Matt Eventoff

The teleprompter has gotten quite a bit of recent attention.  After witnessing many faux pas over the past few days, here are five quick tips to make the teleprompter experience a bit more rewarding:

1) Always bring a physical copy of the text with you.  There is nothing worse than discovering that the text you had thought was loaded into the teleprompter was not loaded, or was loaded incorrectly.  In addition, always remember that as with any electronic device, a teleprompter, or teleprompter software, can fail to work properly.

2) Tennis is best left on the court.  It is often obvious when a speaker is using a teleprompter as the speaker’s head tends to turn from left to right as if watching a tennis match – moving from screen to screen. 

3) Create your own Teleprompter “lingo.”  This would be a type of shorthand – whether phonetic spelling, underlining, “stressors,” hyphenated pauses, etc. – inserted into the text.  It is easy to lose connection with the audience while using a teleprompter, and speaking in a monotone, with no intonation or expression, is a quick way for that to occur.

4) Don’t Stare!  If you are using a single screen teleprompter (especially if using it to record a presentation to be viewed later) remember you are talking to people, not to the machine!  Eye contact is crucial, but there is a fine line between constant eye contact and staring; if you are not breaking eye contact at all,  it becomes obvious you are reading.  Break your visual contact, even for a second or two.

5)  Practice. Practice. Practice. If you are going to use a teleprompter, practice extensively with it every time – just because you are comfortable with it for one address does not mean you will be as comfortable the next time – familiarity with the text is critical to success when using this device.

4 Responses to “5 Teleprompter Tips”

1. By Chris Zdunich on Feb 25, 2011 | Reply

   

   
   

   Tip #6 Don’t use a teleprompter when you are supposed to be speaking from your heart, covering material you know inside out.

   It seems very insincere.

2. By Richard I. Garber on Feb 26, 2011 | Reply

   

   
   

   Matt:
   An excellent brief post. I did a longer one here:
   http://joyfulpublicspeaking.blogspot.com/2009/09/teleprompters-and-public-speaking.html

   Regarding Tip #5, you can easily practice online. Both Republicans and Democrats have relied on teleprompters.

   Richard

3. By Matt Eventoff on Feb 28, 2011 | Reply

   

   
   

   Thank you Richard – I look forward to reading your post in a few minutes.

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