Memorizing lines for actors the easy way. Introducing Go Offbook

Web For Actors June 16, 2019 3:21 Resources Acting Training

A walkthrough of Go Offbook, a free tool that turns a pasted script into color-coded flashcards with audio for the other characters' lines.

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7 Things Actors Should Know About Using Go Offbook to Memorize Lines

Drawn from what is actually said on camera, so you can decide whether to spend the 3:21 watching it.

Paste the script in and clean it first

Go Offbook is a free line memorization tool from Web For Actors. You paste your script into the box and click "clean the script" to strip out unnecessary spaces. It pays to read through afterward and check nothing is malformed before moving on.

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Separate stage directions onto their own line

Anything that is not dialogue, called exposition in the tool, needs to be handled before processing. Stage directions and character descriptions can either be deleted outright or moved onto their own line so the tool can flag them separately in step two.

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The tool auto-detects the characters in the scene

Clicking "process the script" runs character recognition. In the demonstration with the Romeo and Juliet balcony dialogue, it correctly picked up both names. You confirm the list before continuing.

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Pick your character and color-code the rest

Step three is choosing which character is yours. Your lines are always shown in green, and you assign a color to every other character. Juliet was set to blue in the walkthrough, which makes the finished script readable at a glance.

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You can have the other characters' lines read aloud

Step five offers generated audio for the lines you do not speak, so you get a cue to respond to instead of reading a partner's part yourself. It is described as not a perfect science, but it gives you an audio track for every line that is not yours.

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Flashcards let you hide your lines and test yourself

Processing merges consecutive lines by the same character and then feeds everything into a flashcard view, color-coded by speaker. Audio feedback and clicks can be toggled off. When you feel ready, hide your own lines and run the cards again.

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Bookmark the link and keep the cards as long as you need

Processed scripts stay on the page, so you can bookmark the URL and work the cards on the go rather than reprocessing each time. More features were said to be coming to the page.

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Acting Craft is built by Web For Actors, who also wrote our guides for actors, every claim linked to its source, which draws on videos like this one.

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Full transcript (519 words)

hello actors Thomas from wherefore actors here I have a brand new freebie for you today it's called go off-book calm and it is intended for actors to help memorize lines so let's jump right into it and I'll show you a quick example of how it works you can paste in your first script here as you can see I have provided few examples here but in case we have any minors watching this video I will avoid using any Quentin Tarantino scripts and instead we can use the famous dialogue between Romeo and Juliet after pasting it n you can click clean the script to remove any unnecessary spaces it also helps to look through it real quick to see if there is any exposition like this stage direction here we can either remove it or put it on its own line everything else seems to look legit so I will go ahead and click process the script first that will try to recognize the characters in script and it recognized Romeo and Juliet these are the only two people in the selection so that's good we can continue second step is asking us to select the exposition I call it exposition this could be stage directions character descriptions you know all that extra stuff so we had that one line that we separated and everything else looks good to go third step is selecting your character I will pick Romeo fourth step is selecting the color for any remaining characters your character will be in green all others you can decide I will pick blue for Juliet fifth and final step is your choice of whether you want us to generate audio for Juliet's lines this is obviously not a perfect science but I'll choose to do so to demonstrate the inner workings and you are all done the script is fully processed colour coded and all consecutive lines for each character are merged together and since we selected feedback in step 5 the lines that are not spoken by me now have an audio track finally for the good stuff just click go to flashcards and you will have a flashcards preview of all the lines separated by color there are multiple options that you can play around with but just so you get the grip of how it works I will disable audio feedback and clicks for these real quick once you're done you will be brought back to the previous screen again when you feel you are ready just go ahead and hide your lines and go through your cards again your cards will stay here for as long as you need them so you can bookmark the link and use it on the go there's more coming to this page but this is meant to be a quick intro to how this works just remember we make two specifically for actors not just the tools that suit anyone including actors we're here if you need something and as always don't forget to check us out on the web for actors calm thank you