Not Enough Time to Learn Lines for a Self-Tape

It sometimes happen. You get a request for a self-tape with 3 or 4 pages of dialogue and just a couple of days to prepare. Unless you are exceptional at learning lines there’s no way you can learn all the dialogue in that short space of time.

So what do you do?

After the character

First off, remember the most important thing the CD is looking for is the character. If you are in character and perform as the character, the CD will not worry if you don’t get the script 100%. 

So to begin with, make sure you nail the character. Once that’s done you can try out different ideas to get the lines.

Basically this means a teleprompter or cue cards (see below). As long as you have them out of sight of the camera you can use them and give in a very respectable self-tape.

a teleprompter

If you have a long speech, the best is arguably to use an autocue/teleprompter. Although it’s not that difficult to make one yourself (there are quite a few YouTube videos about this, we like this one) you can also buy one, for example this from Amazon: Ambitful Teleprompter Kit which costs about €45 and works with a smartphone and your camera.

You can use the teleprompter in conjunction with a smarphone app. Arguably the best is the Nano Teleprompter which is very easy to use.

Once set up, you can scroll back and forth through the lines easily and record your self-tape.

cue cards

Another alternative is cue cards. Or, to put it bluntly, pieces of paper stuck about around the room with the lines of dialogue on them. 

This has one advantage over a teleprompter in that you can look in different places, for example if you’re supposed to be talking to different characters around the room.

How to read lines

One trick worth learning is how to read lines so that it doesn’t look like you’re reading them. Here are some ideas to come across naturally on your self-tape.

  1. Try at least to learn some of the lines so that you can look away from the teleprompter or cue card and aren’t glued to them throughout the speech
  2. Make sure the teleprompter or cue cards are to one side of the camera; remember you don’t generally speak directly into the camera on a self-tape
  3. Practice as many times as you can before recording so you are used to the lines and know roughly what is coming up next
  4. Practice at different speeds beforehand – try the lines fast then slow then mix it up a little