Teleprompter
Encyclopedia
Display device
A display device is an output device for presentation of information in visual or tactile form...
that prompts the person speaking with an electronic
Electronics
Electronics is the branch of science, engineering and technology that deals with electrical circuits involving active electrical components such as vacuum tubes, transistors, diodes and integrated circuits, and associated passive interconnection technologies...
visual text of a speech
Public speaking
Public speaking is the process of speaking to a group of people in a structured, deliberate manner intended to inform, influence, or entertain the listeners...
or script
Screenplay
A screenplay or script is a written work that is made especially for a film or television program. Screenplays can be original works or adaptations from existing pieces of writing. In them, the movement, actions, expression, and dialogues of the characters are also narrated...
. Using a teleprompter is similar to the practice of using cue cards. The screen is in front of and usually below the camera lens of a professional video camera
Professional video camera
A professional video camera is a high-end device for creating electronic moving images...
, and the words on the screen are reflected to the eyes of the presenter
Presenter
A presenter, or host , is a person or organization responsible for running an event. A museum or university, for example, may be the presenter or host of an exhibit. Likewise, a master of ceremonies is a person that hosts or presents a show...
using a sheet of clear glass or specially prepared beam splitter
Beam splitter
A beam splitter is an optical device that splits a beam of light in two. It is the crucial part of most interferometers.In its most common form, a rectangle, it is made from two triangular glass prisms which are glued together at their base using Canada balsam...
. Light from the performer passes through the front side of the glass into the lens, while a shroud surrounding the lens and the back side of the glass prevents unwanted light from reflecting into the lens.
As the speaker does not need to look down to consult written notes, he or she appears to have memorized
Memorization
Memorization is the process of committing something to memory. The act of memorization is often a deliberate mental process undertaken in order to store in memory for later recall items such as experiences, names, appointments, addresses, telephone numbers, lists, stories, poems, pictures, maps,...
the speech or be speaking spontaneously, and will look directly into the camera lens. Cue cards, on the other hand, will always be placed away from the lens axis, making the speaker look at a point beside the camera, which leaves an impression of distraction.
History
TelePrompTer Corporation
TelePrompTer Corporation was a cable corporation started by Irving B. Kahn, Fred Barton, Jr and Hubert Schlafly. During the course of the corporation, in the 50's TelePrompTer invented the idea of actors in soap operas reading their lines by prompters, not scripts as they had been...
was founded in the 1950s by Fred Barton, Jr., Hubert Schlafly
Hubert Schlafly
Hubert Joseph "Hub" Schlafly Jr. was an American electrical engineer who co-invented the teleprompter. Schlafly is also credited with spearheading the movement towards satellite television within the industry....
and Irving Berlin Kahn. Barton was an actor
Actor
An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...
who suggested the concept
Concept
The word concept is used in ordinary language as well as in almost all academic disciplines. Particularly in philosophy, psychology and cognitive sciences the term is much used and much discussed. WordNet defines concept: "conception, construct ". However, the meaning of the term concept is much...
of the teleprompter as a means of assisting television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
performers who had to memorize large amounts of material in a short time.
Schlafly built the first teleprompter in 1950. It was simply a mechanical device, operated by a hidden technician, located near the camera. The script was printed on a paper scroll, which was advanced as the performer read. In 1952, former President Herbert Hoover
Herbert Hoover
Herbert Clark Hoover was the 31st President of the United States . Hoover was originally a professional mining engineer and author. As the United States Secretary of Commerce in the 1920s under Presidents Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge, he promoted partnerships between government and business...
used a Schlafly-designed teleprompter to address the Republican National Convention in Chicago, IL.
The first personal computer
Personal computer
A personal computer is any general-purpose computer whose size, capabilities, and original sales price make it useful for individuals, and which is intended to be operated directly by an end-user with no intervening computer operator...
