Standard Teleprompter Rental NYC
Standard Autocue/Teleprompter Hire
$945, that’s per 10-hour day with a professional operator.
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The Autocue Professional Series 12″
While we have both large and small teleprompters, our primary rental unit is the Autocue Professional Series 12″.
It’s an extremely versatile and reliable machine designed for demanding “real world” broadcast studio and location shoots.
The copy is clear and easily readable in bright sunlight. To do this, a monitor must produce a minimum of 1000 Nits (Nits is the industry’s brightness standard). Our precision machines feature an outstanding 1600 Nits!
Our Gold Plate MSP 12″ mounts the prompter to a tripod using our adjustable “Gold Plate System.” It easily slides on a 15mm rail system with two sliding plates, one for the camera body and one for the lens.
This enables the camera body to move forward and backward to fit an Alexa, Red, F3 or any size camera (DV or ENG), even a small “prosumer model.” The rear of the Gold Plate rig holds one or more counterweights for use in balancing very lightweight cameras.
Our rental service provides you with a critical, free service upgrade. We call it “Platinum Prompter Plan.” In a word, “redundancy”. I’m using the word as it is used in engineering; the inclusion of extra components that are not strictly necessary to functioning, in case of failure in other components: a high degree of redundancy is built into the machinery installation.
Redundancy is the only reliable antidote to Murphy’s law, “Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong”.
Your shoot is always “mission critical”. To clarify: This popular term is defined as: an activity, device, service or system whose failure or disruption will cause a failure in business operations.
The laptop could freeze. We bring along another laptop. It turns out to be a big bonus. Consider the advantage. You or your client can be modifying the script while the operator uses the other laptop to prompt. Then, as the edit is finished, our operator can quickly switch to the second laptop. Yes, we need an additional software license, but that’s part of what it takes to be a professional company.
If you are outside or away from AC power, our professional units can be powered from a battery pack (12v), which we can supply. This makes the unit perfect for use in even the most difficult daylight, or location broadcast situation.
Our machines include a lightweight hood for easy transport to the set. It easily adjusts up or down to allow placing the lens to shoot through the exact center of the glass, with no need to adjust the camera.
We use the highest quality Gold Plate Professional units from Autocue.
Unlikely though it may be, it’s still possible for something to go wrong!
Connectors and cables may fail, so we always carry duplicates.
TELEPROMPTER
You need a teleprompter operated by a professional, trained, experienced operator.
SO, WHY NOT DO JUST THAT?
Do-it-yourself prompters can be acceptable if you build them for one particular model camera. Too many things can go wrong. Why risk embarrassment and alienating your client?
Why is it important to rent a professional machine?
There are many different brands of prompters one can buy or rent. It is even possible to build a DIY teleprompter from scratch or even prompt from an iPad or an iPhone.
How To Shoot Two Cameras Through The Same Teleprompter
We are solving the eye-line problem by using two cameras to simultaneously shoot the close-up and wide shots.
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We solve this problem by using a custom cheese plate with mounts for two cameras and an extra-wide hood and glass on the teleprompter. With this system, the eye-line for both close-up and wide is maintained.
SHOOTING TWO CAMERAS THROUGH THE SAME TELEPROMPTER
A client orders our large 17-inch Master Series prompter for a 7D shoot, which makes very little sense. That is until we realize he is planning on shooting two cameras through one teleprompter.
The reason is obvious.
He wants to preserve the proper eye line on both cameras. He doesn’t want to have to cut between a close-up with the talent looking directly into the lens and a wide shot with the actor looking off into Kansas.
This is very, very reasonable, and I’m privately calling myself a “schmuck” for not having experimented with all this on my own time and not on the clients. So, I’m upfront. I tell him we haven’t done it. It should be possible, but I don’t want him to waste time on his shoot here in the studio.
He insists. “Let’s give it a try, man. Don’t be so damn conservative. I want to make this great. “
OK, and we proceed to test it with the two Canon 7D’s. One with a long Cannon zoom and one with a wide angle. I’m worried about the wide angle because it could very well make the shot look bad.
More trial and error, and more wasted time. Did I say I was a schmuck for not trying this on my own time?
It was immediately obvious that we couldn’t have made it work on the standard 12′′ prompter.
The 17-inch Master Series Teleprompter is not suitable for everyone. The Pro Gold Plate model is great for almost all occasions. It will handle all the big boy cameras like the Arri Alexa All the Red Cameras, the Sony F900, Panasonic Varricam, etc. We don’t want to ever sell our client on a teleprompter that’s too large. What you get with too broad a mirror is the “tennis effect.” The talent’s eyes go back and forth on the screen, reading the lines left to right, left to right, and feet to right.
So, go with the right size. “Bigger” isn’t always better.
Exceptions are when you have an older actor or an actor with bad eyes, so you go with what works.
We actually bought the 17-inch Master Series Gold Plate to prompt Dan Rather, who is a great reporter, but his eyesight is not that good. The 17-inch is best for when the talent is standing more than, say, 12 feet from the lens. Daylight doesn’t matter as the monitors are both “super bright” and both models can be battery-powered for outside prompting. However, we do flag off the mirror to shield you from the hot sun.
