprompter is an amazing tool to help you
level up your video creation. But they do come in all
different shapes and sizes, different price tags
attached, as well. Some of them are
standalone units, meaning that they've got
the built in screen. They've got everything that
you need out of the box. Other setups, you'll be
using your phones or using a tablet having whatever is on those screens reflected up
in front of the camera. But no matter which one
you use, the goal is exactly the same
to help you speak naturally without needing to glance at notes or
wondering what to say next. And when you've got one set
up, you're also not just limited to video
recording either. You could use these for
Zoom calls for live streams anywhere where you
want that direct eye contact with your viewers. This is an amazing
tool for that. No, I want to quickly
cover off as well on some of the
biggest myths about teleprompters or the fear points for people with
using teleprompters. One of the biggest ones is I might sound like a robot
if I'm doing this wrong, or the people are worried that they might lose their vibe. I used to think that a
teleprompter was more of a crutch. It would be cheating, and my videos wouldn't be authentic. But in reality,
here's the kicker. A teleprompter
doesn't control you. If you sound robotic, it's likely because your script isn't chatty or you haven't
practiced it enough, which I'll help you
with a little later. Big fear is that they
are hard to use, that you're going
to need to have an IT degree or something to be able to
figure this stuff out. In reality, as with a lot
of things these days, we're at the point now
where this stuff is so easy to set up
to get up to speed. I'm going to take you
through the setup to again, make sure that you're
doing everything right to save yourself any
hassle downstream. And that even includes things
like adjusting the speed of the scrolling so
that it's not going to stress you out
or freak you out, that it can actually
be a relaxing thing, not something where
you're just so focused on the exact words, you can focus on the delivery
and having fun with it. So we'll definitely be
covering off on that piece. Also can't stress this enough. With the right approach, a teleprompter is actually
going to make you more authentic because you're not fumbling over your lines. You're not stressed about what's happening or
wondering what to say next or trying to remember stuff. That
was a big one for me. I needed to try and
remember pricing in US dollars for
different videos, and I'd finish a video,
and then I'd be like, Oh, I forgot to mention this point, or I forgot to
mention this point. And my squirrel brain
is worse than most. So using a teleprompter and doing a little bit of
prep ahead of time, it made it so easy for me to deliver the scripts
for me to be me. And to bring personality
and to have fun with it, create an authentic video, much faster and easier
than I was without it. Which means then you can
connect with your audience on a much deeper level and
create a better video faster.
4. Choosing the Right Teleprompter: Now, in terms of the
teleprompter, as I said, they come in all different
shapes and sizes, all different price
tags as well. But I do have a
recommendation for you, which I do think is
the best all rounder in terms of bang for buck, but also for usability. And it's going to suit a
lot of people out there. But there's also
a lot of options. So it is worth paying attention here to work out
which is the best one for you for your
shooting scenario and your camera gear
and all of that stuff. When I started, I
was a massive fan of the small teleprompters like the Parrot teleprompters
or the padcasters. And we'll have all my
top recommendations linked in the description box
below this video as well. But I was a massive fan
of those smaller ones because they didn't
take up much space. So it's a good idea if you
need something portable, maybe you're going to
be moving around that you look at a smaller
teleprompter like that. The downsides is that the
screen is relatively small, because you're just reading
off a mobile device. Also means that
you're going to need a mobile device to
be able to have your text and everything
on there that's going to reflect up on that mirror
in front of your camera. For so many years, that was the style of teleprompter
that I used. Then moving up from there is where you can get
something similar, where it's going
to still clip on the front of your camera lens, or it could be mounted on its own tripod in
front of your camera. And that is, again,
the same concept as the smaller teleprompter. But instead of a mobile device, you're using an iPad
or a larger tablet. So your viewing area, the font size, the text size, all of that stuff,
you can actually have much larger on a bigger screen. Or if you're using it again for Zoom calls and that
kind of stuff, you're going to have a bigger
area for you to see stuff, more screen real estate. The downside being that you've still got a
separate device, meaning that you've
still got an iPad or an iPhone or
whatever it is that you're using to put an app on
to get your script over to. So again, not a bad workflow, but there are some logistics and things and a few
extra steps in there. And then you've got the more
pro level teleprompters, where instead of using
an iPhone or an iPad, they're actually using
a dedicated screen, think like a mini TV or a computer screen that you would usually hook up to a computer, and then it's just treated
as an extra screen. But it's actually handling that flipping and mirroring
of the image so that it looks normal for you
when you're looking at the reflected version in
front of the teleprompter. Now, this is where
the price of things really skyrockets quite a bit, because having a
