From cardboard to smart screen: we tell you the story of the teleprompter

In the program "Historically yours" on Europe 1, the journalist David Castello-Lopes returned to the origin of the teleprompter.

From its creation with the beginnings of television to its evolution in the 1980s, he tells us how this object distorts the idea that we have of reality. 

Journalist David Castello-Lopes, in the program Historically yours on Europe 1, looks back every day on the origins of an object or a concept.

This Wednesday, he is interested in the teleprompter, this object used on television by journalists and politicians.

From its beginnings as a simple piece of paper, to its evolution in the 80s, to become today a machine that adapts to the speed of your voice, it tells us everything. 

"Television and moving images in general is the most deceptive medium. Let me explain myself a little. The thing with television and cinema is that it inspires confidence… More than sound alone or Writes it. We say to ourselves 'This is reality, since I see it and I hear it'. But precisely because it inspires confidence, and well it's easier for television to lie and to transmit realities completely false that look relentless.

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In this studio for example, where this chronicle is being filmed.

If during my column, we show your laughing face Stéphane, we will say to ourselves: 'What a success this column!

Even the great Stéphane Bern seems to appreciate it '.

If, on the other hand, we show Olivier Poels 'face, his Gargantua air deprived of dessert, then we are going to say to ourselves:' What the hell is this column.

Give us back Zitrone, that was journalism. '

And in the same way, if you film from the face a man who reads a teleprompter without ever also filming said teleprompter, you have the impression that Stéphane knows all the texts of Secret d'histoire inside out.

The magic of the teleprompter

Good for him it turns out that it is true because his memory is prodigious but for the simple mortals of the audio-visual one, it is false.

PPDA he really seemed to get the information on the Beirut attacks out of his memory.

While not.

Emmanuel Macron when he tells us that we will be confined until 2024, he seems to get him out of his guts.

But in fact no.

And this lie is the teleprompter that makes it possible.

You've all been on TV here so you know how a teleprompter works.

But for those who don't know, the brilliant thing about the teleprompter is that the text you need to read, it scrolls past the camera lens.

And so when you look at this text, to read it, well you also look at the objective behind it.

But how then?

Well, thanks to an inclined glass placed in front of the lens.

The scrolling text is reflected in the glass so you can see it.

But on the other hand, this window is transparent and therefore we can film through it.

Used by Eisenhower in 1952

So it comes from the beginnings of television.

Because what happened?

In the early days of television, there were a lot of actors who came from the theater who walked in front of the camera to present stuff and even play in little live dramas.

And suddenly, the actors had to start learning a lot more text.

Because it wasn't a play we played for three months.

It was three plays a week.

And obviously, there are some who were really struggling.

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And so they started asking for the stuff that's kind of the ancestor of the teleprompter.

That is to say a guy next to the camera holding boxes with the text written on them.

And then they thought maybe we could automate it all to make it more regular.

And it was done in 1948.

The first teleprompter was a text written on butcher's wrapping paper, which unwound in the bottom of a suitcase with belts attached to a motor.

The first president who used it was Eisenhower in 1952. With a scroll that was tens of meters long.

An invention "to really look like"

But the problem at the time was that the text was still placed above the camera or on the sides, so the gaze of the speaker was a bit off.

But in 1959, there is a television producer who found the mirror and who therefore allowed journalists and politicians to really act like.

With one more invention for politicians.

Who is the double teleprompter for their speech.

One on the left, the other on the right.

That way they can switch from one to the other.

To make it kind they are addressed to everyone at the same time.

So until the 1980s, it was still a scroll of paper that was scrolling. Then of course it became screens, which allows you to change the text until the last moment. So normally there should always be an employee behind the teleprompter who scrolls it as the person speaks it. But the latest innovation is a teleprompter that understands what you're saying. And which automatically adjusts the scrolling speed to the rate of your voice. To make the lie even more complete. "