Teleprompter for Course Launch and Announcement Videos: How to Script and Record the "Big News" Video on iPhone

The announcement video is the one where every word has been argued over. A course launch, a new offer, a rebrand, a company announcement, "I'm starting something new": the news is fixed, the date is fixed, someone has signed off on a sentence, and it still has to sound like you talking. That is the job a teleprompter is for, and the video where reading shows. This is the scripting and recording guide for the big news video on iPhone with the free Teleprompter: Camera Overlay: a five-beat structure, a worked launch script, a teaser and a full version from one script, and the cases where you should put the prompter away. It follows the recorded Q&A post.

Why announcement videos fail

• The news is buried. Thirty seconds of "so, a bit of backstory" before the announcement. Viewers who came for the news leave before it arrives.
• Over-hype. "Game-changing", "I've never been more excited", three superlatives a sentence. Hype is what people say when the news cannot carry itself.
• It reads like a press release. Passive voice, "we are pleased to announce", features with no person in them. This is what happens when the written announcement is pasted straight into the prompter.
• No date, no ask. The video ends on "more soon", so nobody does anything.

A script fixes the first and fourth by design. The second and third are fixed by how you write it.

The 5-beat structure for a launch or announcement video

Write the script as five beats, in this order, each a short paragraph in the app with a blank line between them:

• 1. The news, in the first sentence. What it is and when. Not the backstory, not your feelings about it.
• 2. Who it is for. One sentence that lets the right people lean in and the wrong people leave.
• 3. What changes for them. Not a feature list: the before and after, in the viewer's day. Two sentences.
• 4. One proof point or story. Why you built it, what the beta group said, the moment you realised it was needed. One, not three. This beat is what makes it sound like a person.
• 5. The one thing to do now, with a date. Join the list, pre-order, reply, show up. One action, one date, where the link is.

At a conversational 140 words a minute, that lands between 60 and 90 seconds, or 140 to 210 words. A 400-word draft is a webinar, not an announcement.

A worked 75-second launch script

A fictional example: a short course, Freelance Dashboard, that teaches freelancers to build their own client-tracking templates. Bracketed beat markers are not spoken.

[1 NEWS]
Freelance Dashboard opens on Monday the 24th. It's the course I've been building all year, and it's finally ready.

[2 WHO]
It's for freelancers who run their business out of a dozen notes, three spreadsheets and a chat thread with themselves.

[3 WHAT CHANGES]
In six short lessons you build one set of templates: a client tracker, a project board and an invoice log that talk to each other. Nothing to subscribe to, nothing to migrate later. A system you own and can change when your work changes.

[4 PROOF]
I built the first version for myself after I double-booked two clients in the same week and forgot to invoice a third. The beta group's most common message was "can I just have the whole thing?" So here it is.

[5 DO THIS, BY WHEN]
Enrolment opens Monday the 24th and closes Friday the 28th. The link is in the caption. Put your name on the list today and the first lesson is in your inbox Monday morning.

About 160 words, a little over a minute spoken. Beat 4 is the only one with a story, and it is the one people will quote back to you.

How to make a scripted announcement feel spontaneous

The script floats over the camera preview next to the front lens, so reading already looks like eye contact. The rest is deciding where to leave the text:

• Write the hook in your own words. Say beat 1 out loud to a friend, then type what you actually said. The approved wording goes in beat 3, where precision matters; beat 1 is yours.
• Record beat 1 three times, back to back. The first is stiff, the second right, the third loose. Keep all three in the takes library and choose in the edit.
• Let voice-follow wait while you ad-lib the story. With voice-driven scrolling on, the app listens with the iPhone's on-device speech recognition and advances the script only as you say the words. Put a one-line cue for beat 4 in the script, look at the lens, tell the story from memory, and the text stays where you left it. Read the first words of beat 5 and it finds your place again; stumble on the date and it re-syncs rather than running ahead.
• Keep the fixed sentence fixed. The signed-off line (a price, a date, a legal phrase) is read verbatim. Everything around it can be loose because that line is safe.

Classic auto-scroll with the speed slider is better only for one tight read with no ad-libbing, or a room too noisy for speech recognition.

One script, two videos: the teaser and the full version

Most launches want a teaser a few days before and the full announcement on the day. That is the same five beats cut two ways.

• Teaser (15 to 20 seconds): beats 1 and 5 only. "Freelance Dashboard opens on Monday the 24th. Link in the caption, put your name down and the first lesson lands Monday morning." Save it as its own short script so the take starts at the top; scripts are unlimited.
• Full version (60 to 90 seconds): all five beats, as above.
• Record both in the same sitting, same light, framing and shirt, so the teaser looks like a clip from the announcement rather than a separate production.

Both are recorded in portrait 4K and the script never appears in the saved video, so each take is a clean file for a Reel, a Short or a launch page.

Caption and pinned comment from the same script

The script is already the caption. Beat 1 is its first line, beat 5 its last, with the link spelled out, since a spoken "link in the caption" has to point at something. Beat 2 becomes the pinned comment: "This is for you if you run your business out of a dozen notes and three spreadsheets. Questions below." If a date changes between recording and posting, the caption is where you correct it, and say so.

When NOT to script the big news

• When the news is sensitive. Layoffs, a closure, a price increase that will hurt people, a public mistake. A smooth five-beat read sounds like a comms department even when sincere. Write three words on a card, look at the lens, and speak from notes.
• When you cannot say the date yet. An announcement without a date reads as vapour. Wait until beat 5 is real.
• When it needs a conversation, not a broadcast. A change that affects a small group should reach them directly before any video exists.

Checklist before you hit record

• News and date in the first sentence; date confirmed by whoever owns it.
• Beat 3 has the signed-off wording verbatim; everything else in your own words.
• Beat 4 is a one-line cue, so you tell it rather than read it.
• Teaser and full scripts saved separately, both under 210 words.
• Voice-follow on, text size up, front lens next to the first line, room quiet.
• Caption and pinned comment drafted from beats 1, 2 and 5.

FAQ

• How long should an announcement video be? Sixty to ninety seconds for the full version, 15 to 20 for a teaser. Anything more belongs in a follow-up video or the landing page.
• Can I use the same video on every platform? The recording is portrait 4K with no script on it, so yes for Reels, Shorts, TikTok and LinkedIn; only the caption changes, which is why deriving it from the script pays off.
• Does the app upload my script or recording? No. Speech recognition runs on the phone with Apple's on-device frameworks, the language is detected automatically, and scripts, audio and video stay on the iPhone; it works offline. The product demo post and the sales and outreach post cover the same workflow for other video types.
• Can I go live with it? No. Teleprompter: Camera Overlay records; it does not stream. Record the announcement, post it, and do any live Q&A afterwards without a prompter.
• What does it cost? It is free on the App Store, iPhone-only, with an occasional ad; a small one-time purchase removes ads. No subscription, no watermark, unlimited scripts and a takes library in the free version.

Next in this series: how to script and record a "what I learned this year" retrospective video, where the temptation is to list everything and the craft is choosing three things.