Acting Tips: What Casting Directors REALLY Want in a Self-Taped Audition

The ability to self-tape auditions has opened up many more opportunities for actors in recent years. With casting directors looking nationally and even internationally for just the right face and voice to fit each role, actors can be based anywhere and many are now moving out of Los Angeles and New York to more family friendly places with less traffic and urban stress and a much lower cost of living. As long as there's an airport nearby, you can still work in this business.

But when self-taping first became an option, the out-of-pocket expense could be considerable. Actors were told that taped auditions needed to be perfect or they would just get tossed. Invest in a high-end video camera, we were told, and box lights for three-point lighting. Avoid LED lighting that made you look green. Set up a room (or at least a wall) with a blue-grey background for best skin tones. Get a professional reader to help you. Hire a taping studio if necessary (at $150 a pop). All of this involved learning how cameras work and technical things like "white balance," which tripped me up more than once, even when hiring a camera operator for the taping. 

Fortunately, the reality of life (and especially the experience of the past two years) has toned down the demands. Actors might be working on location, on holiday, or otherwise away from home when an audition call comes through. Optimal taping conditions are not always available, or necessary as it turns out. The best actor for the role shines through, even if the tape is less than perfect. So don't break the bank investing in expensive equipment.

SAGAFTRA has videos on YouTube where casting directors are asked what they REALLY need from you in a self-taped audition. All are valuable, but some are quite long. The video below hits the high points in a reasonable amount of time, and I must say I was relieved to see that my instincts from years ago were correct. There is no such thing as a "perfect" audition. Casting needs to hear you and see you; they don't need your tape to win an Academy Award. 

Here's what I learned:

SLATES

Breakdowns will usually include instructions for the slate. If not, submit your slate separately from your audition and do this:

Give your name, height, and current location. 

Edit in a full body shot and a profile shot. 

Most important, "perform" your slate with some flavor of the role for which you are auditioning. Don't do it "in character" necessarily, but if your role is big city gangster, don't slate with a toothy grin like you're selling breakfast cereal. Keep it consistent with the role and let your personality come through.

THE READER

Get another actor to serve as your the reader if possible, but anyone will do in a pinch. Even if all you have available is your non-actor mother, have the reader get into their role and act it out so that you have something to react to and play off of. It will improve your performance.

When you edit your audition tape, don't open with the reader's voice, even if it appears that way in the script, unless the scene calls for a big reaction to their words at that point.  Otherwise edit it out and open with your first line. Also, make sure your reader isn't too loud. Move the reader farther from the camera mic if necessary to lower their voice level. Your voice and face are all that casting wants to see.

LIGHTING

For auditioning at home, the old rules are still good. A ring light on a stand is nice to have or box lights and three-point lighting if you already have them set up. Ditto a nice video camera. 

Otherwise, at home or away from home, a small rechargeable ring light that clips on your mobile phone camera is fine. Many models and prices are available, but all have similar reviews so shop around. You shouldn't need to pay more than $20 for a serviceable light. Look for built-in options on light levels and color tones. 

Whatever you have in the way of equipment, look for a location that is already well lit. Bathrooms are often good. The small ring light alone won't give the best result in a dark room.

SOUND

No loud distracting noises in the background. If you're picking up a hum from equipment running somewhere you can usually reduce it or eliminate it altogether during editing. Anything louder than a hum - police sirens, baby crying, door slamming, etc. - means you need to tape the scene again, so be aware of noises and make sure you have alternate takes.

Outdoors sound can be tricky, especially if it's windy. Find a quiet, sheltered spot. Use a lapel mic (always good).

If you have a designated audition space at home, make sure there are enough acoustic elements - upholstered furniture, rugs, acoustic panels - so that your sound doesn't bounce and echo. I've even hung blankets.

TAPING

Your face should be at eye level with the camera and your eye line as close to the camera as possible without looking directly into the lens. Tripods make it easy, but you can also put your mobile phone in a coffee cup on a stack of books - whatever works to get the height and angle.

LOCATION

At home, again the old rules apply. A blank, blue-grey wall will give you the best skin tone. 