dedicated screen, there's different qualities. There's different functionality, there's different
sizes, again, too. So a bigger screen size
is always good if you need to have the teleprompter
further away from you. But usually, a bigger screen
means more dollars as well. And obviously, taking
up more desk space or shooting space, too. But fairly recently, a
company called Elgato created call the
Elgato Prompter. And that's actually
the teleprompter I'm using here right now. This is my favorite bang
for buck teleprompter, and it's going to fit a lot of your use cases depending on
what it is that you're doing. And this is really the mix of those smaller teleprompters and the bigger teleprompters
kind of mixed into one. So I do think it is
the best bang for buck teleprompter because instead
of using an iPad or a phone, it's got its own
dedicated screen still small enough to just clip
onto your camera lens, which is how I have
it set up here now. But there's also a bunch
of other mounting options where you could just mount it on its own tripod or clamp it to your desk,
whatever you need to do. It also comes with
all the software and everything you
need, as well, and it just plugs into
your computer with a USBC or USBA cable. And then your computer
is just going to detect it as another screen. And again, all flipping and mirroring and stuff is all
handled by their software. So as I said, this is an
amazing piece of gear. This is the piece of gear I've been geeking out on the most because I really think it's been a whole rethink on how
teleprompters work, and it now makes
them so much easier. So the Elgato Prompter is my top recommendation
right now, but as always, we'll have all of our
top recommendations as we progress through and as things change linked in the description
below this video. The other reason I love this
Elgato teleprompter, though, is because it's not just
limited to use with a DSA or a mirror less style camera like
I'm using here now. It actually works with
a lot of webcams. It works with point
and shoot cameras. It works even with
phones as well. There's adapters that you
can get to really put this in front of or have it work with lots of different
cameras out there. But I'd say the biggest
downside with it is its level of portability, because you do need
to use it with a computer and it's not
a standalone device. If you are someone that's
out shooting on location and you're not going
to have a computer or a laptop or
anything with you, then this might not be the teleprompter
for that scenario.
5. Setting Up Your Teleprompter: Now it's time for us to get
your teleprompter setup. Again, I am using
the Elgato Prompter, but these steps are going to apply to most of the
different models out there. You're going to be
doing the same things in terms of setting up the app, getting your text ready, positioning the teleprompter,
all of that stuff. But the first thing you
want to do is to mount your teleprompter either on the front of the camera that you're using, like I have it here,
mounted directly to the camera lens or
onto a camera rig. You want to mount it in front
of there using a tripod. Again, this Elgato
Prompter has a lot of different mounting
options and things depending on the cameras that you're going
to use with it. But you want to have that glass positioned right in front of your camera lens right up
touching the lens, if you can. And you also want to have
it positioned right at eye level or slightly below
eye level for best results. You don't want to be looking
at your camera lens, you want to be looking
right down at it. They're not going
to be great angles. So pretty much at eye level
is where you want this. So the next step then
with this teleprompter is we just want to connect
it to our computer with the USB cable in the cases of some of the
other teleprompters. This is where you want
to go ahead and get that positioned in the right
space there on the front of your tele what you want to watch out for here
is anything that's going to reflect up back
into your camera lens. If you've got a bunch of lights and things
that are around and reflecting in
your scene here, then there is a chance
that the light could be reflected and picked up
by your camera lens. So that's where we're just
checking the preview image on your camera to make
sure that everything looks the way that
you've got it. Some teleprompters as well, will actually lower the
brightness of your shot because it's creating
an extra area where the camera needs
to shoot through. So we could lose a little bit of light by using
a teleprompter. Again, just adjusting your
camera brightness settings, your shutter speed or your aperture could
fix this for you. Brighten it back
up a little bit. In terms of the
brightness piece, we also want to watch how
bright the devices, the phone, the iPad or the Elgato
screen, in this case, how bright that screen is because that could also
be affecting your shot. If that screen is too bright, your camera can pick up on that. Now I want to give you
a quick example here. So I'm using the Elgato
Prompter here now, so I'm using their software. And we can see here in the
behind the scenes shot, I've got a preview up the top
here so I can see my shot. I've also got all
the recording stuff happening down here because I'm recording this directly
into the computer. But over on the Elgato software, we can see we've got this
brightness setting here, and it's currently set to 65%. If I dial this up,
then, obviously, the text here we can
see is brighter, but it's also affecting
the main camera image. There's almost like a
glow across here now. So we want to be
mindful of that, and we want to make
sure that we don't have our phones or our
