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Video Pencil, Shoot & CueCam Presenter for Students
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Michael Forrest - September 2025
What’s with all the pillows?
When I’m walking through the city I’m seeing a lot of young people carrying pillows. Why?
Millions of people are leaving home for the first time. Step one of student life is making sure you have a cosy place to sleep, hence a walk to Edinburgh Primark for a new pillow and duvet. But what’s step two?
How should I know?
It’s a long time since I went to university! I had to go to the computer room to use the internet, which had about fourteen websites, and if I didn’t get to the library before everybody else then I couldn’t get the books I needed.
Lecturers used overhead projectors and drew on plastic films with dry wipe markers, and used these big mechanical chalk boards where they’d push them up as they added more equations to whatever thermodynamics derivation they were copying out.
Step two, for me, was to go to the book shop and spend most of my student grant on Physics textbooks before heading to the bank to ask for an overdraft. Hopefully that’s not you!
Luckily, my partner has worked in universities for years and was instrumental in helping Imperial College London to transition to remote and hybrid teaching back in 2020, so she knows this world inside-out and helped me to write this post.
So in 2025, what’s step two?
Step 2: Tech
Step two is probably tech. Can’t learn without tech these days, right? (I mean when I went to University I had to go to the computer room to use the internet but times have changed!)
Many programs provide iPads to students, and Apple offers education discounts on Macs, so hopefully this is you. If not, it might be worth the overdraft in the long term, given how quickly a Chromebook or Microsoft Surface turns into a doorstop.
Meanwhile this MacBook Air has been in use since 2017!
So if you’ve got yourself a shiny Mac or iPad, you can get to step three.
Masters, PhD or Job Hunting?
And even if you’re not a new student, you may be continuing on with a Masters and PhD program, or getting ready for work placements and job interviews.
If that’s you, what I’m going to talk about will help you even more.
Step 3: Software
Step three is getting the right software. Unfortunately, as a student, you’re gonna have to use some janky tech like Blackboard and Teams. That’s just the way it goes. It’s just what happens when big companies sell to people who don’t really have to use the software. But there is a way to take the edge off. Especially when it comes to video.
Video.
Video is a central part of the modern curriculum. Either as learning materials and recorded lectures, or remote video, like going to seminars or collaborating on group projects.
You may need to submit presentations in video form, and while you might face restrictions when starting out (like being forced to use Powerpoint) as you progress beyond your undergraduate or into the workplace, it’s always a good idea to learn better tools.
Here is a meme because I heard young people like memes. CueCam’s my thing which I am now going to explain so that this becomes you.
Common video challenges
- Screen Sharing
- Editing
- Confidence
Screen Sharing
Screen sharing should be the last resort not your only option
Remote calls are fine up until the point you want to go beyond talking on camera. As soon as you want to illustrate a point you’ll end up dropping a link in chat or having to share your screen. I believe that screen sharing should be your last resort, not your only option.
Editing
If you have to submit a video, you might end up having to edit. Editing is a skill that can only be developed with experience, and is incredibly time-consuming. If you leave recording a presentation until the last minute, enjoy staying up two nights in a row just to trim out the good bits.
Actually you might not even be allowed to edit your presentation, so you’d best get a good take!
Confidence
If you’re not used to speaking in a group call or filming yourself, there are ways to make things easier.
For example, a teleprompter can be invaluable, not just for remembering what you want to say, but for making eye contact with the camera (and hence, all the people you’re talking to).
Sounds advanced and/or expensive? Not with the right tools.
Enter CueCam
CueCam Presenter is a Mac app that gives you a virtual camera, a teleprompter and many other production tools. What’s a teleprompter? What’s a virtual camera? Why would you want one? I’ll tell you.
Virtual Camera
CueCam’s virtual camera makes it trivial to share a quick picture, or a second camera pointed at your book (without your face disappearing from view), and you can switch between showing different things without the friction of a screen share.
It even lets you draw on your webcam using your iPad. You can pull up a panel for sketching, or annotate passages on a snapshot of a page of the book you’re discussing.
How does it work?
You install CueCam on your Mac and it will install a virtual camera that you can use in Teams (and any other video apps).
