Much fat has been chewed over the Ed Miliband conference speech
debacle when, having shunned the autocue, he omitted to mention the deficit or
immigration. Why memorise a speech if
you’re going to forget two of its most important sections? He claims it is more natural. However, it didn’t help him deliver his
excruciating jokes. And it didn’t help his
anecdotes about the ‘ordinary’ (normal?) people he said he met while hanging
around Hampstead Heath. So why take a
risk when the autocue will ensure you never forget?
A glance at George Osborne’s conference speech gives us one
reason for avoiding the autocue. Osborne
with his Peter Pan hairdo rarely cuts an authoritative figure. His voice is light, his hand gestures weak
but add in the autocue (other brands are available) and he becomes glassy-eyed
and frozen-faced.
Autocues aren’t easy to use.
In TV studios they’re screens that slot onto the front of the
camera. Someone who later became a war correspondent
once told me about his brief, abortive attempt at studio presentation. One day, when the camera swung back taking
with it the autocue, instead of reading his paper script he climbed onto the
desk in an attempt to follow the camera across the studio – in full view of the
audience.
As someone who needed glasses but was too vain to wear them,
I struggled with the autocue until I discovered that you could change the font
and the background. The text ended up
looking more like a shopping list but at least I could read it.
Rookie newsreaders can always be identified by the
rabbit-in-the-headlamps look as they desperately cling to the autocue. For some reason, people always fear that if they
blink, they’ll lose their place. They
often do not realise that the autocue operator will adapt to their pace so they speed up or slow down
until their delivery sounds wholly unnatural.
Which brings us back to George.
Normally, conference speakers have up to three transparent
screens onto which the speech is projected.
Cameron seemed perfectly at ease with the set-up for his conference
speech. However, Osborne’s autocue seemed
to be projected on the wall at the back of the hall, above the heads of the
audience. He therefore looked not just
glassy-eyed but appeared to be gazing above his audience into the middle
distance. It isn’t a good look for
anyone.
But it doesn’t have to be like that. Having experienced the dangers of the autocue
live on air, I feel well-placed to advise.
If you have to use autocue, get some proper training; give yourself time
to get used to it; and learn that if you blink or look away you will be able to pick up the words
again. One client asked me to train the
Chief Nurse of a major Trust to use autocue for their awards ceremony. Presenting off autocue is certainly not on
the RCN list of nursing skills and no-one would expect her to do as well as she
did. However, with advice and guidance
she performed like a pro. It helped that
I wrote the script. Dickensian passages
are out for autocue speeches. Writing
needs to be natural, composed in short sentences and devoid of complex clauses.
These days, no exec presenting to a major conference should
fear the autocue. The trainer can provide a simple bit of kit that fits on the
camera and is operated via an iPad. It
can also be operated by a foot pedal which is surprisingly easy to work – even if
you’ve never been a seamstress - so you control the speed. But it is a new skill and one to be learned
and polished. It is never worth the risk
of looking gormless. Even when your
audience is the adoring Tory faithful.
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