Away from home, look for a simple background. It doesn't necessarily have to be blank, but it shouldn't include distracting views or patterns. In the video, for example, they mention shooting against a log cabin. Simple, horizontal lines. 

Soft light, if possible, when shooting outdoors.

EDITING

Yes, edit. Early on in this process, I can't tell you how many times I exhausted myself trying to get a clean take on a long script. Edit your best shots together, but don't worry about making it look like you went to film school. Casting gives no extra points for fancy packaging. They want to see eyes, intention, and layers of character.

Submit one take, or no more than two.  Casting directors have a LOT of tapes to view and, yes, they watch ALL of them.

So that's basically it. Self-taping is here to stay and the benefits to actors are enormous. True, you can't get a correction as in a live audition (although you may be given one in a call back), but you're less nervous and you show casting only your best take.  

Most important, since casting directors will be looking at ALL taped auditions, they see many unknowns that they never would have seen otherwise....and maybe that will be you.

So relax and give it your best shot.  Here's the full video:

Acting Tips: Analyzing Actors at the Top of their Game

One of the most dismaying things I find about many young performers is how seldom they study veteran actors in classic film and television. (I would add theater to that, but the drawback to stage work is that the nuances in a performance are too often lost in the distance between the performers and the audience.) 

Many years ago, I watched a young actor do an emotionally charged drama-class scene and remarked afterwards that he reminded me of Richard Widmark in the 1947 film Kiss of Death where a crazy-acting Widmark pushes an old woman in a wheelchair down a flight of stairs. Who's Richard Widmark? the actor asked, whereupon the instructor blanched and said, "That's like asking, Who are the Marx Brothers!" (The young man looked baffled at that too.)

The point is, there is so much you can learn by watching a master at work, and so much you lose if your only point of reference are action films and the last 10 years of television.

I was reminded of this the other night while watching character actress Beulah Bondi as Aunt Martha Corinne in "The Conflict," a 1974 episode of The Waltons, airing on Amazon Prime. Bondi was 84 years old at the time this was filmed, having played largely mothers and grandmothers (she played James Stewart's mother four times) over a 50-year career in some of the most memorable films ever made, including six that were nominated for the Best Picture Oscar. She was herself twice nominated for an Oscar as Best Actress in a Supporting Role and, at 86, she would win an Emmy for playing Martha Corinne in a later episode of The Waltons titled "The Pony Cart."

In this scene from "The Conflict," Aunt Martha Corinne is being evicted from the farm she came to as a bride and has lived in on the mountain for more than 50 years. Her husband Henry and one of her children are buried on the farm. The rhythms of the land are the rhythms of her life. Now the farm has been taken for public use by the federal government as part of a planned national park. After initially resisting eviction, she has finally conceded rather than see her family embroiled in an armed conflict. But she has not given up all control of her life, or her dignity. 

Watch Beulah Bondi totally immersed in her character.

What was so difficult about this role - and you also see it in the 1986 Oscar-winning performance by 60-year-old Geraldine Page in The Trip to Bountiful (Page beat out Meryl Streep/Out of Africa, Anne Bancroft/Agnes of God, Jessica Lange/Sweet Dreams, and Whoopi Goldberg/The Color Purple) - is that Bondi had to tread a fine line between being a stubborn and sometimes mean old woman and yet being terribly vulnerable to an overwhelming sense of loss.  

So notice how she and, one assumes, the director have choreographed this scene. This isn't Method or Meisner. Bondi never married or had children in real life; she was born in Chicago, not on a farm. Richard Thomas here serves only to get the scene started; she's not reacting to him. This is a thinking actress with a strategy. She has to exit the farmhouse, but with a pause to reflect on her life. The scene opens with her sweeping the floor of a now nearly empty room. The house will likely be torn down, but she's still in charge, tidying up the ends of her life, giving away the things she will no longer need. Still the matriarch giving orders, she will leave on her own terms.  