–based teleprompter, Compu=Prompt, appeared in 1982. It was invented and marketed by Courtney M. Goodin and Laurence B. Abrams in Hollywood, California
Hollywood, Los Angeles, California
Hollywood is a famous district in Los Angeles, California, United States situated west-northwest of downtown Los Angeles. Due to its fame and cultural identity as the historical center of movie studios and movie stars, the word Hollywood is often used as a metonym of American cinema...
. The custom software and specially-redesigned camera hardware ran on the Atari 800 Personal Computer
Atari 8-bit family
The Atari 8-bit family is a series of 8-bit home computers manufactured from 1979 to 1992. All are based on the MOS Technology 6502 CPU and were the first home computers designed with custom coprocessor chips...
, which featured liquid smooth hardware-assisted scrolling. Their company later became ProPrompt, Inc., which is still providing teleprompting services over 28 years later. Other paper-based teleprompting companies – Electronic Script Prompting, QTV and Telescript – followed suit and developed their own software several years later, when computers with enough graphics power to provide the smooth scrolling text became available. In January 2010 Compu=Prompt received a Technology and Engineering Emmy Award for "Pioneering Development in Electronic Prompting".
Jess Oppenheimer
Jess Oppenheimer
Jess Oppenheimer a radio and television writer, producer, and director, was producer and head writer of the CBS sitcom I Love Lucy.Lucille Ball called Oppenheimer "the brains" behind I Love Lucy...
, producer-head writer of I Love Lucy
I Love Lucy
I Love Lucy is an American television sitcom starring Lucille Ball, Desi Arnaz, Vivian Vance, and William Frawley. The black-and-white series originally ran from October 15, 1951, to May 6, 1957, on the Columbia Broadcasting System...
, claimed credit for the original concept of the "in-the-lens" teleprompter and was awarded U.S. patents for its creation. First used by Lucille Ball
Lucille Ball
Lucille Désirée Ball was an American comedian, film, television, stage and radio actress, model, film and television executive, and star of the sitcoms I Love Lucy, The Lucy–Desi Comedy Hour, The Lucy Show, Here's Lucy and Life With Lucy...
and Desi Arnaz
Desi Arnaz
Desi Arnaz was a Cuban-born American musician, actor and television producer. While he gained international renown for leading a Latin music band, the Desi Arnaz Orchestra, he is probably best known for his role as Ricky Ricardo on the American TV series I Love Lucy, starring with Lucille Ball, to...
in 1953 to read commercials on-camera, it soon became a staple for television news.
As late as 1992, The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson
The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson
The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson is a talk show hosted by Johnny Carson under the Tonight Show franchise from 1962 to 1992. It originally aired during late-night....
was still using an early mechanical teleprompter.
In the mid-1990s, QTV (a US-based company, now part of the Autocue Group) pioneered use of TFT-LCD monitors with its award-winning "FDP-9", rather than the traditional CRT
Cathode ray tube
The cathode ray tube is a vacuum tube containing an electron gun and a fluorescent screen used to view images. It has a means to accelerate and deflect the electron beam onto the fluorescent screen to create the images. The image may represent electrical waveforms , pictures , radar targets and...
s. This enabled significantly less weight on the camera and improved portability. They also were first to introduce high-brightness monitors, enabling prompters to be used in direct sunlight. In 2001, QTV pioneered voice controlled prompting. However, in 2005, Autoscript improved upon the concept and introduced Voice Activated Prompting. With its partner Sysmedia, Autoscript developed a prompter that required no peripheral to control the scroll of the prompter. The voice-activated prompter simply scrolled at the speed of the presenter's speech.
Etymology
CamelCase
CamelCase , also known as medial capitals, is the practice of writing compound words or phrases in which the elements are joined without spaces, with each element's initial letter capitalized within the compound and the first letter either upper or lower case—as in "LaBelle", "BackColor",...
, originated as a trade name
Trade name
A trade name, also known as a trading name or a business name, is the name which a business trades under for commercial purposes, although its registered, legal name, used for contracts and other formal situations, may be another....
used by the TelePrompTer Company, which first developed the electronic device in the 1950s.