Install Video Pencil on your iPad and it will connect automatically to CueCam, letting you see your virtual camera on the iPad screen, where you can start drawing.
Teleprompter
A teleprompter puts your notes in front of your camera lens, so you can read them without breaking eye contact. TV presenters and professional speakers use them all the time.
Here, the glass panels reflect a screen of text. It’s at the correct angle for the speaker!
Here’s what a TV teleprompter looks like. Camera in the back, screen reflected into a piece of glass so it can be read into the lens. (Credit: Adorama)
You probably don’t have a production crew, but you can still use a teleprompter, and you don’t even need to read it for it to be useful!
Here’s how CueCam does it. If you have a hardware teleprompter, you can put your notes like this.
If you have an iPhone, it’s more like this. Actually the text would be over by the camera lens, not at the bottom!
In both cases, you’re seeing a video feed as well as the text. That video can be you, or it can be your Zoom call!
How do you prepare your speaker notes?
CueCam has a super-efficient text editor for setting up cue cards. Each card goes in your teleprompter, but you can also attach titles and images if you really want to spice things up.
But it’s also nice to keep it a secret and just talk, so nobody knows you’re doing something special… Maybe throw in a drawing here and there…
Confidence
Confidence will come with practice, but with CueCam you’ll be less worried about forgetting what you wanted to say, and you won’t get stuck trying to verbally articulate something when a drawing would make it clear instantly.
CueCam makes it easy to get polished videos in one take. You can get the benefits of editing without wasting a lot of time.
The good thing about one-take recordings is that when you mess up, you’ll be better every time. Even if it feels frustrating at times, the results are worth it.
Watching yourself back is a great way to become a better speaker. The better you get, the more confident you’ll feel.
With your teleprompter you won’t waste hours on memorisation, and you can improve and refine your script as you go.
If you’re on a video call, you don’t want a script, but it’s always good to have your notes.
Beyond university
Video presentation skills will carry on into your professional life. To be honest, you’ll be better on camera than most other people in the companies you talk to. You’ll impress them consciously with your academic achievements and unconsciously through your eye contact and how articulate you can be when you have prepared notes. And you’ll be memorable because you can drop in a picture, a sketch or a bit of magic sparkle.
Price
I believe that education is incredibly important, and with crushing student debt and cuts to education being so prevalent, I wanted to make sure that students and teachers can all benefit from my work.
The full version of CueCam Presenter costs $14.99/month. That’s not just the Mac app, it also unlocks Video Pencil and Shoot Pro Webcam which both cost $99 (lifetime).
That’s affordable for normal people but maybe less so if you’re a student.
So for students it’s just £3.99/month (or $2.99/month if you pay for a year up-front). All you need is an academic email address and you can get this price. I mean, $35.88 for a year, when you just got your student loan, is basically free, right? I don’t even need to say how many coffees.
But I will, because now I want to know.
Let’s see: $35.88 / 365 = $0.09/day. A coffee is like $5, that’s a fiftieth of a cup.
And here is an AI generated picture of two teaspoons of coffee.
And that’s why we don’t rely on AI for serious work...
Lifetime pricing
Even better, the lifetime price is just $149. Instead of the usual lifetime price of $479. That’s all three apps, unlocked forever.
To summarise
What did we learn?
- With a Mac + iPad, you can get secret video super powers.
- CueCam’s virtual camera makes it easy to seamlessly share things and draw on your webcam
- A teleprompter is a great way to be more confident and communicate better on camera
- Making videos with CueCam is a great way to build confidence, as you can focus on delivery instead of memorisation, you don’t waste time making slides, and you get into the habit of watching yourself back
- CueCam can be taken far beyond study as it can enhance your postgraduate journey or your entry into the workplace
- CueCam’s education discounts make it a no-brainer for students, and if you get it now, you have it forever.
How do I get CueCam?
CueCam should be downloaded from the website. It’s fully signed and notarized by Apple, I just can’t use the App Store because I’m doing special things with audio and video which they don’t yet facilitate in the App Store.
For Shoot and Video Pencil, find them in the App Store on your iPhone / iPad.