screens too bright. So for me, 100% is too bright. We're going to drop this down to about 65% is what I found works well in
this current shot. And really, as a general
rule here, I'd say, make it as bright as it
needs to be and no more. I could probably
even get away with this a little lower if I had to. It's still easy for me to
read here at about 55%, 50%. And that way, there's
less chance of the camera picking up what's
actually been reflected. But if I switch this
across in my app here, I'll just show you how
bad this could be. Let me grab this white
apple note here. Let me turn the
brightness back to full because this is a mistake
that a lot of people make. And now I want to
bring a white screen in White's obviously
really bright. And now, if we have a look at
my main camera image here, we can see that line here
is much more pronounced. And so if I move this white
screen here in and out, you can see how it's
affecting that image. So again, be mindful of this. Don't put stuff in here
that's too bright. This is why most
teleprompter apps are dark because there's less chance that's
going to reflect stuff back into the camera
lens. This is huge. You don't want to
mess this step up. And again, most apps are
going to have the ability here to lower that
percentage right down. Obviously, if it's
a phone or an iPad, you've got those
controls built in.
6. Adjusting Margins & Font Size: Now, to make your
teleprompter work, we are going to need some
sort of teleprompter app. This is another case where there are so many options out there. Some of my go to
recommendations, if you are going
to use an iPhone, Teleprompter Pro
is a great option. There's on Android Nano Teleprompter was a
good one as well. Again, we're going to put my
latest recommendations in case things change over
time in the description. Both of those have been really
solid apps for me to use, and I've been using
them both for years. Some of the more recent
feature updates, though, in terms of the
technology that has improved here that
some of them now will actually listen to
your voice as you're presenting and automatically
scroll the text for you. You might have seen as
I've been presenting this, the text will scroll for me when I am reading word for word. And then whenever I go off
script or anything like that, like I am here now, then is going to pause the
scrolling at that point until I come back and continue
reading from the teleprompter. So PromptSmart Pro is a great app that's
been doing that for years, and it
does it really well. But if you're going
with my recommendation and you're using the
Elgato Prompter, all of that stuff
is actually built directly into their
app now as well. Depending on the type
of video you're making, it might make sense for
you to use something like that where it's going to
automatically scroll for you. But for a lot of people
just starting out, I'd say, don't worry
about that stuff. That might be nice
as you progress. But even if you were
just having the text on screen or the section that you're talking
about right now, just pause, chunk it down. Present that piece, do a
retake if you need to, and then scroll it up when you're good to go
for the next piece. In editing, we can just
remove all those gaps. And there's some great
AI tools right now that will do all of that with a
click of a button for you. So we can chunk it down. We don't need to do
it all in one take. But in terms of the software
and getting it set up right, one setting that
you will want to change is the margin width. So if we can see on my
behind the camera shot here, now for the teleprompter, I'm not having this take up the whole lot of
the screen here. See there's actually black bars on either side of the text here. And that's because that lines up perfectly with the width
of my camera lens. If I adjusted that
margin size here, so if we go margin
size in the software, if we widen it out now and then maybe I start
to read some of this, just watch my eye
positioning on this. To avoid looking
like you're reading, know what's next in your script. If there's a list,
you can glance away briefly or gesture
thinking on the fly. To my eyes, I feel like my head's moving
with this, as well. So even though I'm
using a teleprompter, I'm looking away from
where the camera lens is. So we want to adjust
that margin to narrow the text area down so
that wherever our eyes look, we're still in the range
of our camera lens. So we're never going
to not be making eye to contact with the
viewer if we're only looking at the key area which lines up with our
camera lens behind. This is where a margin
adjustment is so important. So we want to shrink
down our margins, shrink down our text
reading area until it lines up with very closely to the width
of our camera lens, which you can see when you're
sitting in front of it. It's going to be
hard for me to show, but I can just see
the outline of my camera lens through
behind the screen there. So that's something that
you'll need to set up first. So the brightness as we
covered the margin width, and obviously the text size is the other piece that
we'll want to adjust, and all of these are built into pretty much every
teleprompter app out there. If we look at the
font size here, that's the next thing,
as I said, to adjust. We want it where
we're not squinting, we're not struggling to
read the size of the font, but we also don't want
it so big where you're only getting one or two
words on the script. Then the scrolling
speed's going to have to be crazy quick for
you to keep up with it. So go for something where
it's comfortable for you, where we dial this font
size back down now, I mean, I think I could probably even go comfortably something
around this sort of a size. I'm adjusting my width here,
as well, at the same time. Probably something like this.