While sweeping, Bondi has been looking down at the floor (perhaps finding her mark?) To get to the memory of her dead husband, she needs a trigger.  She looks up at the doorway, the same doorway she entered as a bride so many years before, and makes a seemingly offhand remark about Henry's nature: he was shy with women. As she turns to the camera for a beautifully lit closeup, the memory then floods over her in vivid detail. Her eyes see her young husband, she smells the lilac and the Bay Rum. Her face softens with warmth and love. And then, in an instant, the memory is gone. She is again an old woman and so terribly alone, a tragic figure, but not destroyed.  She puts on her bonnet, takes a last look at the home that held so much of her life, and resolutely exits through the door, head high. 

In this moment on screen Bondi IS Martha Corinne, and she lives this memory. Consider how much each of her moves says about the woman she is portraying. It is masterfully done. A scene worth studying again and again (although I admit to choking up every time I watch it.)

Having been stereotyped early in her career (Bondi played old ladies from age 39 on), it may have been difficult to find roles with enough depth to make full use of her skills, but she was always the consummate pro. 

Watch this tribute to her from Turner Classic Movies. 

Also check out this wonderful behind-the-scenes look at Bondi in her later Waltons episode, "The Pony Cart," for which she won an Emmy.  Actress Judy Norton, who played Mary Ellen Walton, hosts this YouTube channel, and it's a treasure trove of information for actors and fans of this much beloved series. 

 

Take time to study veteran actors. Develop a love for classic film and television, if you're not there already. Some of the best actors in the world are walking encyclopedias of great performances on screen.  That is, in part, why they're so good.

10 Things I've Learned as an Actor.

Last year at this time I got a new agent – Michael Zanuck – and booked the first audition he arranged. Forty lines in an episode of the CBS daytime drama The Young & The Restless, playing marriage counselor Dr. Iris Carson. The people at CBS were terrific. So well organized and so considerate to actors coming in for guest spots. I got good comments from production. It was a positive experience all around. I thought things were suddenly taking off, but not yet.

I was called back for the role of the older I Love Lucy comedy writer Madelyn Pugh for Aaron Sorkin’s film Being the Ricardos, for Amazon Studios. It went to Linda Lavin. No shame there. She’s a wonderful actress. But what a disappointment.  I loved the script and role. 

I also got a second look for the team owner in Amazon’s TV series of A League of Their Own, but that went to Rosie O’Donnell when she became available and they decided to take the role in a different direction. 

Well, such is the business of acting.

But then the virus hit with lock downs and crazy rules. I have always believed that life happens as it does for a reason, and that if you just hang on you will come to realize that everything turned out fine in the end. So, not to be deterred, I've started thinking about what practical things I’ve learned in the past decade as an actor and how they can help going forward from here. 

The list, in no particular order, except the most important last.

1. Learn from those who are successful in the career path you’ve chosen, or in a career that’s an important adjunct, like casting.  If you’re going to take a drama class from an actor (or an actor turned teacher), then before you plunk down hundreds/thousands of dollars, check his/her credits at the Internet Movie Database. How many credits do they have? Are they in productions you recognize? Is the actor still performing? 

If their experience is spotty, you might consider online learning at Masterclass.com, leaning toward older British actors. The Brits have a practical, workmanlike approach. They're not "stars" they're Actors, and they’re good at it. I learned to assess a script and much more from Dame Helen Mirren by taking her class online. Her advice was how I knew that the Being the Ricardos role was a good one.

2. If you take a workshop, don’t pay extra to perform in a scene. Here’s why: The chance that you will so wow the person leading the workshop that they’ll cast you in a role in their next production is infinitesimally small. Worse, you’ll be so caught up in learning lines that you won’t have time to take notes. The most valuable and practical television audition advice I heard in a workshop cost me all of $30. It was given by casting director Geoffrey Soffer (Ugly Betty, The Beautiful Life) and I learned a ton. If you hope to wow casting directors with your acting skills do theatre and invite them to a performance. Danny Aiello, who played a lot of heavies, got his comedy turn in Moonstruck because director Norman Jewison saw him in a Broadway play.

3. Try new things in front of an audience and listen to their reaction.  In Los Angeles, I discovered actor get-togethers where actors were paired off, scenes were handed out, you had 15 minutes to rehearse and then you did the scene. It was a low-risk opportunity to try different approaches and roles and to get feedback from relatively average people (The kind that buy movie tickets.) The cost of such gatherings was typically a small donation, and you could attend once or twice a month. It was a good exercise.

