Teleprompter rig setup

How a beam-splitter rig works

A teleprompter rig puts a sheet of special glass at 45 degrees in front of the lens, with a screen lying underneath it, face up. The camera looks straight through the glass and never sees the screen. You look at the glass and see the screen's words reflected in it, sitting right over the lens. Because the reflection flips the words, the screen has to show them mirrored, and then they read the right way round in the glass.

The glass

Beam-splitter glass is sold by how it divides the light. In 70/30 glass, the usual reading is that about 70 percent passes through to the lens and about 30 percent reflects to you; 60/40 reflects more and passes less.

Glass	Light to the lens	What it costs the camera	What it gives you
70/30	About 70%	About half a stop (log2 of 1/0.7)	Dimmer words, so a bright screen and a dark room help
60/40	About 60%	About three quarters of a stop	Brighter words, better in a lit room
Plain glass	Most of it	Very little	Faint, doubled words; not made for prompting

Expose for the loss, and shade the glass with the rig's hood so room light does not wash out the words.

Which screen goes under the glass

Screen	How to connect it	Notes
An iPad running the app	It is the prompter: mirror the text on the iPad itself	The simplest rig: one device
An iPhone running the app	The same, for small rigs and phone cameras	Keep the text large
A display wired to an iPhone or iPad	Plug it in: the display gets a clean feed with no controls	You keep the controls in your hand
A display beside a Mac	Window, External Feed (Shift-Command-E), dragged to that display and made full screen	You run it from the Mac's keyboard

We have not tested Cutvey Teleprompter on any named rig or on the Elgato Prompter, so we make no claim about a particular model. A rig whose screen is an iPad or iPhone, or an ordinary display connected by cable, is what the app is built to drive.

Mirror the text

On the device that is the prompter, open the prompter's Settings, then Mirror & display, and under This screen turn on Mirror left to right. Most rigs need only that. Some rigs mount the screen so the reflection is also upside down; turn on Mirror top to bottom as well. The two switches are separate.

Keep the mirror while editing decides what happens when you stop to fix a word: on, the text stays mirrored; off, it turns the right way round while you type.

A take you record is never mirrored.

Send a clean feed to the rig

When the screen under the glass is a separate display, the device in your hand sends it a clean feed: the script with no controls on it. The feed has its own mirror switches under External feed (Mirror the feed left to right and Mirror the feed top to bottom), so the glass reads correctly while the screen in your hand reads normally. Then pick a layout:

Layout	The rig shows	Your device shows
Both screens	The script	The script and the controls
Rig only	The script	The clocks, the cues and the transport
This device only	A standby card	The script

Show a standby card when nothing is open puts a STANDBY card on the rig between scripts, which is kinder to the talent than a blank or a menu. The layout only takes effect while a display is connected. The feed follows the operator's position by the words, so a rig screen of a different size shows the same line you see.

If the rig shows a mirrored picture of the controls, the display is mirroring the whole screen. Choose Rig only so it gets the clean feed.

Make it readable from the talent's mark

Size for the distance. The further the talent stands, the larger the words. The text size calculator gives a starting size for your distance and screen.
Black background, white text. That is the default, and the app's own note says why: black cuts glare on a beam splitter.
Narrow lines. Wider margins mean shorter lines and less eye movement from side to side. Margins run from 0 to 40 percent.
A reading line. Put it where the talent's eyes naturally rest, usually a third of the way down, so the words they read are closest to the lens. Edge marks, an arrow, a line or a bar, and you can set its size and brightness.
The focus band dims the lines away from the reading line, Soft or Strong, which helps a talent who loses their place.

Run the rig as a session

On a set the device in the rig is rarely the one anybody wants to touch. Host the session on the rig's iPad, and join from the operator's iPhone or Mac as a remote or an editor, and from the camera operator's phone as a monitor. The operator drives the speed and the cues, a producer can fix a word in the live script, and the monitor shows everyone where the talent is. A session holds eight devices by default, and the host can allow up to 16. If the venue's Wi-Fi keeps devices apart, connect the two with a cable or let them find each other directly. Pair a second device.

Power and connections

A long day on a rig drains an iPad. Run it on power if the rig allows. You do not need to change auto-lock: the screen stays awake while the prompter runs. A running solo scroll stops if the app goes to the background, while a host, a live external feed and a take in progress keep their own rules, so keep the prompter in front on the rig device.

A rig checklist

Level the rig and the glass at 45 degrees, hood on.
Prompter device under the glass, brightness up, Do Not Disturb on.
Mirror left to right on the prompter (or on the feed, if the rig is a separate display).
Text size checked from the talent's mark, reading line at eye height.
Remote in the operator's hand: the Watch, a pedal, a clicker or a second device.
One rehearsal pass with voice follow if the talent wants it, or at a set speed if the room is noisy.
Expose for the glass.

Without a rig

No glass? Record on the iPhone or iPad itself and let the script sit beside the lens. With Camera on, the script moves to a strip of two, three or four lines right next to the camera, and your eyes stay close to it. Record a take under the lens.

Questions people ask

How do I mirror text for a teleprompter?

In Cutvey Teleprompter open the prompter's Settings, then Mirror & display, and turn on Mirror left to right. Some rigs also need Mirror top to bottom. A separate rig display gets its own mirror switches under External feed.

What is the difference between 70/30 and 60/40 teleprompter glass?

In 70/30 glass about 70 percent of the light passes to the lens and 30 percent reflects to the reader, so the camera loses about half a stop and the words look dimmer. 60/40 reflects more and costs the camera a little more light.