[Mark Suszko]

What comes to mind is, your dancer only has a limited number of moves, so, once each of the moves is rendered out once, you could copy/paste it into place on the beat you want, everywhere you need that move. Combining the moves then becomes pretty easy. Or am I missing something? I don’t know the software you’re using, so that’s possible.

I have a project on the back burner that imitates your 8-bit look in FCPX, going after the look of early 80’s Midway arcade games. But I’m cheating by taking normal green screen footage, posterizing it, reducing the frame rate with an fx plug-in, then adding the 8-bit blockiness with a filter. What you’re doing, from scratch, is much more complicated.

[Mark Suszko]

My answer is out of left field, but based on you wanting them to echo your delivery, what you want to use isn’t a teleprompter but rather an ear prompter. This is a tiny digital audio player that feeds an inductive loop antenna worn around the neck under clothing; a tiny hearing aid sized receiver picks up the audio. The actor has a speed controller in their hand or sometimes under a foot. You just repeat whatever you hear. This will work in situations where a conventional prompter is not efficient or practical, such as long distance jib shots… The playback unit is usually controlled by the actor, feeding them a line at a time which they or you have pre-recorded. You could cheat and use a bluetooth earpiece and feed the lines off-camera as well, if you don’t want to buy the actual ear-prompter rig. Ear prompters are great for long shots where a screen just isn’t readable. You can also use them to give the actor/presenter a foreign language, just repeat phonetically whatever is on the tape.

If these are real actors, by the way, one of the most insulting things you could do as a director is give them a line reading. It’s one of the first lessons of directing school. Or should be.

[Mark Suszko]

That’s the “clouds” custom lower third from Final Cut Pro X’s installed titles. At least it is on mine. If it’s not native to FCPX, the only places i picked up additional assets were stupid raisins, FX Factory, and Motion VFX.

[Mark Suszko]

There’s less reason every year to attend NAB in person, unless you’re going there specifically to make a purchase of something very high-end and really REALLY need the hands-on time with it, and there’s no other way to get it. The manufacturers all have web sites and sales engineers for one on one contact by phone or whatever.

[Mark Suszko]

You could simply do an edit, adding a sample of the music to the clip, rendering out an mpeg4 and sending that to the client. There are tools for sharing projects with clients like Frame IO as well.

[Mark Suszko]

The point is to get Google to point here for the answer. And yes, I agree it can come off as rude to tell someone to just google it, when this is a site for people with answers trying to help people with questions.

[Mark Suszko]

Thanks, Greg.

[Mark Suszko]

What did Spencer tell you to do to fix it?

[Mark Suszko]

There are webcams that can be slung to hang in the center of a computer monitor, and there are mirror devices that do the same. If the monitor is large and the subject can sit a bit farther back, it’s easier. Also, teleprompter rigs are insanely inexpensive today; you could easily build one that’s tablet-based or phone-based, and make it something that’s mailable and easy to set-up at the guest end.

You can build or print a webcam mount that hangs center-screen.

I’m also getting occasional facebook ads for a fly-away remote system for very high end interviews that’s like a gigantic jack-in-the box: you plug it into AC power, the remote PTZ camera with prompter deploys, you connect a lav mic and bam. It even has built in soft lighting. and IFB connections. Expensive; you use this to interview movie stars and heads of state type deals. I didn’t retain much else about it, in much the same way I don’t keep a tight tally on various aspects of billion-dollar super-yacht interiors; Never gonna see one.

But maybe the simplest way to go is: you don’t send video to the Skype type interview subject at all, or if you do, it’s a still graphic with an arrow pointing up to the webcam, as a reminder.

[Mark Suszko]

My shortest answer: no.

My detailed answer: You can get close with a stylized outline, but the exact outline is going to get someone sued. We exist to tell clients when they’re wrong, and what can be done about it. You won’t do the client any favors if you just execute what they say, even if it’s going to bite them hard later. In the end, you get more respect that way too.