4. Avoid magical thinking. In New York and Hollywood there is an entire industry that preys on the dreams of aspiring actors, so if an online or in-person class promises to provide “the secret” to getting cast or becoming a “star” don’t waste your money.  Similarly, do not assume a producer/director/casting director will see your face, think “He/She is it!” and pluck you out of obscurity with no experience. I see this too often with background performers who so strive to get their face in the same frame as the lead actor that they make a pest of themselves. Don't do that.

5. Don’t list credits for background roles. If you aspire to a career as an actor, you don’t want to be typed as background, and a long list of background credits does just that. On IMDB I allowed just one background credit, on House of Cards, because I felt it showed progression to the three speaking roles I booked on that same production. 

6. If you work background because you need the cash, try to get in toward the end of filming when they may shoot long days to wrap it up. Years ago I made over $600 shooting crowd scenes for a TV film that was running behind schedule and held background on set for 22 hours. That was good money when I was trying to cover the cost of classes. Another tip: whatever you're doing as background - walking in a crowd, walking through a scene with another actor, herding cattle, whatever - give yourself a backstory and an objective.  Don't ask the director, just figure it out. For example, “I came into town with a good friend today to look for a pair of red suede pumps, and then we’re going to lunch afterward.” If you do that your face and gestures become animated and real. If you don’t do that you walk through like a zombie. I've seen a lot of zombies in films lately.

7. Acting is less complicated than most people think. Yes, there are tricks to doing a scene that come with experience, and you will pick those up along the way. Whether auditioning or on set, what it requires is a vivid imagination and the ability to immerse yourself in a fantasy world that you create down to the smallest detail, all the while surrounded by technical equipment and people talking between takes. Unless you're a character actor, create your environment and respond to it honestly as an interesting version of yourself. If the director wants something more, or something different, he/she will take you there. That’s what a “director” does. 

8. Be professional. Do as much research on your role and on the others involved in the production as you possibly can, show up fully prepared and off book, be polite and considerate to everyone on set, when you’re not shooting a scene stay out of the way and avoid chit-chat.   

9. Be ready for the great role. You’ve heard that before, and it usually refers to constantly honing your acting skills. Hone the whole package. While waiting for the call, work on improving your posture, diction, and social skills. If your crooked teeth are distracting, get them fixed. Crooked teeth can be an issue with American audiences. Assess your overall look objectively, and carefully consider what if anything needs improvement. Staying super thin over time can add years to your face, so you may want to add 10 pounds as you get older. Visible tattoos can relegate you to working class roles. Your smile may light up a room or make you look menacing or goofy. 

Your aim is not to be super attractive necessarily but memorable. Some of my favorite performers have ears that stick out, chins that are too long, eyes set too close together, impossible noses….yet somehow it all works.

10. Most important, get to know people by name. On set that means not just the director, the DP, and the cast but also the production assistant, the make-up artist, the costumer, the caterer, your driver, all the people who make your experience on set easier. Off set, know the names of the wait staff at restaurants you frequent, your supermarket clerk, your neighbors. To help me remember, I save the names on my mobile phone, either with the phone contact information of the business or on a special page on "Notes." If you can associate the name with another word that helps too. For example, the first name of the waitress at one of our favorite restaurants is the same as my mother's maiden name. Easy!

Wherever you are, introduce yourself. Smile, make eye contact, say please and thank you, be interested. Smiling makes you approachable, elevates your mood, and does wonders for the muscles in your face.  Being interested can open doors. I met a famous screenwriter at my husband’s high school reunion, the father of a famous screenwriter in a McDonald’s in Virginia, and the brother of another screenwriter while camping in Arizona. Connections are everywhere, so don't treat anyone badly.

Knowing people by name encourages you to be considerate of their feelings, makes them feel valued (because they have value), helps people remember you even when you’re not famous, and makes you a mensch, which is a good thing (look it up.)

So here's to 2022. I am so ready to get back to work. :)