Behind the Scenes – Floor Director & Teleprompter

Two other main studio positions beside camera are floor director and teleprompter.

It’s the floor director’s responsibility to manage everyone in the studio, give cues to the talent on desk and be the physical arm of the director. The floor director meanders between cameras and gives hand signals to the talent and makes sure the studio is ready in time for the show and the cameras are in the right position for each shot during the show.

A sheet called a rundown is used to keep track of the order of stories in the show. By reading this sheet and listening to the director’s calls, the floor director is able to set up each shot as soon as possible.

Here’s a brief video showing Kevin floor directing for the March 26 show.

Teleprompter is quite important for the anchors on desk. Scripts are never memorized, so without the prompter, the anchors need to refer to the paper copies of the script on the desk and awkwardly look up and down.

The computer screen shows what's live on the prompter along with a timer

Currently, the prompter is loaded and formatted by copying and pasting the script text from the original Word documents saved on a central server. The scrolling is controlled with a handheld controller, and the desk the prompter computer is on is movable so the operator can interact with the talent if necessary.

As always, feel free to suggest new topics and curiosities by leaving a comment or clicking on “Contact Us” in the upper right of the page. The next topics will be the Playout Server and Chyron!