Taking a teleprompter on the road

As a one-man-band reporter there are many pieces of gear that you simply must have to do your job. But there are other things that you don't necessarily need to have, but might be useful. One item that might fall into the latter category is a teleprompter.

I've helped jerry-rig a teleprompter to an HDV camera on the road in the past. It's not necessarily easy. In any case, I think that a good and experienced reporter should, usually, be able to work without this particular aid when in the field.

That being said, there is an interesting article on this subject over at videographer.com called "Prompting on the Go: Tech Options for Mobile Teleprompting."

In it, the author James Careless writes: "Showing reporters and anchors in the field delivering news as confidently as in the studio adds a cachet professionalism to any news broadcast. Today, this technology has been miniaturized to work with DV and other small-format cameras and is appropriate for more than just newscasters. The polish offered by teleprompter-supported presentation is now within the grasp of anyone shooting video in the field."

It would interesting to hear the experiences of any solo journalists/videographers who use a teleprompter when traveling.