VO-BB - 20 YEARS OLD!

Frank F · Posted: Sat Jul 21, 2007 7:43 pm Post subject: Ear-prompter

Just curious, I have been doing gigs with an ear-prompter for quite some time now and was wondering how many people on our beloved VO-BB are using a similar set-up.

I use either a Comtek AP-230 with a mini-disc or an Otto Engineering V1-10437 with an .mp3 player. Anyone use anything similar? Different? If different, how does it differ?

F2
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bobsouer · Posted: Sat Jul 21, 2007 9:25 pm Post subject:

Frank,

I never, and I do mean never, do on-camera; so an ear-prompter isn't part of my toolkit.
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Frank F · Posted: Sat Jul 21, 2007 9:37 pm Post subject:

But Bob, you are so... (quoting Kara Edwards) "... cuddly and loveable?"

I believe you should be doing on-camera... I try not to (do any on-camera), but now people want me to give speeches... and I still "have a face" for radio". (See Avatar to the left.)

F2
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Lizden · Posted: Sun Jul 22, 2007 5:52 am Post subject:

Oh you guys!!!
You are BOTH "cuddly & loveable" in MY book!

But to answer your question Frank, I have never used an ear prompter either.

Courvo? Any insight?

Liz
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BenWils · Posted: Sun Jul 22, 2007 7:28 am Post subject:

Any stuff I have done has been tele prompted. I can do ear prompt pretty well if it is me I am hearing.

I have had to chase a person's read for corporate narration before. The producer I was working for was an exceptional VO herself and she voiced the 10 minute piece at lightning speed as a scratch for the editors/animators. I guess they wanted a male voice instead....so they called.

So since the spot was mostly After Effects animations with text, pictures etc .....already done to her read and timed exactly (again I saw lightning trailing her pace) I had to do the prompt thing somewhat and chase her read. I was in one side of the headphones and her recorded read was in the other. I was messed up after that session. Hearing yourself is one thing...but hearing another person and doing the split phones things while chasing a really fast read sure was a challenge.
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imaginator · Posted: Sun Jul 22, 2007 10:00 am Post subject:

my great friend, george lee (lost to cancer last year), thought the earprompt was great. he'd been using it for long on-camera stuff when teleprompters were not available or practical. he adapted to it rather quickly, and the fact that it ran off a cassette walkman should tell you how long he used his.

the only time he said it backfired was when he wound up on a very remote location...ran out of batteries...and there were no spares to be found anywhere. that, he said, was the longest stand-up session of his life.

i've also known a local actor to use one for a full theatrical one-man show...in front of a live audience with no net. i keep thinking about the "batteries" issue and wish him well.

for myself, in the on-camera character stuff i do, i experimented with the system, and eventually could parrot the recording i was listening to without stumbling too much. but when i listened to the playback of my performance, it sounded flat and lifeless. i was spending so much effort concentrating on the words i was repeating that i evidently had no idea what i was saying.

it's an acquired skill, and if you can do it i stand in awe of your talent!
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Dan-O · The Gates of Troy Joined: 17 Jan 2005 Posts: 1638

My ear prompter is a standard clear tube one made by M-Audio (the kind you see TV news folks wear), along with a Radio Shack mini-tape player. I use it at least once a month professionally.

One of my clients has hired me a few times to narrate scripts for a live events. The narrations were timed to full multi-media presentations. I was never heard by the public, though. Only the on-stage actor heard my work. It was piped into his ear prompter, so that the timing to the video and computer animation all synced up with his performance.

voicejones · Posted: Wed Jul 25, 2007 12:19 pm Post subject:

I'm using a rig very similar to DanO. The TV news anchor type of earpeice hooked into an inexpensive mini cassette recorder. I use it frequently and it works great.
JJ

marko · Guest

Frank,

I've been using the ear prompter since 1990 and actually teach an ear prompting workshop for the co-inventors of the ear prompter, Instant Memory Systems. Check out their website at ear-prompter.com. We just
had a workshop last weekend here in Atlanta and had students from as far away as Detroit within our class. The ear prompter is an AMAZING tool when used correctly. IMS just released their digital recorder that has been custom engineered for ear prompter users. It features a remote pause feature (VERY important when using the ear prompter within a trade show setting or in a dialogue setting with another actor on camera), an overwrite function for punching in and/or deleting (which often happens on video shoots due to client changes/rewrites), and a tweaked volume control to maximize the sound level. If you have any questions, feel free to PM me. I'll be glad to help.

Mark Oliver