Best Self Tape Equipment for Actors | How Much Should You Spend?

It's certainly looking like self-tapes are the future. I haven't been into a casting director's office in over 4 years. So in this video, I'm going to be sharing with you specifically what equipment you absolutely need for a self-tape, what equipment you don't need, how much do these things cost. And this way, after you watch the video, you are going to know very specifically what you need in order to create great self-tape auditions. I'm also going to be sharing with you a really helpful bonus video. You'll see it at the very end, and it's the 4 words you absolutely want to say when turning down a job or an audition. Okay, let's get started. Hi, I'm Aaron Marcus, and welcome to the Acting and Modeling Quick Tips channel and the Actor Career Center, where I share my almost 40 years of experience working as a full-time actor with you, my fellow actors, so that you can learn from my experiences as well. If you haven't done this yet, don't forget, click the subscribe button, the notification bell. That way you always know when I upload a new video. And if you like the video, please give it a thumbs up. That's really very helpful. So let me start off with a camera. I mean, you've got to record your audition on something. What most people do is either use their phone, which I do not do. I just prefer not using my phone to shoot on, but a lot of people do. And by the way, on a side note, just make sure you always shoot your audition in a horizontal format, not vertically. Casting directors, directors want to see it just like they're seeing it on a TV screen or in a movie, so it's horizontal. I shoot all of my auditions on my MacBook Pro. It's a laptop. This is what I'm shooting this video on right now. It's great. It looks really good. It's simple to use. Doesn't cost me anything because I've, I've had this for, for quite some time. So as far as cameras go, You really don't need to spend anything on that. I would suggest either your computer or, or your cell phone. Next, and this is one of the most important parts, and by the way, on a side note, it's possible that you could spend as little as just maybe a little bit over $100 and have all the equipment you need. So, but anyway, I'll get, I'll get into more specifics in a second. Lighting. Lighting is crucial. Lighting is so important. If your lighting doesn't look great, people aren't going to look at it. They're not going to take you seriously. You don't look professional if you have shadows on the side of your face, if there are— or it's dark on one side, you've got shadows on the wall behind you. You also need to have a very clean Background. Like, I would never shoot an audition with, you know, one of my old dogs up there, my kids, and things like that. You want something that's plain, and I'll go into details about that in, in a little bit. But lighting is crucial. Sometimes people will say, well, I've got a lot of windows in my, you know, in a room, and the sun comes in, it looks great, I really don't need to spend anything on lighting. That's not a good idea because what happens if there's no sun that day? If it's raining, if it's cloudy, if you have to shoot something at night, something really early in the morning before the sun comes up, you're going to be in trouble. I don't like using the lights in my home office because they don't look great. I want full control over my lighting. I like to use softbox lighting, and it's very economical. Look, here's what I like to do, and I'm not preaching, I'm not telling you what to do, I'm just sharing with you my thoughts. Personally, I like to shop at a local camera store. It's probably about a 20-minute drive for me. They have everything there. And I even went in once with my laptop, said, this is— here's my home office, this is where I want to shoot, what lights would be best for me? And they told me. So I like to give local people the business, and I also like to be able to get information before I just make a purchase. If that's not possible or you just aren't interested, you know, there certainly are online places you can go. And these softboxes, I actually, I took a picture from Amazon. And the other thing too is, and once again, I'm not pushing, I'm just letting you know, the prices were actually pretty similar to what I paid for them at the local store. But you get 2 of the softbox lights, and it was, let me just take a look, it was like $78 for both of them. And what I do is— and look, you're going to have to experiment with this and play around with it— but I've got 2 lights coming in like this, and it looks great. Now, you also might— and you could try and see if this works for you— get a ring light and just use a ring light. You can get a ring light for about $30. It depends on what kind you get. Really quickly, if you are using a ring light, Don't put it behind your camera and have it facing you if it's really close to you, because you are going to get these crazy diamonds in your eyes, and it's very distracting. And I've heard casting directors say they really don't like it. So the— if, if you are going to use a ring light, try to have it either much farther away from you, and hopefully