I can still easily read it. I'm still getting a decent
amount of text there. But obviously,
within that margin, I'm not going to be
looking outside of that. Now, a really cool feature
that is built into this Elgato Prompter is you can see right now I'm on
the text area here, and I've got my script in here, which is the next thing we're going to do is bring
in our script. But I've also got the option here to switch it to display. And if I switch it to display, then this is just like any other computer monitor where
I can pick stuff up. I can move it to that display, so I could have my video
preview here on there, so I'm talking to myself. I could put a Zoom call on here. Whatever I put on here is in
front of the camera lens, and that's really powerful here to have this
as an extra screen, knowing that you're looking at your viewers while
recording, as well. Again, we're not just limited to using Elgato software here. We could pretty much use any document or anything on here. Again, just keeping that
brightness piece in mind, we don't want like a white
document because it's going to affect our video image there
as well by being too bright. So anything dark or dark mode could work really,
really well for you. So this Elgato
Prompter as I said, it's got this display, which is treating it as
a regular monitor. It's got the text mode, which is what I'm
using here now. And then there's also
a chat function here for some live streaming
tools where it'll bring your chat feed of all your interactions with your audience up on
the screen, too. And we can then
engage with them. We can read their
comments, and we're looking directly at them too. Obviously, in this app here, you can see this so much more that you can control with
opacity levels. We can change the colors, there's different
scrolling modes. As I said this Elgato
Prompter here as well does now have voice
sync voice scrolling. Most teleprompters also
support Bluetooth control. So we could have a little remote or a clicker where
we can speed up, slow down, we can
pause the recording. Elgato also sells
some foot pedals, where you can start and stop the scrolling and everything
being totally hands free. If you're someone like me
that talks with your hands, then that could
be a good option.
7. Preparing Your Script: I Now, in terms of using your teleprompter efficiently,
having it really, really work well for you, this is all going to come down to the preparation that you put in to the text that you're going to have up
on that teleprompter. So preparing some notes or preparing a full word for word
script, if that's for you, that's absolutely
critical because having the gear and
the tech is only going to be as good as the stuff that you're actually presenting, the stuff you're speaking to. And this is something that
I would say you'd want to experiment with
with some videos, it might make sense for you to have a word for word script. So obviously, there's
going to be time for you to prep that ahead of time. Other types of content may be just having the key information. Again, as I said at the start, you don't be thinking
in front of the camera. So if it was, in my example, pricing in US dollars or
all the pros, all the cons, my conclusion or
something like that, I might have those as bullet points just so I
don't have to think, Oh, there was something
else I was going to say. I have all the key information there on screen for
me ready to present. And then I can just use
those as talking points. But either way, whether it's bullet points or whether
it is a full script, we really want to have that
dialed in ahead of time. Once you've got that,
though, it's a good idea to have everything set
up, everything good to and then do a dry run. I'm
a big advocate of that. If you do a dry
run, it's going to prep you mentally
for this video, but it's also going to train your brain as to
what's coming next. So you're not going to stumble
on words as much if you've done it before because you're going to know
what's coming next. So it's going to allow you to
flow and to be able to have much longer takes with less mistakes by
doing that, as well. So this is where you've
got all your text into the teleprompter.
