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Build Your Own Teleprompter
bigt_littleodd writes "Ever been in the situation where a certain expensive piece of equipment would be ideal to do the job at hand, but you would probably never ever need it to use it again, thus making the purchase/rental of equipment prohibitive? Here's a guy that had such a need and built a teleprompter with easy-to-find materials, a camcorder and a laptop."
tele-what?
That's right homey.
fp
In my neighborhood, this is what Future Shop is for because of their incompetent, low paid employees. They don't pay them enough so the employees couldn't care less about handling returns strictly.
So what we do is, we just buy whatever equipment we need -- need to forge some documents? Buy a color laser printer! Need to film some porn? Buy a high end camcorder! Then just return it, the employees never complain.
That's what they get for mistreating their employees btw.
I know a really cheap solution...
Get some paper and a sharpie. Write down all the stuff you want to say, and have the camera man flip the pages. They're called cue cards, and they used them way back in the day....
I always find it amazing how people don't just go for the simple hack and over-technologize the solution to what should be a simple problem.
Ruper Pupkin probably has one of these in his basement.
Yet Another Web Site
Just open a text file in quicktime... It shows each line sequentially.
I'm off to get laid.
I had the same problem once, but I came up with another solution.
It's called "memorize the cue cards".
I bet I did that in a lot less time than he took to build a teleprompter.
I used to have to do a verbal presentation once a month in school, and I did all my prep at the last minute, the night before. I wouldn't even write it until that final evening. It would take a couple hours tops, so that's where I got the impression it wasn't much of a deal to do. Practice makes perfect, don't roll the camera until the words are coming naturally. But I guess when there are other people involved and having to have their shit together at the same time, it would be a hassle after all.