Do you suck at memorizing traces? Let’s change that. No extra excuses, no extra self-tapes the place you’re gazing your script half the time, or staring on the casting assistant in the midst of your CBS pilot audition questioning when you’ll completely neglect the place you’re, lose your web page, smile nervously, and take a extremely lengthy awkward pause in the midst of your scene whilst you attempt to discover your line and recuperate, all of the whereas questioning simply how dangerous your suggestions out of your agent goes to be.
You might be an actor, sure? You’re going to spend the remainder of your profession happening final minute auditions, or having traces modified the day of your shoot I would like you to know what you’re doing. Casting administrators and showrunners need you to know what you’re doing. Sure, I do know. “The script is available in late final night time whereas I used to be in the midst of a shift.” Or like 9am the DAY OF the audition, and there are 5 scenes, one in every of them together with a monologue with a bunch of medical jargon. F*&ck. How in God’s identify do you memorize all these traces and “make the character yours” when you possibly can’t even bear in mind the place you set your Subway card? How do you “join” to the reader when are hungover, drained, and have 3 extra auditions and have you ever choose your child up from day care, all earlier than your 5pm temp shift?
There’ll at all times be somebody extra memorized than you, do not forget that. Like sitting proper subsequent to you within the ready room. So up your sport, cease making excuses, and learn to memorize traces just like the dangerous@ss you’re. I do not need you dropping out on a visitor spot on “Blue Bloods” since you could not get by your speech to Tom Selleck’s character within the producer session, and needed to say “I am sorry, can I begin once more?” like 3 instances. No, you possibly can’t.
Let’s repair this, sure? Listed below are my two prime methods to memorize rapidly. I have been utilizing them for a really very long time, and recommending them to my college students.
1. Get the rehearsal Professional app to your telephone. Simply do it. It is $19.95. Simply chill on the Starbucks for 3 days. This one is a sport changer. It’s the best, most actor pleasant app in the marketplace, and helps you memorize big quantities of dialogue rapidly. I do not work for them, I do not know them. I similar to it. You import the scene, spotlight your traces, report them, and it performs again in a loop till you’ve gotten them down pat. You’ll be able to work on it within the card, on the subway, within the ready room, or doing the Stairmaster. You’ll be able to black out the opposite character’s traces in order for you, do all types of various voices, and get your freak on. However most significantly, you get an incredible sense of the rhythm of the scene, so that you’re prepared and versatile if you stroll into the audition room. (Tip: When recording, whisper your traces, and say the opposite characters’ traces out loud. It will enable you go away the correct amount of area for traces, and likewise will forestall you from listening to your traces out loud and getting locked right into a “sample” of claiming it).
2. Write out your traces. Do folks nonetheless use pen and paper? I have been doing this since my highschool drama instructor advised it after I needed to memorize a bunch of monologues for a half ass manufacturing of Molier’s “Tartuffe.” Write out your entire traces within the scene as one huge paragraph (not the opposite characters), then write it out a number of extra instances, breaking it up into smaller and smaller ideas every time. This appears time consuming, but it surely’s not. It is wonderful, and actually provides you a really feel for the arc of the scene, and likewise actually provides you a deeper understanding of the character and the thought course of. Writing out traces provides you this wonderful capability to attach the thoughts to the web page, and actually helps you get the traces down chilly, particularly when you’ve gotten an audition for Aaron Sorkin and may’t mess up a single phrase.
3. Improvise the scene. Significantly. In case your 60 12 months outdated roommate sucks at it, and your mother is just too busy telling you to surrender on this performing factor, get an actor buddy and have them actually run by the scene with you in your individual phrases, many instances, and many alternative methods. It provides you a fuller, extra three dimensional really feel for the scene, fills out the connection between the characters, and then you definitely layer the traces on on the finish. By memorizing the sequence of occasions within the scene, the traces come quite a bit simpler, and have a more energizing really feel to them.
Strive it. Belief me. Discover your “factor.” Be good at this. Please? Whittle your prep time down to love an hour and save your sanity each time one in every of these final minute auditions are available. Or maintain doing the factor the place you cowl your traces along with your hand, and spend like a number of days attempting to get the traces proper. That one by no means labored for me.
I really like you. Good luck!
