Teleprompter for YouTube Videos: A Simple Setup

Basic setup is in how to use a teleprompter, and delivery is in reading a script on camera naturally. This post covers only what is specific to YouTube.

Long video or Short: decide before you write

The format sets the length, the shape of the frame and how many takes you need.

YouTube’s help page on three-minute Shorts says that you can create Shorts up to three minutes long, that a video with a square or vertical aspect ratio up to three minutes is categorised as a Short, and that for long-form videos you should use a wider aspect ratio such as 16:9. The page applies this to videos uploaded on or after 15 October 2024. So a Short means recording in portrait and keeping the script under three minutes of speaking time, which is 390 to 540 words at the paces in teleprompter speed in words per minute.

Turn the outline into chapters: a worked example

A script written in sections gives you chapters almost for free. YouTube’s help page on chapters sets the rules for adding them by hand: the first timestamp in the description must start at 00:00, the video needs at least three timestamps in ascending order, and the minimum length for a chapter is 10 seconds. It also says that if you do not yet have access to chapters, you can apply for access to advanced features.

Here is a how-to video planned from the other end. We chose the length of each section, then computed the words each one needs at 150 words per minute and the timestamp where each one starts.

The left column pastes straight into the description as seven chapters, the first at 00:00, the shortest at 20 seconds, so all three rules are met. The words column is the budget for each section of the script. If you speak at 130 words per minute instead, the same 1,125 words would run 8 minutes 39 seconds, and the later timestamps shift, so work out your own pace first.

Write the script section by section, with a short title for each in your notes. That has three benefits:

• A mistake costs one section. You retake a minute, not the whole video.
• You can reorder or cut in the edit without hunting through a long recording.
• The chapter titles already exist, and they double as the plan the viewer sees.

The opening: say what the viewer gets

A talking video has a job in its first sentences: say what the viewer will be able to do by the end, then start delivering. The 20-second opening in the table is deliberately short for that reason. Write it last, once you know exactly what the rest covers, and read it aloud to check that it sounds like a person and not a title card.

Recording a long video with a phone

Record one section per take, then stop. When you slip, drag the script back to the start of that section and read it again, instead of starting the whole video over.

1. Fix the phone. Put the lens at eye level or a little above, on something that does not move when you tap the screen.
2. Choose the frame. Portrait for a Short. Landscape for most long videos, where the reading window sits beside the lens and your eyes stay close to it.
3. Set the text size. Large enough to read from where you sit, without leaning in.
4. Choose a pace you can say clearly and start slower than feels necessary.
5. Use a short countdown before each take, so you can settle before the first line.
6. Leave a beat of silence before and after each section. It makes the edit clean.

Leave mirroring off. Mirroring is for a glass rig, where a reflection reverses the text. A phone app shows the text the right way round.

When something goes wrong

If the last problem worries you, the teleprompter app checklist lists what to check before you choose an app.

When the script runs long

A script written to 7:30 will often come out longer on the day, once you add pauses and retakes. Decide in advance what goes first. In the worked outline above, we would cut from the middle: shorten Step 2 or trim the Common mistakes section before touching the opening or the summary, because the opening has to say what the video delivers and the summary is where it lands. Cutting 60 seconds at 150 words per minute means removing about 150 words, so you can make the cut in the script and not in the edit.

A tidy habit is to keep the plan as a table of section, minutes and words beside the script. When a section grows, you see at once which other section must shrink to hold the total.

If you voice over a screen recording

Not every YouTube video shows a face. For a tutorial recorded from a screen, you read the script into a microphone and put the recording under the footage, so the eye line stops mattering and only the pace and the pauses do. The section plan, the word budget and the chapter timestamps work in exactly the same way. Read slightly slower than you would talk to a person, because the viewer is also watching something change on screen.

Before you record: a short list

• The format is chosen: portrait and under three minutes for a Short, landscape for most long videos.
• The script is in sections, each with a title and a time budget.
• The first timestamp is 00:00, and there are at least three.
• Mirroring is off unless you film through glass.
• You recorded a 20-second test and played it back.

Then record the first section, stop and play it back before you go on. The first take tells you more than any list.