One of the things that surprise me is that hand-written cue cards are still used on some live TV shows. I would have thought that teleprompters with giant screens and lettering would have replaced a person standing in front and whipping out one card after another. Via Rusty Blazenhoff I came across this video of how Saturday Night Live uses cue cards, as narrated by their head cue card person. He makes a good point that since the show is live, they cannot afford the risk of a teleprompter glitch and that the old fashioned cue cards are fail safe.
Mano Singham
Just another Freethought Blogs site
Back in the old days, actors learned their lines.
Is writing cue cards too complex for women brains to handle? I guess the Sharpies are too big for their dainty lady hands, and you need masculine spatial orientation skills to cope with cutting the cards in half and rotating them.
Comme toujours, video not available.
I can’t watch it either.
Sure, until the cue card person has a massive coronary.
Tabby, that’s why they have a res-cue person standing by.
chigau @#1,
These shows are written and revised almost up to show time so there is not much time for memorizing. I am actually pretty impressed at how well the actors manage to read the lines without seeming to.
DonDueed @#4,
Ha!
Mano #6
Some are better than others, and some are dreadful at it. If you like and respect Robert De Niro as an actor, don’t watch him on SNL because his struggles with the cue cards make him a comedy black hole.
@ chigau (違う) No. 1
Back in the old days actors had time to rehearse from scripts written months or even years before their performance.
When the script is not finished until minutes before you go on, memorizing is not an option.
Jeff Hess
Back in the old days, actors learned their lines…and had to walk to the TV studio in a blizzard, and we were thankful!
TV writer Mark Evanier had some interesting insights when asked about cue cards on his site a couple months ago :
https://www.newsfromme.com/2018/12/18/from-the-e-mailbag-319/
What struck with me is how, especially on a show like SNL where the actors rarely look towards the camera, the card holders can easily move around to always be in the right position for the actors’ sight-lines. And it’s clear that a lot of SNL alum, such as Seth Meyers and Jimmy Fallon, really like cue cards and have continued to use them on their shows even when, since they’re always looking at a camera, a teleprompter is a viable option.
Steve @#10,
Thanks for those links, which I found very interesting.