Prompting

When someone extemporizes, you can’t be certain what they will say, or how long they will speak for. It’s far more convenient if they can work to a scripted dialogue – which, in most cases, has been written by someone else. But how do you ensure that someone is going to deliver this script?

Approaches to presentation

• Reading to camera from a script Seldom really effective. The reader often looks preoccupied, stilted and unnatural.

• Working to notes. Often successful for experienced speakers, but liable to

• Learned script. Even an actor who is used to committing long passages to memory may not have time to learn the lines.

Sometimes you can get round the difficulty by having someone read a ‘voiceover’ commentary to the pictures.

Forms of prompting

To ensure that there are no errors or omissions, you can help talent in several ways:

• Corrections. When someone ‘dries’ (forgets the next word or topic), or ‘fluffs’ (makes an error or says the wrong thing), or ‘cuts’ (leaves out material), a quiet word prompt or a note may be sufficient to restore matters.

• Reminders. A list of points to be made, or topics to be discussed, can be a valuable aide-memoire – whether pencilled on a demonstration table, or displayed on a nearby chalkboard.

• Script boards are often used by commentators/interviewers/presenters/anchor persons. Their various notes, questions and research work are attached to a clip board, and form their reference point. Some find this approach too interrogatory, and prefer small cards or palmed notes.

• Cue cards (goof sheets, idiot cards) held near the camera, or suspended on rings beneath (flip cards), can display reminders – e.g. of song lyrics.

• Electronic prompter (‘telaprompter’). This is the sheet anchor of many TV shows today! The performer reads the entire dialogue ‘spontaneously’ from a continuous rolling copy of the script at or near the camera lens. Earlier prompters used paper rolls displaying ‘jumbo type’ text, but nowadays, electronic versions are universal.

The performer looks at the camera lens, but sees reflected in an angled glass a copy of the script displayed on a picture tube. Designs vary, but typically this remotely controlled image presents lettering around 15 mm ( in) high, with some 20 words visible in an 8-line frame.

The trick is to read it naturally, without a fixed stare, ‘casually’ moving your head to disguise eye movements. The camera’s distance and height may need to be adjusted to allow the prompter to be read easily.

Prompting – direct methods

1 Handwritten prompt cards, usually held near the camera, may contain dialogue or reminder notes.

2 Camera flip cards usually carry brief reminders.

Video prompters

1 Video prompters yse a 45° clear glass sheet at the camera lens, reflecting a pictyre-tube display of the script from a nearby script-scanner (monochrome TV camera shooting a miniature roller script), or a compute-stored script. Simpler prompters reflect a wide paper roller script with ‘jumbo’ type.

2 The camera lens shoots through the glass sheet at the subject. The reader appears to be looking straight at the lens and the audience. (Other systems can result in an off-camera stare.)

3 Where the speaker does not need to speak directly to the camera the prompter-script video may toe fed to floor video prompters or monitors.