The word teleprompter, with no capitalization, had become a genericized trademark
Genericized trademark
A genericized trademark is a trademark or brand name that has become the colloquial or generic description for, or synonymous with, a general class of product or service, rather than as an indicator of source or affiliation as intended by the trademark's holder...
, because it is used to refer to similar systems manufactured by many different companies. The United States Patent Office does not have any live trademarks registered for the word "teleprompter", but this does not rule out the possibility of a company enforcing the trademark without registering it. Some other common generic terms for this type of device include:
- electronic speech notes
- cueing device
- idiot board (slang)
- prompter
- AutocueAutocueAutocue is a UK based manufacturer of teleprompter systems, owned by QTV. The company was founded in 1955 and licensed its first teleprompter, based on a patent by Jess Oppenheimer, in 1962...
(in certain CommonwealthCommonwealth of NationsThe Commonwealth of Nations, normally referred to as the Commonwealth and formerly known as the British Commonwealth, is an intergovernmental organisation of fifty-four independent member states...
countries)
Television
News program
A news program, news programme, news show, or newscast is a regularly scheduled radio or television program that reports current events. News is typically reported in a series of individual stories that are presented by one or more anchors...
s consist of a personal computer
Personal computer
A personal computer is any general-purpose computer whose size, capabilities, and original sales price make it useful for individuals, and which is intended to be operated directly by an end-user with no intervening computer operator...
, connected to video monitor
Video monitor
A video monitor also called a broadcast monitor, broadcast reference monitor or just reference monitor, is a display device similar to a television set, used to monitor the output of a video-generating device, such as playout from a video server, IRD, video camera, VCR, or DVD player. It may or...
s on each professional video camera
Professional video camera
A professional video camera is a high-end device for creating electronic moving images...
. The monitors are often black-and-white monochrome and have the scanning reversed to compensate for the reflection of the mirror
Mirror
A mirror is an object that reflects light or sound in a way that preserves much of its original quality prior to its contact with the mirror. Some mirrors also filter out some wavelengths, while preserving other wavelengths in the reflection...
. A peripheral device attached to the serial port
Serial port
In computing, a serial port is a serial communication physical interface through which information transfers in or out one bit at a time...
of has a knob that can be turned to speed up, slow down, or even reverse the scrolling of the text. The text is usually displayed in white letters on a black background for the best readability, while cues are in inverse video (black on white). Difficult words (mainly international names) are spelled out phonetically, as are other particulars like "Nine-eleven" (to specify that the event 9/11 should not be pronounced
Pronunciation
Pronunciation refers to the way a word or a language is spoken, or the manner in which someone utters a word. If one is said to have "correct pronunciation", then it refers to both within a particular dialect....
"nine-one-one", for example).
With the development of small, cheap teleprompter software applications, many different disciplines are now using simple desktop applications to help them deliver sermons, deliver speeches, and create quality audios. Unlike their big brothers, these small applications work on a desktop or laptop computer, enabling the speaker to control the rate and flow of his speech. They are also used by many different organizations and schools to deliver prewritten information by relative novices. They are usually called "personal teleprompters."
Interrotron
Documentary filmmaker Errol MorrisErrol Morris
Errol Mark Morris is an American director. In 2003, The Guardian put him seventh in its list of the world's 40 best directors. Also in 2003, his film The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.-Early life and...
uses a teleprompter-like setup in conducting interviews which he refers to as the "Interrotron." The prompter equipment is set up on the camera (often a film camera); however, instead of displaying a written script, it is used to display the image coming from a video camera trained on Morris who is seated nearby. In this way, the interview subject can be looking directly into the lens of the camera to see Morris' face while speaking, instead of off in some other direction. The camera focused on Morris can also be set up with a prompter displaying the subject (using the "video assist" output if a film camera is used on the subject). In this way, the two people can carry out a virtual face-to-face conversation for the interview.