Quote:
Originally Posted by mbenonis
Another thing I'm trying to figure out is how to provide a heads-up display for the presenter, so they don't have to turn around at the screen to see their slide. Has anyone come up with a good solution for this?
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The "heads-up display" that you speak of is known as "Executive Prompter" or EP. These are approx. 12"x15" oneway (twoway?) mirrors on mic stands left of right of the presenter. You can see them on TV sometimes when they take a wide shot of the President speaking. They display speech text only. In the old days the script was typed onto a six inch roll of paper and the operator ran the roll thru a machine that had a video camera pointing at the paper. The operator had a "speed dial" that allowed him to speed up/slow down the speech to follow the presenter. Today there is specific software to do the same via computer (makes editing a speech so much easier), and the VGA output is fed to the EP screens.
To prevent the presenter from having to face upstage to see his slides on the screen(s), we use a "confidence monitor." This can be any display, although plasma's and LCDs have taken over. The display is located off the downstage edge, high enough so the presenter onstage or at the lecturn can see it, but low enough so as not to impede sightlines from the front row.
On an "in the round" show I just did, there were 24 45"LCD screens as confidence monitors on all sides of the stage. They were in pairs, one screen had the prompter text and the other the slide images. The presenter used a wireless "
clicker" which when pressed flashed a light and buzzed a buzzer that the graphics operator watched/listened for, to advance the slides in Keynote or PowerPoint. Video rolls were done off DVD or hard disc players and a
Stage Manager called all cues.
Granted this was a huge show, 16 projectors double stacked on the big screens (20'x30'), and 8 smaller screens on the center stage. Seating for 16,000 in an
arena setting. The video dept. alone had 20 people, not including cameras, running various switchers, routers, computers,
etc. Oh, and there were 340 moving lights.
A more realistic solution for your needs would be to put the laptop(s) on the podium, and run the VGA output into a switcher, and let the presenter "punch his own slides." The switcher could change to a VT or DVD "still store" of the theme graphic while laptops were being swapped out. I've done it that way many times in smaller rooms. If there are cameras doing
Imag, I feel the video dept. should be backstage, near the presenter, and the only thing that needs to run to the front projector in the booth is an RGBHV snake.