The Best Memorization Tool

Book From Tape January 1, 2018 4:05 Self Tape Auditions

Why sleeping on fully drilled lines is the fastest route to effortless recall, and the speed-run test that tells you when you are ready.

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6 Things Actors Should Know About Memorizing Lines

Drawn from what is actually said on camera, so you can decide whether to spend the 4:05 watching it.

Sleep is the actual memorization tool

Jordan Woods-Robinson names sleep as the number one memorization tool. While you sleep, your brain sorts what you learned that day into categories for easy recall, the same survival mechanism that lets you react without thinking. Lines get filed the same way.

Speed through the words with no emotion attached

The test for 110 percent is being able to race through the text flat, ignoring punctuation, line breaks and written pauses. Whether it is a three line scene or a five page monologue, if you can speed through without stumbling, you are there.

Speeding through strips the words from their context

Running lines emotionless separates the words from the scene, the actions you want to play and everything attached to them. That leaves the text neutral, so you arrive at the audition or the set with nothing baked in and nothing to undo.

Half-memorized lines keep you staring at the page in your head

When the words are not locked in, you are talking to your scene partner while picturing the second paragraph from the top of the page, tracking how close you are to their line. Sleep takes the text off the page and puts it on a scroll in your brain, which is what frees you to be present with your partner and the director.

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Full transcript (760 words)
[Music] hey welcome back to book from tape I am Jordan woods Robinson empowering you with the tools to book from tape and today I want to talk about the number one tool for memorization this is something that hands down this is the secret to making sure that the lines from the page are locked into your brain and the number one rule is sleep totally true absolutely true and it sounds totally obvious and dumb but here's the thing when you sleep your brain compartmentalizes everything that you learn throughout the day it it separates everything into categories and it says I need this for long term I need this for short term I need this for for impulse I need this you know whatever the case may be it takes it and it categorizes it for easy recall so that you don't have to think about it when you're in a dangerous situation next that your brain just immediately goes aha and you get away from the bear right it's survival that's what our brain is there for it is a computer and if our brain doesn't have that time to dissect and to categorize everything that we learned especially these lines we are constantly going to be picturing that eight-and-a-half by eleven page every time we're going through the scene so I might be talking to the the other scene partner here and I'm saying the words but in my mind I'm picturing the second paragraph from the top of the page and I know that I'm getting near the end so I know it's near their line so I'm gonna listen and then I'm gonna have my third line because I picture so something that sleep allows for is that it takes it away from the page it gives you total ownership and it just puts it on a scroll in your brain that allows you to recall it effortlessly without having to think about it it goes into a molecular structure right and that is what we need in order to truly be present with your scene partners and with the director and everyone else that's ready that day okay and here's what you need to do and before you have your sleep is to be 110 percent memorized and when I say a hundred and ten percent I mean you need to be able to speed through it you need to be able to emotionless ly avoid you know ignoring puncture ignoring line breaks all that stuff the pauses everything is written in there just be able to speed through the words without breaking once you can do that whether it's a three-page scene a three line scene or a five page monologue once you can speed through it and that is when you are 110 percent memorized because you have separated the words from their context from the actions that you want to play from the the scene and and everything that comes with it you have separated those black words on a white piece of paper and now taking them and they are just here okay and that is what we need to be able to recall that way they are truly neutral when you come back the next day after a good days sleep and now you're in the audition room or your self taping or you're on set and you can effortlessly allow those words to just appear so that you can be totally connected with your scene partner and you're open to collaborate with everyone else around you so that that is the number one memorization tool it doesn't take care of all of the other work you have to put in right that is not the work you can't just memorize the words but it does McKey component of knowing the words 110 percent so that you don't have to actively recall them alright thank you so much if you want to talk to me check out book from tape dot-com you can email me there and also if you're on the go a lot I take a lot of these same thoughts and I just put them in a quick version kind of loaf I just on my cell phone and I have a podcast on iTunes called book from tape so you can also find me there and might be a slightly different flavor for some of these ideas and there might be some other flavors other ideas there that aren't here on YouTube thanks so much you