Steadicam with a teleprompter

I was hiking in the forest in the middle of nowhere. Suddenly the silence was broken when I got a call from a hesitant but pleasant British sounding voice, asking if we had ever heard of a teleprompter for a Steadicam. “Yup, we’ve done that pairing at least 100 times,” I responded.

Will Lyte, the Steadicam operator, was amazed, as it wasn’t a common request.

The gig happened two days later and we first demoed an eyebrow (above the lens) prompter system, but when the client asked for a mirrored/ lens solution, we went to our trusted PromptBox and did a quick re-rig. We used our IDX HDMI transmitter/receiver (similar to a Teradek) to send teleprompter signal from laptop TO the camera, (since normally video signal comes FROM the camera.)

We also used a cool setup that allowed us to power the IDX receiver from an Anton-Bauer Power-tap/USB converter that Will provided, and used our regular P-tap to power our monitor.

Yay! Worked like a charm, no dropouts or hits. This was critical since the executive had limited time with us and had a hard “out-time” just 30 minutes later.

Thanks to Danger Charles and Will Lyte for the professional assistance and the opportunity to work on a fun gig!

Update: we now use all Teradek systems. While IDX is great, we needed to standardize with local Assistant Camera techs.