Self-Taping At Home (or Auditioning In Yoga Pants)

I’m continuing to try to find new ways to push my acting career to the next step. Auditions have been slow for me (and the other girls in my type) lately. My agent recently checked in with me and she said that there just isn’t much out there for me. I trust what she’s saying, and it’s a bit frustrating. I know that if I lost all the weight, I would be in more categories (but I’d also be going up against more people).

I am still working on the weight loss, but I’m trying to do things now too. I saw the casting notice for the NBC Diversity Showcase recently and decided to apply for it. Most, if not all, the major tv networks do these showcases to discover new talent. And more specifically more diverse talent. Even though I’m not a minority as far as my ethnicity, being a woman makes me a minority (being overweight does too).

The first step of the application process was very simple. There is a service called Breakdown Services which is one of the main online casting services. The actors version of it is called Actors Access. The audition notice was posted on Actors Access and to apply, you just had to submit your headshot and reel online. The day after I applied, I got an invitation to submit an audition video through Actors Access (I think everyone who applies gets this so I’m pretty sure that I haven’t made any cuts yet).

I was given the chose of a dozen different scenes and had to tape my audition to upload to the service. There are a lot of ways to self-tape (and many places that charge for it), but I figured that I could easily do this at home.

First, I found a friend to be a reader for the other character. My friend Robert was able to do it, and I was very happy about that because he’s a great actor and I trust him to make sure I do my best.

I used my digital camera (not my phone) for the audition and set it up on a tripod. Since I needed the camera to be at eye level and my tripod is only a mini one, we used a step ladder as well.

It was a pretty good system we got worked out for the camera. As far as where I sat, I sat in a chair in front of my entry closet and we hung a blanket up behind me so there was a basic blue background.

I’m sure we could have made it look a lot nicer, but when you are asked to self-tape, the casting directors aren’t looking for something that looks like it was shot in a casting office. A clear and in focus video with good sound quality is most important.

We did a couple of different takes until we both felt like I got a really good cut. Then I uploaded it to the Actors Access website and submitted my audition.

I won’t know for a while if I made the next cut. Self-tape auditions are not due until next week, and then they have to go through them.

But even if I don’t make it to the next round of auditions, at least I tried. And I had a nice afternoon of acting in front of the camera and working on my craft.

I really should do this more often because it was so much fun!

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