TJ Walker's Secret to Speaking Like Barack Obama. Lesson #3- Using the Teleprompter

26 May 2010 · 3 min

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2:37

A brief instructional video (TJ Walker) analyzing Barack Obama’s teleprompter use during his victory speech. Walker highlights concrete delivery techniques that make the reading feel conversational and authoritative: varying reading speed, changing tone and volume, moving the head/hands/body (avoiding a frozen gaze), and strategically pausing because the speaker controls the teleprompter. An excerpt from Obama’s speech is included to illustrate the points.

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Here we have Barack Obama giving his victory speech on election night. And as you can see, there's a teleprompter right there in front of him. Obviously, he didn't have a lot of time to rehearse this speech, but again, he did quite well. Now, a lot of people have commented that Barack Obama is good at reading a teleprompter. In fact, some of his opponents have said dismissively, well, he's just good at reading a teleprompter. But that begs the question, exactly why is he good at reading the teleprompter? First of all, he doesn't make the mistakes most people do. Most politicians, when they're reading a teleprompter, all of a sudden they start to read at the same speed. Barack Obama doesn't do that. He changes the speed when he's reading a teleprompter a little faster, a little slower. Part of it is tone. Again, the amateur politicians, they speak at the same tone, the same volume. It sounds robotic. Barack Obama changes his tone. Louder, softer. The volume changes, the tone changes. He also doesn't freeze his head. The amateur head looks frozen. Eyes are frozen. Barack Obama moving his head, moving his hands, moving his body. He makes it sound conversational. That's what brings it to life. And does it make it sound like. Like it's just a canned speech that a politician is reading off of a teleprompter. The final thing he does so well, it's not hard to do. You can do it. What is it? Simply pausing. Most politicians, when they get in front of a teleprompter, they're afraid to stop because they think it's going to keep scrolling away and away, and if they stop, they'll lose it. Barack Obama realizes, correctly, that when he's reading from a teleprompter, he's in charge. If he wants to stop and pause, the teleprompter will pause, too. That's why he's so effective. That's why he's the master of using.
A teleprompter, because they believed that this time must be different, that their voices could be that different. It's the answer spoken by young and old, rich and poor, Democrat and Republican, black, white, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, disabled and not disabled Americans who sent a message to the world that we have never been just a collection of individuals or a collection of red states and blue states. We are and always will be the United States of America.