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teleprompter

How to use a tablet as a teleprompter

Readable text wants to be close and a good frame wants to be far away. On one screen, one of them has to lose.

The problem with reading from the phone you are filming on is geometry rather than settings. Text has to be a certain size in your field of view to be readable at a glance, and a flattering frame needs the camera at arm’s length or further. Push the camera back and the script shrinks; raise the font and you get four words to a line, so the text scrolls constantly and your eyes visibly track it.

Studios never had this problem, because a studio prompter puts the text on a separate monitor under a sheet of glass in front of the lens. The camera goes wherever the shot needs it. You can do the same thing with a tablet or an old phone: stand it next to the camera, put the script on it, and move the camera back to where the framing actually looks right.

The thing to check in any app that offers this is what happens when the two devices disagree. If each screen scrolls on its own clock they drift apart — imperceptibly at first, and by a line or more over a long take. And if the app stops the script whenever the link between the devices stutters, that interruption is far more disruptive than the drift. Talk2Camera gives both devices the start point and the speed and lets each work out the position itself, so nothing is sent per frame and a dropped link does not stop the script.

Setting it up is a scan: one device shows a pairing code, the other reads it with its camera. The two connect directly to each other rather than through a router, so it works with no Wi-Fi and no signal, and nothing about your script leaves the two devices. One limitation is worth knowing in advance — an iPhone can join a network another device creates but cannot create one itself, so pairing an iPhone camera with an Android tablet away from Wi-Fi means the tablet is the device that shows the code.

The recording screen: a large scrolling script fills the middle of the phone with the live camera visible behind and around it. The record button, camera switch and prompter speed modes sit along the bottom.
The script stays readable over the live camera, and the camera switch sits within thumb reach while you record.

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A second device as your teleprompter

Put the script on a tablet or spare phone and leave the recording phone where the shot wants to be. Both screens stay in step, and if the link drops the script carries on scrolling rather than stopping.

Pairing by scanning a code

Point one device at the other’s screen. The code works once and stops working after three minutes, and it carries everything the two devices need to find each other.

Works with no Wi-Fi network

The two devices connect to each other directly, so a field with no router and no signal is fine. No account, and nothing about your script leaves the two devices.