How Much Time Do Television Actors Have To Memorize Their Lines?
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Written by Atila on November 5, 2009 – 2:04 am
As a begining actor, I am interested in knowing how much time Television actors have to memorize their before they appear camera whether it a one hour drama, thirty minute comedy, or a commercial. Can anyone please help? Thank you.
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It depends on the show. Sometimes the script comes weeks in advance, but changes may arrive the night before, or even on set.
Daytime soaps usually get their sides the night before.
Commercial actors usually get their finalized sides a few days before, but it always changes on set.
Since TV only shoots in short segments, it’s easier to memorize lines, as opposed to an actor in a play. Plus on TV (as well as film), they shoot each scene many times for different angles of the shot. (For example, each time you see the camera cut between closeups of actors’ faces, that was a separate shoot of the scene.)
well I’m a pro actor and I’ve appeared on TV before, memorizing lines isn’t that hard. I had less than 2 hours for a live CTV (City Television) performance with no teleprompts, all you have to do is type the words in your mind, if you forget a word or 2, just replace a word that fits (ie: Real Line: I like cheddar cheese, Improv Line: I enjoy cheddar cheese) if the producers get angry, this gig isn’t for you.
Plays on the other hand take a while, maybe under a week depending on how many lines you have.
It soooo depends. Yes, you generally get a script 2 weeks in advance but a lot of times things are rewritten anyway and the morning of the day you are shooting you get another set of colored pages and things have changed so how much time do you get? I’d say 2 hours – 2 weeks
If you’re on contract yes you may get the help of a prompter or a cue card person but it’s best just to memorize. Plus you can hide your script in a prop for peeks between takes. For instance if you’re sitting on a couch, your script can be behind the cushion. If your standing by something with a drawer, it may be in the drawer.
answer your question?
Comics have about 2 months,
Actors on stuff like 24,LOST and stuff have like 2 weeks I think…
They may only have a week or less, but there are teleprompters all over the set. So, they don’t have to have much actually committed to memory.