TenBefore: Blue Screen + AutoCue = Success

Experience  from the last few blue and green screen shoots for the TenBefore lead me to believe that this 6 script endeavor would devour the entire day.

Step into the TelePrompter/AutoCue lair and you will leave happy.

Apart from a few glitches we completed the shoot in an unprecedented 3 hrs – how awesome is that?

All because of the AutoCue, it was perfect.

Here is John form Platypus Productions on the Canon XHA1 with AutoCue.

Here is Nicky form Platypus Productions running the AutoCue software.

The greatest benefit was that the number of retakes were drastically reduced, and also the need to review the script between takes. Ok, there is no substitute for at least being familiar with the script and practicing beforehand. Andrew, who was the host of the TenBefore knew the scripts and had practiced a few times so that helped tremendously.

The only downside that I could see was that the weight of the AutoCue pulled down heavily on the front of the camera resulting in a bit of difficulty in aligning the shot, we had to compensate for this by tilting the camera up past the desired position so that is would ‘sag’ into the desired position.

The setup of the AutoCue seemed pretty simple, I even found a good post about making one yourself; I don’t think we used the same software mentioned in the post, we used a free version that seemed to do the job very well: DIY AutoCue

Shot to Platypus Productions for their assistance and expertise. John and Nicky were a great help – props to them for giving up a Saturday and helping us – even if we are going to be paying them.

We learned a lot from the whole experience as we do with everything as technical as this

There were things that were new and surprising like the AutoCue and thing that were missing and disappointing like a few problems capturing live and the lack of a means to capture with the HD/SDI out from the Canon – but that’s later .

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