Actor Aaron Marcus built a DIY teleprompter rig using a MacBook Pro, smartphone, and wooden blocks to keep his eyes centered on camera. He positions the phone's camera just behind the laptop lens, removes the phone's rubber case to get closer, and uses free apps like CuePrompter to scroll his script while maintaining eye contact.
In this video, I'm going to be sharing with you how I eventually— and boy, this took a long time— figured out how to use a free teleprompter app. So when I had to record something, it actually looked like I'm looking directly into the camera and not reading off of a prompter. If you watch this until the end, I also have a great bonus video for you. It's if you're having any kind of lighting issues, I've got 3 fixes for you. Okay, let's get started. Hi, my name's Aaron Marcus, and welcome to the Acting and Modeling Quick Tips channel and the Actor Career Center, where I share information from my experiences of being a full-time actor for a little over 38 years. If you haven't done this yet, don't forget, click the subscribe button, the notification bell, and if you like the video, give it a thumbs up. That's always helpful. I am working on creating a new website. I mean, I'm not, but I hired somebody to do that. And on the new website, I need a welcome video. And it took a long, long time to craft the information and writing down the copy script of what I wanted to say. And when I tried Just talking off the top of my head. I can't believe I'm giving out this information here, but, uh, because it feels a little weird, uh, because when you, when you, you know, eventually get to my new vid— uh, website, you know, hopefully it's going to look like I'm just talking to you off the top of my head. But, uh, honestly, uh, I was reading off of a prompt here. But here was, here was the problem. Um, there were some very, very specific things that I needed to get across. And I just couldn't memorize everything, or I didn't want to spend the time trying to memorize everything. I'm sure I could have, but what I did was I decided, well, let me use a teleprompter. I've got information, like, I think about 3 or 4 different teleprompter apps, and I'll share them with you on the page here in the comments section so you can also see some of these apps. And I didn't want to go out and buy an actual prompter. I know you can buy these prompters. You can connect it to either your computer or your camera and stuff. I really don't use it very often, so I didn't think it would be a great investment for me. So I went to some of the apps that I have, and some of them you have to pay for. And they have like monthly plans. Once again, I didn't want to spend the money doing that because I don't— I'm not going to use it very often. If I was doing a lot of on-camera narration, I was using it all the time, yeah, of course it would be a good investment. But I might not need a teleprompter for, you know, 6 months or, you know, 8 months, who knows. So I tested out a few of them, and for every one of them I ran into the same problem. You know, I, I, I would try to record on it, but it never looked like I was looking into the lens of the camera. It was always— it was almost like this, slightly off camera. And that's not what I need. I need it to look like I am looking directly into the lens of the camera. So I went to a lot of YouTube videos to see if someone could help me there. I really, I just didn't find it. And maybe, maybe with the paid versions on some of these apps, maybe that would do it. So here's what I wound up doing. And you can see a photograph. And by the way, this is after so many attempts, so many tries of it not working. And quite honestly, and this is what happens to me, I don't know if this happens to you sometimes, it was in the middle of the night. I don't know, I think I woke up at 3 o'clock in the morning and I thought, wait a second, maybe there's a way that I can build something and place my cell phone near my MacBook Pro, which is where I thought I would have to record it. Because I, once again, I tried— and by the way, hey, I tried recording this on the, you know, some of these apps on my cell phone, and I did it in a horizontal format, and that didn't work. Maybe shooting it vertically, maybe that would have worked better as far as allowing me to make it appear like I'm looking directly into the camera, but I didn't want it vertical. I wanted it horizontal, like with all auditions. So the idea was maybe I could build some kind of platform and I could put the cell phone vertically because I'm using the app and then shoot it horizontally on my, on my computer. So yeah, I can't remember, it was like 3 or 4 o'clock in the morning and this idea came to me. So as you can see here, this is what I wound up using. And I took a lot of blocks of wood, and then I tested it out. And I thought, you know, I'm going to have to have part of the camera in the shot itself, and then I can crop it out. And actually, I'll even show you— I don't want to show you the actual video, but I'm going to show you just a still shot of what it's going to look like. After I cropped things out. And then I, I, I was finding that sometimes I was too far into the camera and I couldn't crop it out. And all of a sudden it hit me and I thought, well, wait a second, I have a little rubber protector going around my cell phone. Let me take that off and that will cut off some more space of the camera and I can shove it in a little bit closer to the camera on my MacBook Pro. That was incredibly helpful. So it took a really long time. I finally got it. I was really happy with the way it looked. I was able to crop out the phone and I think it looks really good. I can't wait for my website to be built. It's going to take some time. It's complicated. There are so many things. Well, at least from, from mine, go, going into creating a website. So, and look, I'll let you know when the website is finally, it's probably going to be months from now, but anyhow, I'll let you know when it's done. But I just wanted to let you know, yeah, there is a free app and I'll list that one first for you. And I'll let you know which one that I used. As a way of testing things out, there is a free program. It's called CuePrompter, and I'll list that as well. I don't think you can record on it if you're using it on your computer, but they do have an app, and it's called Teleprompter. And that's what I downloaded, and that's what I wound up using. I was able to copy and paste all the text place it in there. I also had to spend a lot of time playing around with the speed of it to make sure that I was able to keep my eye level at the same spot, making sure the font was just perfect. And yeah, this really took a long time, but I was really excited to finally get it, and I want to share this with you. So I hope this was helpful. If— look, if you have Any suggestions, and maybe I don't have to, you know, build anything the next time I have to use it. If there is an app or some way of shooting, uh, and making, you know, using a teleprompter and allowing me to look in, or having it at least appear that I'm looking directly into the lens, I prefer a free one. Please share it, uh, in the comment section. Uh, that would be great. And don't forget, uh, if you haven't done this, Uh, click the subscribe button, notification bell. If you like it, give it a thumbs up and, and please share this information with your fellow actors so we can all learn from each other. And by the way, I did say I was going to share, uh, the link for a lighting video, and I've got 3 fixes for you. You can just find it right up here. Uh, this was fun. I hope this is helpful to you, and I can't wait to talk with you again soon. See ya.
