People ask me, “What is ‘hackting’?”
I say it’s ‘hacking’ for actors, so then they ask, “What is ‘hacking’? Isn’t that bad?”
No, I’m not taking down nuclear missile silos.
Hacking is basically breaking something down and eliminating everything but its most essential elements.
What you have left is a ‘hack’ of an old procedure. People cling to traditions because they are scared to change. But we could all save ourselves a lot of time and confusion if we did more hacking ourselves.
Here, I do a hack on cold reading. I wrote this a while ago and I can’t get over how darned good it is.
Check it out and let me know what you think in the comments.
Hacktor Question:
I wondered what experience you had had with cold reading, if any, and if there are any tools that you use that might help me and others through your own experience.
The same things apply to cold reads as they do for ‘hot ones’.
The very first thing to think about is the story. What’s the piece about?
Once you know that, all the transitions and beats become clear.
When something doesn’t seem to make sense in the dialogue to you, it probably doesn’t make sense to the character either. So that’s probably a point where you are considering or processing it… or as the industry likes to call them ‘beats’.
Don’t ever ‘take a beat’. That just means a fake pause – a pause because you don’t know what to say and you have to think about it.
Have clear specific thoughts and the words will be clear too. We never speak before we think. We can think stupid things but we still think, so don’t speak unless you know why you are saying something.
Just tell yourself the story and live through the story. It’s really simple stuff.
For example, let’s say you’re cold reading for a character in Little Red Riding Hood.
You’re the woodsman? You think: I have spent my life working in the woods, killing for my food and protecting my family. A wolf tries to eat a little girl. I’m going to give my life to try to stop it.
You’re little red riding hood? You think: I’m so happy I get to see my grandma today. Hmm, she looks different…um, grandma, what’s up with that? You look different…OMG, you’re a wolf! Run for your lives….ahhhhh!
Every single piece of material you get can be broken down that way and do it as though it were a fairy tale and you are telling that tale to someone else.
I come home and find out that my daughter got bad grades, even though she assured me she was doing well. Now she has to go to summer school and we are not going to be spending the summer at Cape Cod. Mother, brother, daughter. Do the math. How do the facts affect each person in the story and play that.
Keep your head up and don’t worry about getting the words right. Get the feelings right. Read the story, then practice just looking at the other person’s lines, improv’ing yours so you aren’t getting the feelings from the lines but from the circumstances.
Dig deep down in your imagination and live it…all the details you can find, where, when, weather, people, period, etc.
Tags: cold reading
Leave A Reply (2 comments so far)
Tom Beyer
9 years ago
This was brilliant! And timely! Had one of the best cold reads EVER a few hours after reading this. Just perfectly and creatively stated.
admin
9 years ago
So glad the information was helpful, Tom. Keep it simple and find success!