Presidential Teleprompting
The Importance of Rehearsal
Presidential Teleprompting can be a very tricky thing. Our Presidential Teleprompter Operator, Patty Mooney, arrived at 7AM at a recent medical symposium to make sure she would be present when the headlining speaker needed to rehearse her keynote speech. The speaker had informed the video crew she would appear at 8 in the morning for a run-through. When the clock struck 8AM, no speaker had appeared. By 8:45 AM, still no speaker appeared, and that made Patty nervous. Why? Because rehearsals are necessary to encounter any potential “bugs” in the speech or the prompter system itself, and then eradicate said bugs.
Also, the prompter op needs to set up Presidential paddles according to the speaker’s line of vision. Patty initially sets the paddles up to her own eyeline. She’s 5’7″ tall. If the speaker is taller or shorter, those paddles must be readjusted for them. The show was underway on time at 9AM. At 9:45, the keynote speaker approached the lectern. And then the glitch occurred.
Glitchy Glitch
A typical Presidential teleprompting system includes two laptops that the operator scrolls at the same time, so that in case the primary laptop goes down, then the op can quickly switch to the second one, so the speaker can continue the speech without the audience ever knowing anything went wrong.
That morning, prior to the beginning of the show, there was a sudden audio issue. The TD could not hear anyone on his headphones. So he absconded with Patty’s headphones, and when he did that, he bumped into Patty’s switcher, which switched from the primary to the secondary prompter without Patty realizing a switch had been made.
Patty was ready to go on her Presidential prompter but felt nervous because the speaker had never checked in and there had been no rehearsal. Now as the keynote speaker approached the lectern, Patty began scrolling. The speaker began her speech and then stopped the show by announcing to the audience of 150 “There’s a technical issue.”
She stormed off the stage towards back-of-room straight over to Patty and complained that the scrolling was too slow. When Patty eyeballed the switcher, she noticed the secondary laptop was sending feed to the speaker’s paddles. Patty switched back to primary feed immediately, told the speaker everything was going to be fine. The speaker turned on her heel and returned to the stage, finishing her speech without any further problems.
This is the sort of glitch that would have been remedied immediately during a practice rehearsal.
Whether you are the newbie who’s never used a Presidential teleprompter before, or the arrogant speaker who’s spoken hundreds of times before, you need to engage in a rehearsal before every show. For the peace of mind of yourself, your crew and your audience.
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