You can hit play. And while you're
doing this dry run, you could also be adjusting the speed of the
scrolling, as well. We could hit play
now, we can see that our text is scrolling, and then we've got the
adjustment here, scroll speed. I could increase
that up or down, and just practice reading. And if we're getting
caught up and it's going too fast and
it's stressing us out, then we can slow it down. So it's lower the
speed a little bit. Find that sweet spot here. Likewise, if we're just
getting ahead too much, then we want to
increase the speed. This is also where, as I said, you could do this in chunks. So if you just had on screen there the area that
you wanted to read out, present that piece, you
could then scroll it down or move the text down so then you can speak
to the next piece. And then we edit out all of
those mistakes or those gaps. Now, when I'm doing
this dry run as well, whenever I trip up on something and I'm stumbling or I'm
mispronouncing something, I'd come in and
I'd edit the text, and I could even put
in little pauses or comments or anything like
that in there that's going to remind me to take a breath or to say
something a different way than maybe how
it's written or how my brain thinks
something should be said. So typos and things,
not a problem in here. My brain works a
little bit different. So for words that
I can't pronounce, I'll write them out how
I would expect to say, not worried about
correct spelling because no one else
is going to see this. So for me, I want to go
through that dry run. I want to make it easy for
me to know when to pause, when to look away
from the camera, when to come back,
all of these sorts of little things that
are going to make it more natural for you to
8. The Natural Delivery Method: One of those big
fears that we touched on at the start was for people who start
using a teleprompter and they feel or
sound very robotic. Again, that practice runs
going to help with that, but also if you're
reading your words. So you've written the text instead of someone
else writing the text, there's less chance of
you really needing to read it because
they're your words. You'll know what's coming next, or you're going to be easier
to get into that flow state with it because it's stuff
that you would normally say, not stuff that's
just written for reading well on paper instead
of being presented well. Again, all of that stuff will
come out in the dry run. So definitely recommend
that you do that. But when you actually
press record, I want you to
remember that you're not just sitting here
reading a script. That's not your
focus. Your focus is to deliver a good video. And what a lot of people lose in this piece is that on a video, we get views on YouTube
and those sorts of places, but each view is a real person. We want to make sure that we are speaking to a real person and not just focused on
reading text on screen, and it is a hard thing to do
when you first start out. Trust. So a couple of things
that I've seen work really, really well for some of
my clients and students is to put a photo up
behind the camera. So again, people
don't think that they're just reading
text is their goal. They're speaking to a
person, and just by having an image of a person that's
their ideal client, customer, student, or friend
or family member, it's going to allow
you just to be more relaxed like you're just
talking to that person. So just put a picture
behind the camera or on the wall somewhere
where you can glance off at that person
every now and then, and Remember, Alright, cool.
We're creating a video here. My goal is to help people with
this stuff or to entertain them not to nail word for
word what I'm reading. Because in a lot of
cases, it's not going to matter if you miss
a word here or there, if the whole context and everything just flows
for that video. Now, for the delivery
piece, obviously, the speed of the scrolling or deciding how you're
going to do that piece, whether it's in chunks or not, is something you will practice and see what works for you. The next piece then is
for the eye contact, you want to look
through the lens. You want to look
through the words. Don't have your
eyes just glued to the words where you're sitting there trying
to read each one. We've got to relax into this, and that's where
having that picture of a real person can help, but also being a little bit
more animated can help, too. The camera is going to take ten to 20% of your
energy out of this. And that includes hand
gestures and stuff, too. So I want you to picture
this as if you're talking to a real
person one on one, you're not just
going to sit there all stiff and worried
and stressed, you're going to be
relaxed into it. So let's relax our shoulders. Let's have some hand gestures. But let's take that energy up ten to 20% to where it feels a little bit
awkward for you, maybe for some people. I know it did for me, I
felt absolutely strange. But when you watch
that back, it'll actually come across
as normal for you. Whereas if you just speak
how you normally would, in a real life scenario, you'll probably
find it sounds very flat and maybe a little
monotone, as well. So push past your comfort zones and take that energy level up ten to 20% and it's going to give you a much better video
at the end of the day. Something else to
experiment with is sitting versus standing. It's much easier for
people to be more relaxed if they are standing
instead of sitting. Obviously, that's going
to depend on your setup, how much room you've got, and
all of that stuff as well, and the types of
videos you're making. Right now, I'm sitting, but I was definitely so much better standing when
we first started out. And over time, I've
just got used to this. In this setup here, it
makes sense to be sitting because I get to show stuff on the screens and
things as well. But I'm making sure that
my posture is good. And I am actually taking
pauses to breathe and to remember I'm talking to real people that are
consuming this as well. Now, to avoid looking like you're reading from the script, don't always be reading
from the script. It's a good idea, in some cases, to glance away and think
about some things, even though you might have it written word for word there. So if I was reading
a list of things. So, for example, there's
three things you need to do. You need to have breakfast,
you need to have a coffee, and then you need to brush
your teeth. I have no idea. I could just read those.
