I got an email from a Podiatrist in Hull last week teeing up times and dates to do a spot of filming and reminding me that she would prefer to use a prompter. Although I had such a beast from ProPrompter their iPad HD it is totally unsuitable for use with the Panasonic AF101, what a pain.
Fortunately my recent visit to BVE in London I had been looking at suitable prompters for the AF101, Holdan had the datavideo iPad Prompter and after studying it for a while I could see the full potential of using it with the 101.
Updated design feature : Delivered this morning from Holdan’s I started to assemble it to discover you get one standard 1/4″ screw which in my books is far to flimsy and does not fasten the camera nor in my case a quick release plate firmly enough to the prompter frame so after some measurements and an older Manfrotto QR plate I drilled a larger hole in the frame to allow a 3/8″ tripod screw and hey presto you have a belt and braces QR plate held on with two screws.
The great feature about the AF101 is it’s size, it is so well balanced on the Miller Tripod because it’s not a shoulder mount bruit. I tried the Nokton 25mm lens and the Canon 50mm f1.2 lens both work a treat.
Software : You can download various prompter APPs from the APPLE APP STORE but two that work best is i-Prompt Pro (FREE) and Teleprompt +. iPrompt Pro allows you to use the wired remote that comes with the datavideo prompter kit, you can download the APP called dv Prompter that datavideo recomend but I find the remote does not function nearly as well as iPrompt Pro which looks to be a clone of the datavideo version.
Teleprompt + for iPad is £5.99 and allows you to use your iPhone as a remote control for speed, pause and tabbing, I must admit the wired remote used with iPrompt is by far the most reliable for prompting.
UPDATE : Just spoke to the software developers at iPrompt and they inform me that an updated version of both iPrompt and datavideo which is the same software which gets rid of a bug that causes a jitter in the scrollong speed mode. The update should be with us via the Apple web site in about 5 days.
I’m thinking of getting one of these but I’m a bit worried about editing the script once its in the iPad and locked into the tripod bracket, do I have to take the iPad out of the bracket every time I want to edit text, can I update the text from a laptop?