Regardless of art form, you have to love your craft. Auditioning is yet another opportunity to perform. Work on your craft. Get the best training you can get. And when you get auditions, prepare well, and put out great work through those auditions. The rest is pretty much out of your hands.
Though self-tapes have become the norm, when you audition in person, your audition starts the moment you walk into the room. Keep that in mind. Show up on time, be prepared and do a great performance.
When you audition by submitting a self-tape you have control over what you send.
There are a few things you need to remember to put out great audition tapes.
1 - The recording environment
Start with getting a solid-colored back drop and great lighting. We like blue back drops, and we use either strong, big ring lights, or actual camera lights with soft boxes. It is important that you are well lit.
Your clothing should be solid color, no patterns or wording.
And make sure there is no distracting noise going on.
Use your phone to film HORISONTALLY. Like a TV-screen. It needs to be on a stand so that it is stable, and the shot should be right on and level with your face. Focused.
2 – Follow the directions in the break-down
There will be directions on what to include in the slate. If they want a full body slate, attach a few seconds of a full-body shot at the end of a loose close up where you give the information asked for. For the slate, look straight into the camera – the only time you look into the camera. You are “talking” with casting.
For the scenes, your eyes are still level with the camera, but your focus is just to the left or just to the right of the camera.
3 – Picking what to submit
As you record, heart the takes you think you like as you go. That will make it quicker to review your takes afterwards. When you review, pick the best performance for each scene. If something bothers you in a take, it will bother casting as well. Pick another take, or record again.
4 – Label your submissions
Once you are done, be sure to label your takes. If no instruction is given to how to label, then label with your name, the role, scene number and project name.