You need to have breakfast, you need to have a coffee, and you need to
brush your teeth. Or when we get to that
point in the script, if we know that that's coming and you already
know what they are, or you can quickly skim ahead a little bit,
and don't worry. This is much easier in practice. So don't stress about this now, but try it when you've got
a script in front of you. And you can then look around. So the three things you need to do you need to remember
to have breakfast. Then you need a coffee, and then you need to
I don't remember what the third thing was because I don't have it on my
teleprompter screen. But this is what I'm saying.
Like, I'm looking around. I'm using hand
gestures. I'm pointing. I'm thinking. What
were the next things? They are written on the screen there if it's in your script. Again, you wanted this
to be conversational. You want this to be as if you're having a one on one conversation
with someone there. Then all of those little things which might feel
really weird at first, they're going to be something
you will get used to, but will also create a much more engaging video that's going to feel way more natural for people watching. You also don't want to
be too rigid or stiff, as I said, relax your
shoulders, relax into it. If something doesn't
feel right for you or you mess up, sure,
just go again. It doesn't matter. Editing
is there for a reason? Is there to help us
remove all of that stuff? Or if you like,
you can just leave them in. Not a big deal. Again, if we're
going for authentic, then mistakes aren't a
problem to have them in there because
humans make mistakes. We're all human. You also then
want to remember to blink. This is something I
see a lot of people get caught out and
I did, as well. If you want a good laugh, again, go check out the early
videos on our channel, where I thought I'd
nailed the energy, thought I'd nailed
everything, and I'm like, deer in the headlights,
just staring at the screen. If you did that in real
life conversation, it's going to look weird. People are going
to think you're a bit of a creep or something, so we want to make
sure to blink. So take our time, again, it's part of just being relaxed, relaxing your muscles,
relaxing your shoulders. It's just going to
feel natural to you. So don't overthink it,
but the more you do, the easier this will become. So if you do make a mistake, just restart that section and we can edit that
out afterwards. I've touched on this
a few times here, but the last key point
I want to give you here really
specifically is that we are not striving here to have this as one
take where we press record and we just create this perfect video
without any mistakes. We've all seen those people that just seem to be able to do that, where they just hit record
teleprompter or not, can create an amazing video. No mistakes, and the
video is good to go. We all strive for that
or a lot of us strive for but in reality and from years of working in
professional production, no one really can do that, or they're the absolute 1%
of people that do that. For the rest of us mere mortals, you're allowed to make mistakes. We don't need to be
striving for that. If you saw how many
mistakes are in our YouTube videos before it
goes off and gets edited, I think it would
really surprise you. I'm just chunking it down, doing it piece by piece,
or in some cases, sentence by sentence, and it's all then compiled to
look good afterwards. So take that pressure
off yourself, and that's where just taking your time and feeling
more relaxed is going to allow you to come across as more authentic because
you're more calm. You're more relaxed. You're
not stressing about this. We've definitely
covered off a lot. You now know what a teleprompter is, you know, how it works. You know why it's one of the
best bang for buck tools out there to help you create
better videos faster. We also busted some of the
myths, tackled the fears, and we've gone through my
top pick for teleprompter, which is the exact
one I'm using here right now, the Elgato Prompter. Plus how to set it up, the apps, and delivery tips to help you look much more
professional on camera. But remember, as with
almost everything out there, practice makes perfect. Try the different methods. Try bullet points,
try word for word, see what works best for you. So for me, right now, it's going to come down to
the video I'm making. For some videos, I'm reading
a full word for word script. Others, I've got kind of the idea of what I
want to say there, so I can read the point and then I just say it back
in my own words. Others, I've just
got a few words as bullet points, and
that's all I need. So experiment and know that the more you do this,
the easier it will be. And finally, remember
to check out the links in the description
below this training. We'll keep that up to date with our latest recommendation. Okay, so wrapping
up this training, a couple of quick things. If you found this
training valuable, I would really
appreciate you taking the 30 seconds to leave
us a quick review. It can make a huge
difference to how people find our content and
training here on Skillshare. So I really appreciate it. Also, share any top takeaways
or things that you've learned along the way to help others going through
the same training, learn from what
you're learning too. And if you want to see the other training
and master classes and stuff we have
here on Skillshare, you can find all of those
under our profile area. Thanks again, and
I look forward to seeing you in the
next one. Cheers.
Justin Brown, Primal Video
