How to record a video while reading from a teleprompter

Why record in the prompter

If the prompter and the camera are separate, you have two files, two clocks and a take framed by whatever the recording device happened to be pointing at. In one app the take is framed the way you read it, and captions can be generated from the script you already wrote instead of transcribed from the audio afterwards.

Framing and eye line

• Lens at eye height. Below it and you are looming; above it and you are peering up.
• Leave a little headroom, not a lot. A band of empty ceiling is the most common amateur framing error.
• Prompter text directly under the lens, as close as the setup allows.
• Sit back. The further you are, the smaller the angle between text and lens.

Light and sound, in that order of cheapness

Light is free and makes the biggest visible difference. Put the main source in front of you, slightly off to one side, and at roughly face height. A window works. What does not work is a bright window behind you, which turns you into a silhouette.

Sound is the one thing viewers will not forgive. A quiet room matters more than an expensive microphone: turn off anything with a fan, shut the door, and get the microphone closer to you than the camera is.

Record ten seconds and play it back with headphones before you commit to a full take. Almost every audio problem is obvious in ten seconds and invisible until you listen.

Settings worth changing once

1. Pick your resolution deliberately. 4K is worth it if you will crop or reframe later, and wasteful if you will not.
2. Lock the frame rate to match wherever the video is going, rather than switching per project.
3. Turn on stabilisation only if you are handheld. On a tripod it can introduce a slow drift.
4. Decide on captions now, because generating them from the script is easier than adding them later.

Next: burn the captions in and drop the background, or tidy the take afterwards.