Stop Writing on Your Script

[Music] hi welcome back to book from tape I'm Jordan what's Robinson and we are empowering actors with the tools you need to book your auditions directly from tape and I'm gonna say something that's gonna be not popular with some people and that's okay but allow me to defend myself I don't get I used to do it I don't get now people marking up their scripts the highlighter the writing and the margins all of that all of that work and again there's not gonna be popular that's fine but here's my reasoning why all of this beat work all of the working on working on beats putting a slash is writing your actions in the margin writing character descriptions highlighting stuff I learned all that I used to embrace it fully when I especially when I was doing a lot of theater right because in a theatrical setting you might be rehearsing this scene with the director and your scene partner on Monday you might not be able to get back to it until Friday but you want to be able to pick up on Friday with the exact same thing that you left off you want you don't want to lose time there five days later you want to be able to say great and we're back and we're working from the same spot and this is a diary of everything we talked about I see all the beats here I remember oh yeah we were working on this action okay great I get it put it aside let's get to work on Friday you know in the film and TV setting when you're on set when you're working with uh you know when you're actually there you're gonna be working with your scene partner and you're doing your scene oftentimes the director is going to come up to you in between takes or during a take and say ah and and come up to you and want to offer some feedback then that is your rehearsal then you know it's a 50/50 blend of this is the final product and also we're rehearsing until we get that final product right and so the idea of having a script and all these things markdown you're not gonna have time to go back to your chair and change oh oh you want to change the beat okay no just okay okay okay I'm ready all right that's not gonna happen right so in that sense it might help you to be prepared for this but you're not going to be able to use it for for your final day right but all that aside the whole point of learning a script is to get it off the page to get these little black words off of this white page and to get them into your brain on a scroll that is effortless that isn't even associated with the page anymore that it's just here in your mind and as you're responding to the other person they're just naturally flowing out of your mouth and into the world right and the more that we write on the page the more that we luck into that the more that we are imprinting that page in our brain and we are reliant on that so that I know when I get to this line it's at the top of page two oh and I wrote this in the margin and now I'm picturing that instead of just knowing what the words aren't being able to listen right and don't get me wrong there is that can be a great tool in order to in order to get it off your page and into your brain in order to associate the words right but at the end of the day all of that work can be done without ever writing anything down it can be done by going through and saying it out loud by rather than writing down the action or writing down what your background is tell it to the other person while you're rehearsing it with yourself tell it to the other person give them a monologue about why you're doing what you're doing or or or how this memory that you wanted to write on the page how it affected you and and put it into the space and it's going to make it more real for you and next time you come to that line in the scene you're gonna remember that monologue that you want to say but I'm just gonna I'm gonna think that and then I'm gonna say this other thing right and it allows you to leave the page aside the one thing that I do enjoy what the page is finding the words sometimes that the other person is saying that you hear and that's what you're responding to the next time you because we don't in a conversation we don't wait for one person to finish speaking before we have our line before if we're in a conversation we hear something in that other person's opinion conversation and we hear like one specific word and that triggers something in us that makes us say oh I want to talk about that right so but the dogs did you really think that we're just whatever that is right and but they I had that thought mid sentence of theirs and I had to wait for them to finish it before I could get in even though I was having the thought the whole time so to go through and to find those words or those phrases or whatever it is that this person says that makes you perk up and have that next thought that makes you want to go through sometimes I'll go through and also circle those just to make it super obvious when you're listening to them that oh that words really important right and I'll circle that on the page [Music] otherwise the the trick of this is to get it all off the page and the more we put things on the page we've the more we lock ourselves in to that page right so allow yourself to have that same process to find those same beats to do everything you need to do but put the page down find it in your body find it in your own words find it in this plane right so that now rather than picturing a white piece of paper you're picturing having said that to the person before I told you the story before and it's it's in my memory and now I can access that while I'm saying the words that were on the page as opposed to picturing my scribbled handwriting and kind of being present with you but also my brain is not quite 100% with you all right try it I'm a big guy I never highlight you don't need to highlight this isn't about counting lines anyway that's another thing thank you so much I'm Jordan of Robinson with book from tape you can check us out on our podcast if you want to take us with you on the road or on a jog or anything else quick little podcast snippets also we got another video here if you want to check out more videos in our coaching series gonna keep these going every once in awhile if you have any ideas check us out at book from tape calm we offer coaching and reels and websites for actors and other tools in order to empower the film and TV actor to book directly from tape thank you so much I'll see you next time [Music]