FPA Guide to using the Teleprompter and Countdown Clock 2021

Fairfax Public Access

Teleprompter and Countdown clock How-to Guide v. June. 2021 Copies of various equipment manuals are available online at (https://www.fcac.org/equipment-user-manuals)

Starting / troubleshooting tip: 1. Before launching the program connect the teleprompter control wheel to the USB cable at the workstation you’re going to use 2. In the proper control room workstation go ahead and open the teleprompter program, WinPlus. It’s the “eye icon” in the desktop startup menu 3. If you see an error message pop-up simply click ok.

4. When using the teleprompter, the script should be formatted as a simple word document. No fancy fonts, bolded or underlined words etc…

5. Bring the file with you on a thumb drive or download it from an email onto the teleprompter computer workstation 6. If downloading the script, save it to the desktop. It will auto delete during the night 7. If using a thumb drive go ahead and connect it to the teleprompter computer To open your script: 1. Once the teleprompter software launches, go to the top of the menu and File > Open or click the open icon 2. Find your script 3. Click open 4. To open an additional script at the bottom click File > append. Find your next script and open 5. Keep doing that for every script 6. Once the script is up, check for words to see if any are cut at the end of the line 7. If some of the words need to be formatted, then.

8. Click on edit > reformat text 9. You will see a few changes to the layout format. This helps avoid any words from getting cut off 10. If all looks ok, the next step is to send this to prompter mode 11. Look for the icon called “activate prompting”, it looks a lot like the camera prompter monitor 12.

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Teleprompter Power

Click it to launch the program into a new mode In the new mode, find the yellow rectangle That is the marker point, which the talent uses to look and read from.

As the talent operator, remember that you don’t control the speed, the talent dictates the speed Once the talent starts reading, keep what they are saying/reading in the middle of the monitor

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Controlling the teleprompter:  When using the wheel controller note that the more you turn to the right the faster the text speed is.  To stop notch the wheel to the left this will cause the scroll to stop. Moving it further to the left will reverse the scroll.  If the knob is not working get out of prompter mode by double clicking on the yellow rectangle then click the configuration button

> VGA tab > uncheck USB hand control, and then recheck it.

 If you’re turning the knob to the right & the text is rolling in reverse, click the button > VGA tab > uncheck VGA reverse scroll direction  If the size of the text is too small you can change this option (by default the size is set to 80). The larger the font the less words will show on each line of the script  Before selecting prompt mode, note that the location of your cursor indicates where the script will open in prompter modE  In prompter mode selecting the “RUN ORDER TOP” button will send you all the way back up the start of the script

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To go between sections, you can select preview and next. For this to work properly you need to create a slug line in the script edit mode Having this feature helps if recording scenes out of order from how the script is written.

CREATING SLUG LINES _ 1. Start by placing square brackets around the title sections of the scripts.

 Example [Introduction] 2. (Re-edit by highlighting the text) then create a slug line.

To do this click on the “Toggle Slugline” icon.

The icon looks like a set of lines, the first line is in yellow.

3. The slug line will be created based on where your cursor was.

4. This will change the color to yellow if done correctly.

5. In prompt mode, to jump between slug lines hit the “next” button.

6. The prompter mode script is routed automatically to the teleprompter monitors on the cameras

Countdown clock We have two versions of the clock.

Both are located on the teleprompter computer and/or the utility computer in the control rooms.

Classic Countdown Timer vs. “new” Countdown Timer

STAFF RECOMENDS USING THE NEW VERSION  

If using the classic countdown, note that the background is white and this can cause the camera lens to look like the iris is open too much if you run the program off the teleprompter computer.

The “new” or countdown timer has a black background.

Using the Countdown Timer  Change the display settings  Use the number in top of keyboard to change or use the mouse  Click set start to add the changes Clock color options  White against dark stands out well, but you can change it.  When you pause you can make the color of the clock change.  Expire (when talent goes over their time limit) it's nice to add red past that point so you can note how long they went over. This catches the eye of the talent so they know they have gone over and need to wrap-up.  The clock has lots of customization based on eye sight.

Clock options tab (some available options to add or consider when using the clock are listed below)  Countdown T to T minus  Add or remove borders in the clock  Sounds can be added but note that we generally do not recommend this. You do not want to get any unwanted sounds in your recording.  You can add messages. This helps to share cues with the talent.  When you type messages, the text is up for a specific period of time (the default is 10 seconds), however this can be changed to 30 seconds. Even if you have a floor director, including this information in the talent monitor can still help the talent focus some more.

Production tip: When you need to add a message for the talent, select a different color from what you choose from the timer.

Production tip: When you add messages and click send, it will remove the clock and change to the message. Once done it will revert back to the clock.  

When your technical director gives the cut cue, hit pause on the clock.

When recording again, click run to resume the timer.

Teleprompter Desktop PC

Teleprompter Software Window (As an example: The script window includes two yellow sluglines)

Sample of Prompt mode view