DIY TELEPROMPTER

There’s nothing quite like intense necessity and lack of funds to inspire great design.

During the early days of my video documentation journey, I, like many, found myself with a need for a huge range of kit and very little money to actually purchase it with. Lenses and tripods and lights seemed essential pieces that I couldn’t really avoid buying, but a teleprompter felt like a bizarre luxury item I couldn’t justify. Unfortunately, as I would soon learn, it is equally important when your scripts are lengthy and accuracy is key to a good presentation.

(We’re not going to talk about how rambling those few early videos were.)

Fortunately, the antidote to expensive but necessary items is clever DIY solutions.

CAD Design and 3D Printing were the perfect tools to be able to quickly prototype, test, and iterate on such a simple yet surprisingly fussy design. I wasn’t looking to reinvent the wheel, but I did have a range of requirements to fulfil, including needing it to work on a variety of tripods and lenses, using a phone as the text source, and not requiring expensive or hard to source hardware to attach it. This is of course on top of wanting to make it as easy and straightforward to print as possible; an ongoing mission I have for all of my 3D printable designs.

I had my work cut out for me it seemed, and in the end it would take three different versions to find the winning combination of stability, versatility, ease of use and cost.

I knew I was not the first to tackle the DIY Teleprompter task; a quick Google will yield the many paths that have been tread before I even came up with the idea. Most did not appeal or satisfy my needs, but an early model by fellow designer and maker Agustín Arroyo inspired me to base my first iteration off of his beautifully simple and straightforward design.

That first version served me well enough to get through a handful of recordings and teach me in no uncertain terms where it required improvements.

Version Two attempted to tackle issues with angle and lens compatibility while maintaining the simple, open design that Version One had and keeping material use to a minimum. The requirement of a separate screen shield removed a lot of that benefit however, and in the end I gave up on this design and started over from scratch.

The Third and Final Version sought to combine the screen shield and phone holder into a single piece while no longer directly supporting the camera or mounting to the tripod. Instead I created a channel which slides securely onto a metal step-up lens adapter (the biggest expense of the whole piece at under £30) via a separately printed piece that glues into place. The teleprompter is completed by the addition of a piece of thin, clear acrylic which functions as the ‘two-way glass’, and a smartphone running a teleprompter app (I use PromptSmart).

The final design is strong, stable and incredibly versatile. It can adapt to hold most phones, will attach to most camera lens, and can be used safely at most angles. I may not have been able to find my perfect teleprompter already in the world, but I was able to bring it into existence myself.

The final DIY Teleprompter design along with its accessories is available freely online for download for 3D printing and assembly. Links can be found below.