Do you suck at memorizing strains? Let’s change that. No extra excuses, no extra self-tapes the place you might be gazing your script half the time, or staring on the casting assistant in the midst of your CBS pilot audition questioning when you’re going to completely neglect the place you might be, lose your web page, smile nervously, and take a extremely lengthy awkward pause in the midst of your scene when you attempt to discover your line and get better, all of the whereas questioning simply how unhealthy your suggestions out of your agent goes to be.
You might be an actor, sure? You will spend the remainder of your profession happening final minute auditions, or having strains modified the day of your shoot I need you to know what you might be doing. Casting administrators and showrunners need you to know what you might be 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 strains and “make the character yours” when you may’t even keep 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, remember that. Like sitting proper subsequent to you within the ready room. So up your recreation, cease making excuses, and learn to memorize strains just like the unhealthy@ss you might be. I do not need you shedding out on a visitor spot on “Blue Bloods” since you could not get via 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 may’t.
Let’s repair this, sure? Listed here are my two prime methods to memorize shortly. I have been utilizing them for a really very long time, and recommending them to my college students.
1. Get the rehearsal Professional app in your cellphone. Simply do it. It is $19.95. Simply chill on the Starbucks for 3 days. This one is a recreation changer. It’s the best, most actor pleasant app in the marketplace, and helps you memorize big quantities of dialogue shortly. I do not work for them, I do not know them. I similar to it. You import the scene, spotlight your strains, file 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 strains if you’d like, do every kind of various voices, and get your freak on. However most significantly, you get an amazing sense of the rhythm of the scene, so that you’re prepared and versatile whenever you stroll into the audition room. (Tip: When recording, whisper your strains, and say the opposite characters’ strains out loud. This can assist you to depart the correct amount of area for strains, and in addition will forestall you from listening to your strains out loud and getting locked right into a “sample” of claiming it).
2. Write out your strains. Do individuals nonetheless use pen and paper? I have been doing this since my highschool drama instructor steered it once I needed to memorize a bunch of monologues for a half ass manufacturing of Molier’s “Tartuffe.” Write out your whole strains within the scene as one large 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, nevertheless it’s not. It is superb, and actually offers you a really feel for the arc of the scene, and in addition actually offers you a deeper understanding of the character and the thought course of. Writing out strains offers you this superb capacity to attach the thoughts to the web page, and actually helps you get the strains down chilly, particularly when you’ve gotten an audition for Aaron Sorkin and might’t mess up a single phrase.
3. Improvise the scene. Severely. In case your 60 12 months previous roommate sucks at it, and your mother is just too busy telling you to surrender on this performing factor, get an actor good friend and have them actually run via the scene with you in your individual phrases, many instances, and many various methods. It offers you a fuller, extra three dimensional really feel for the scene, fills out the connection between the characters, and then you definitely layer the strains on on the finish. By memorizing the sequence of occasions within the scene, the strains come so much 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 strains together with your hand, and spend like a number of days attempting to get the strains proper. That one by no means labored for me.
I really like you. Good luck!
