I’ve discovered this today from ITV Channel TV giving an insight into what it’s like to be a newsreader.
https://youtu.be/5_Dcaepr3d8
The video features sections with autocue if you want to practice your skills during this bank holiday weekend.
A question to those in the know, are autocues set against the timer to the report or will the report just be cued once the presenter has read that section on the autocue?
The director will be following the autocue as well (it'll be displayed somewhere on the multiviewers at the front of the gallery).
At the end of the presenter's cue there will be an instruction such as 'TX' to indicate to run the package (fancy word for 'report'!), so the gallery will run it when the presenter gets to that point of the script.
Similarly, (OOV)/(ULAY) commands in the script will indicate when to run pictures whilst the presenter reads on out of vision, and there will be other instructions too, such as (GFX ANIMATE) to indicate when to advance a graphic sequence, for example.
So the autocue is not just for the presenter! Although the text will be inverted to help distinguish between script and instructions. For example presenter script will be displayed as white text on black, and instructions will be displayed as black text on white blocks - as seen in the below tweet...
https://twitter.com/katemcgough/status/7...4596838400
Surely it's cued after the section on the autocue has been read. At least from what I've seen the autocue speed is controlled either by the presenter or by an operator in the gallery. Id it was timed, there wouldn't be any room for mistakes and the pressure to read it perfectly at a precise speed (or risk getting cut off) would be immense.
There are a few ways autocue can be controlled. A foot pedal or hand controller by the presenter (and there are wireless hand held and desk mounted hand controllers) or by an operator. Operators can be situated in the gallery or in the studio - depending on local preference. There are I believe speech recognition solutions which scroll as the presenter speaks but I have never actually seen them in use - how they’d deal with presenters ad-lib, and/or mistakes needing them to go back and correct themselves I have no idea. Some presenters are also extremely good at editing the script while on air in order to get to a story quickly and/or correct any mistakes that might have been spotted at the last second by the editor or director.
The package will be rolled by the director once the presenter has reached the end of their read. If it is a bulletin that needs to run to time (exact to the second, for example an ITV news bulletin), the presenter will be told how many seconds they are 'over' or 'under' in relation to the overall length of the bulletin at the end of every read-so they can adjust their read speed/abbreviate scripts if needed.
If necessary the producer will 'float' scripts in and out of the running order to help with timings.
All that goes out the window when they go into breaking news rolling mode. Id find that more harder, to react, adlib, loads of info in your ear, chaos.
I just watched that video and I tried to practice my skills at reading the autocue, and I nailed it
I tried to practice but was too fast. A few seconds between me finishing and the report starting. Need to practice more if I want to be the next Moira.
Rolling News post_id=2466 time=1617450846 user_id=1254 Wrote:I tried to practice but was too fast. A few seconds between me finishing and the report starting. Need to practice more if I want to be the next Moira.
You? The next Moira? Hmmm........
(I taught her everything........)
If a particularly difficult word is due to come up on the autocue, i.e. an unusual surname, does the presenter hear the word in their ear a few seconds before so they know how to pronounce it correctly, or before the bulletin starts are they given the 'heads up' on any hard to pronounce words?
I've run autocues before on the other side and it is quite annoying because sometimes you end up chasing each other. Definitely a skill from both ends and one I never fully mastered.
Edit: ^^^ absolutely they'll check the pronunciation pre-show.
This is UTV post_id=2526 time=1617470511 user_id=1188 Wrote:If a particularly difficult word is due to come up on the autocue, i.e. an unusual surname, does the presenter hear the word in their ear a few seconds before so they know how to pronounce it correctly, or before the bulletin starts are they given the 'heads up' on any hard to pronounce words?
Yeah checked pre-show and sometimes producers warn it's coming up. Some presenters like the name to be written phonetically.
Fanoftv post_id=2149 time=1617360987 user_id=805 Wrote:I’ve discovered this today from ITV Channel TV giving an insight into what it’s like to be a newsreader.
How funny - I found this video about a week or so back, but I didn't think it was worth posting on TV Forum because I didn't think anyone would see it (or care) in its dying days.
Great video, though.
I absolutely love little behind the scenes, 'see it from our perspective' type videos/tutorials like this.
I should say, I tried my hardest to play along, but I seem to have had the opposite problem to [mention]Rolling News[/mention] as I seem to have been going rather too slowly, getting cut off just before I'm finished.
Clearly I need to liven up my delivery!
Thanks for posting, [mention]Fanoftv[/mention] - I'll make myself a Huw Edwards one day! :lol:
Lack of talkback while reading the autocue feels like a large hurdle not really spoken about given it's not just about reading and speaking it aloud but also listening to something else simultaneously without looking like you're listening.
