Aaron Marcus, a 40-year veteran actor, breaks down five editing mistakes that get self-tapes rejected: overproduction with music and effects, ignoring file-naming instructions, botching the slate, leaving awkward lean-in and lean-out frames, and capturing dead air before your first line. Each signals carelessness to casting directors.
You could give the greatest self-tape audition in the world, but if you make a bad editing mistake, the casting director might not even see it. Look, I'm a full-time actor, but I've been really fortunate to have been able to cast dozens and dozens of projects, and I've identified 5 common editing mistakes that actors make. So watch this video until the end because I will actually show you and demonstrate 2 of the 5 common mistakes that will kill your audition. This way you'll be able to learn about it and avoid making these errors in the future. Okay, let's get started. Hey, I'm Aaron Marcus and I've been a full-time actor for over 40 years, and the very first common editing mistake that people make is overproduction. And what I mean by that is that sometimes people think if they add music to the background, it's going to make it more interesting. Or if they have some fancy fading in, fading out apps that they use to make it look like an actual movie or a television show, get rid of all of that stuff. You're not trying to sell yourself as a producer or an editor. You are there as an actor, so just allow people to watch your acting skills. Number 2, labeling sabotage. Now, sometimes casting directors will ask for all kinds of things, and unfortunately, sometimes they're difficult and they're complicated. Honestly, sometimes I think that all the directions that I get about just the technical aspects of this, of the shot, are more complicated than doing and more difficult than just doing the audition. But it's labeling sabotage. And what I mean by that is if they ask you to label something a very specific way Do it. Sometimes they're going to ask for— they might say for scene 1, let's say there are 2 scenes, they might say, okay, so for scene 1, I want you to label it this way: first name underscore, last name underscore, the character name underscore, SC1A. TK1, scene 1, take 1. Then they might ask you to label the second scene pretty much the same way except it's going to be SC2 TK1 because it's scene 2, take 1. Or if they want you to, you know, label your slate in a separate one, and they will tell you very specifically. So the most important thing is Make sure you follow it correctly. Now, before I actually demonstrate errors 4 and 5, let me show you number 3, the slating fail. And what I mean by that is, once again, every single audition is different. Sometimes the— and just to make sure you know, so slating, that's how you identify yourself, and it could be anything from Them asking you to say your first name, your last name, your height, where you live. Are you willing to work as a local hire? Then after you do all that, they might say, do that from chest to the top of the head, and then I want you to do a full body shot so we can see. Sometimes they might ask you to slate at the very beginning. Sometimes they might ask you to slate at the end. Sometimes they want the slate in separate file. So whatever it is, make sure you give it to them, because if you don't, they might have some doubts as to whether they can actually trust you on the set. If you're not able to follow basic directions, you know, they might think that you might not be able to follow directions on a set as well. So just make sure you do exactly what they ask. Number 4, The lean in and lean out. Here's what I mean by that. So let's say you're shooting on a laptop and you're getting ready to start the scene. And so you might have to lean in at the beginning and then hit record. And then at the very end, you might have to hit stop and then finish it. So let me just show you What that would look like and why you never want to do this. Okay, so I'm about ready to start my audition. Okay, so here is my first line right now. Hey, it's great to see you. You know, I— you know how long it's been since I've seen— what was it, 1984? Okay, so finish that. And now you just said your last line. Yeah, hey, I can't wait. Um, Yeah, we'll have to do this again soon. And then you go in, you stop it. You've got to edit that out. Nobody wants to watch that. It looks unprofessional. So make sure you edit out any of the leaning in, any of the leaning out, all that kind of stuff. Okay, here is number 5, another really common editing mistake That just is not very good. Let's say you're getting ready to start, and here we go. I just hit record. Hey, Jeff, I, I got to tell you, I really didn't like what you said to me. So there was that dead air at the beginning where you just— you're getting yourself all ready to do the scene, and then you start. Don't do that! Now it's one thing if there's some action at the beginning of the scene before the scene actually starts. Like for instance, and this would make sense, and I've done this before when I worked on— there was a movie called Project Almanac. You probably never saw it. I still do get residual checks from it, so some people are watching it, but it wasn't a big hit. And I was a teacher and I'm talking to the classroom. So at the very beginning of my audition, before I said any words, I'm looking around the room. Okay, class. So I just kind of gave the class a really quick glance just to see everybody in the room. Then I started my line. That's fine. That makes sense because this is an action that's getting you ready to say your first words. But if you are just preparing yourself and all that is recorded, That doesn't look good. And I'm telling you, look, when I've done casting as an actor, I will do whatever I can to try to help the actor. Sometimes I'll send them a little note. But I can tell you, there are some casting directors— I've spoken with them— who dislike that kind of stuff so much, you're wasting their time, they just won't even look at things. So just make sure that you follow all of these things. 2 other quick things. If you have ever made any kind of editing mistake or you know of some editing mistakes that have been made, please share it with us here so this way we can learn from you and you can help this community of actors help each other. So please leave that information here. The other thing too is if you haven't done this yet, don't forget, subscribe, click the notification bell. If you like it, give it a thumbs up. That's always very helpful. And, uh, please share the video with other people. Hey, I'm Aaron Marcus, and I can't wait to talk with you again soon. See ya.
