How to Use a Teleprompter When You Are NOT the One on Camera: Interviews, Two-Person Videos and Reading Questions to a Guest (iPhone)

Most teleprompter advice assumes you are the one talking to the lens. But a lot of iPhone video is the other way round: you hold the phone, someone else is in frame, and what you need to read is a list of questions or the cue for the next segment. A paper list means looking down and losing the shot. The same free app that puts a script over the selfie camera works just as well when the camera points away from you.

This post covers four setups with Teleprompter: Camera Overlay, the free iOS teleprompter that floats your script over the live camera preview, records portrait 4K from the front or back camera, and keeps the text out of the saved video. The earlier post on voice-follow versus auto-scroll explains the two scrolling modes; here we only cover what changes when you are behind the phone.

Why the overlay works for the person behind the camera

Three things make this possible. The script is an overlay on your screen only, so your guest's video stays clean. Recording works with the back camera, so the phone faces the guest while the screen faces you. And voice-follow listens to the words you read with Apple's on-device speech recognition: when you stop reading, the script stops; when you pick it up again, it finds your place. So you ask a question, the script reaches the end of it, and it waits while your guest answers because you are no longer reading. Nothing is uploaded; it works in airplane mode.

Setup 1: the interview, you ask, they answer

A podcast-style chat, a customer story, a family history recording: the phone is in your hands or on a tripod, pointed at the guest.

• 1. Write the questions as cues, not sentences. Create a new script and type one line per question, a handful of words you glance at and then say in your own voice: 3. First week at the company? rather than a full sentence read word for word. Number them so you can skip around without losing count.
• 2. Leave a blank line between questions. The gap marks the stop and shows where the next one starts when you look back after a long answer.
• 3. Switch to the back camera and frame the guest in portrait before you worry about the text.
• 4. Turn the text size up. At arm's length, or on a tripod a step away, the size you use for selfie recording is too small. Leave mirror mode off.
• 5. Choose voice-follow. Read each question aloud at your normal pace. The script scrolls as you speak and stops when you stop, so during the answer the text sits still. If you improvise a follow-up that is not in the script, the app waits; when you read the next line from the list, it re-finds your place.
• 6. Tap record, then ask. The take lands in the takes library and saves to Photos in full quality, with no questions in the recording.

Classic auto-scroll works too: it moves at a constant speed set with the slider; tap to pause while the guest answers, drag to jump to the next question.

Setup 2: two-person videos, one reads, one operates

Person A talks to the camera, person B holds the phone. The script belongs to the person in frame, so the phone is set up for them.

• 1. Use the front camera. The talent needs the text next to the lens for eye contact, so the screen faces them and the operator frames from behind the phone or from the side with a small tripod.
• 2. Let the talent set text size and mode. Voice-follow is listening to person A, so the operator stays quiet while the take runs.
• 3. The operator starts and stops the take.

Setup 3: a scripted intro or outro while the guest waits

Interview videos often open with a written intro and close with a call to action, both spoken by the host. Put the intro at the top of the same script as your questions and the outro at the bottom; voice-follow carries you through the intro at full pace, stops when you hand over to the guest, and picks up the cues as you ask them. If you shoot the intro to camera separately, flip to the front camera for that clip; the takes library keeps every clip together.

Setup 4: the guest wants their own lines

Sometimes the person in frame needs the text: a colleague recording a testimonial, a founder reading a statement. Set the phone up for them as you would for yourself.

• 1. Paste their lines into a new script. Scripts are unlimited, so it can sit beside your question lists.
• 2. Front camera, tripod, mirror mode off. Mirror mode is for reflecting glass rigs; on a bare phone it makes the text unreadable.
• 3. Bigger text than they think they need. They are further from the phone than a selfie, and nervous readers lose their line.
• 4. Voice-follow in their language. The app auto-detects the script's language and listens in it, for every language your iPhone's on-device recognition supports, so a guest reading in German or Spanish needs no settings change.
• 5. Have them read it through once before you tap record so the scrolling is not a surprise.

Practical tips that make the difference

• Keep the phone at the guest's eye line. A camera above or below their eyes looks like a security camera; fix the tripod height before you touch the app.
• Cues, numbers, gaps. Short lines are picked up at a glance; numbers let you skip; blank lines mark the stops.
• Sound favours whoever is closer to the phone. The built-in microphone is next to you, not the guest, so your questions will be loud and their answers quieter. The post on the best microphone for teleprompter voice-follow compares the built-in mic, AirPods and a lavalier; for interviews, a mic on the guest matters more than anything you do with the text.
• Say the cue as written. Voice-follow matches your words against the script; if you reword a question so it no longer resembles the line, the app has nothing to match until you read a recognisable line again.

When NOT to use a teleprompter as the interviewer

• Formal or sensitive interviews. When the conversation depends on rapport, a host glancing at a screen between questions feels scripted. Memorise three questions and let the rest follow.
• When the guest finds the moving text distracting. With the front camera facing them, some people cannot stop watching the words scroll. Use the back camera so they only see the lens, or go back to paper.
• Long multi-camera shoots. The app records one phone's camera. With two angles and a separate audio recorder, the phone can still show your cues, but plan the rest of the kit separately.

The short version

Back camera on the guest, cues as short numbered lines with gaps, text size up, mirror mode off, voice-follow on. Read the question, let the script stop while they talk, read the next one. The recording shows them and never shows your list. The app is free, offline, with no watermark and no subscription; a small one-time purchase removes the occasional ad. The same approach works for online courses and tutorials where a co-host or demo partner is in frame.

Next in this series: using a teleprompter for live Q&A sessions and AMAs, where the questions come from the audience and have to get into the script while you are still on air.