that will still work. But here are 2 quick options. See if you have a blank wall on the other side of the room. Turn the ring light around so the lights are not facing you, it's facing the wall, and you're going to actually bounce the light off the wall and have it fill your face. See if that works. If you don't have a wall to do that with, then take the ring light, still turn it away from you, and then buy a piece of white tag board and just set it up. And that can be closer to you and have the light bounce off the white tag board And fill up your face. You might even find that you might need a light behind you, and there are different kinds of lights that you can get just to make sure there aren't shadows behind you as well. Speaking of being behind you, you need either a screen, or if you have a plain wall, having drapes behind you, if they are like curtains that have designs in them and things like that, I wouldn't use it. But if it's a plain wall, get rid of all the pictures and all that kind of stuff, no shelving, then maybe you can use that. I wouldn't sit right up against the wall because then you might get more shadows. But when I— in a different setup in my home office, I would have to have a light behind me that went straight up behind me and it took care of all the shadows in the back. Yeah, like I said before, so, so who knows, you might even want a ring light far away from you and then 2 soft boxes near you. So anyhow, you have to play around with that. As far as the screen goes, so you can get a screen for about $19, and you can use either a green screen, a blue screen, a white screen, whatever you want. And you can do— you can use it a couple of different ways. You can either just attach it to the wall. I mean, you can pay for poles to hang it up. I don't. I just attach it to my wall and it just stays there all the time. So when I need to shoot an audition, it's really simple. I just put my chair right in front of it and it works out really well. They do have— and it's a little bit more expensive, I believe— they do have collapsible screens that you can actually fold up if you don't want to have something in your room, and it will just sit behind you and And that way you still have a solid background. Okay. Next thing, you need to be heard. You need to be heard very cleanly, clearly, and you've got a couple of options. There are little microphones that you can buy for your cell phone if you need it. And you just need a specific adapter for that. But I found that, you know, for most cell phones, the mics are really pretty good. And you probably won't need anything like that. The other option is a lavalier mic, and you can see that here. Those are, I think, around $20. Let me just take it. Yeah, yeah, they're about $20, and you can just clip it, you know, right to your wardrobe. You don't have to hide it. People know it's an audition, and they sound good. You might even be able to get a lavalier mic connected to your cell phone if you need it, or your computer. The other thing is, and this is something I don't always use for an audition, I use it for these quick tip videos. It is a Yeti Blue microphone, and you can see a picture of it here. It's really good. I like it. Let me just check out the price for you. Yeah, those things can be like maybe about $90. Certainly you don't need it. My MacBook Pro sounds— the built-in microphone is It's really good, so I don't need it. I just think it sounds a little bit better. And so those are really all the— that's all the equipment you need. So you need something to shoot things with, you have to make sure the sound is good, you need to have a background that's clean, and the lighting has to be great. I do all my editing on my MacBook Pro in iMovie. If you're using an iPhone, I know you can— it's free and you can use iMovie as an editor, or when I have had to shoot some things on my iPhone, I just download it to my MacBook Pro and then just edit it there. So those things don't cost you anything. So basically, the only, the only expense you might have are lights, and depending on what you need, you could actually spend less than $100 and have All the lighting you need. You do want to make sure for the lighting you've got complete control. Turn off all the lights in your room and just create the lights with your own setup. So look, if you have any other suggestions of equipment, of prices, places to go, please share it with us in the comments section. I mean, that's the whole point of, of having this channel is for actors to help each other. You know, and learn from each other. So please do that, and please share this link with your fellow actors so we can bring more people in to help each other. Once again, if you haven't done this, subscribe, click the notification bell. If you like it, give it a thumbs up, and can't wait to talk with you again soon. See you. Oh, I almost forgot, here's the video. Use the link above. You might see a playlist And you will also see the little exclamation point where you can actually click and watch the video about the 4 words you absolutely want to say if you need to turn down a job or an audition. Okay, can't wait to talk with you again soon. I'm Aaron Marcus. See ya. See ya.