Aaron Marcus breaks down what casting directors hate in self-tapes: blank footage at the start, animated name overlays, music, distracting effects, and visible buttons. Slate only when asked, label takes simply with your name and role, and use a plain background.
In this video, I'm going to be sharing with you what self-tape mistake actors make that casting directors hate. I also have a great bonus video for you. I'm going to leave the link in the description section on the channel, and it's all about the best equipment for self-taping and how much should it cost. Okay, let's get started. Hi, my name is Aaron Marcus, and welcome to the Acting and Modeling Quick Tips channel and the Actor Career Center. Look, everybody is using self-tapes today. Yeah, sometimes we do get a chance to go into a casting director's office. I haven't been in one in over 4 years, but I do know that sometimes that is offered. Sometimes virtual live auditions are offered, so you still need to know what kind of equipment to have, how to use it well. This is not a technical kind of video about setting it up. Like I said, just go into the description, you'll see a great bonus video for you that you can learn about the type of equipment you need and also how much should it cost. What I'm going to be sharing with you in this video is really more about the specific mistakes that actors make, and cast directors really dislike them. And look, I get I get why actors do these things because they think it will make the audition look better, but I'm telling you, you don't want to do this because when you start adding production to your, to your audition, people are going to start viewing it as if you are trying to get a production job here. You're an actor, so you want to stick To just showing your acting skills. So one of the mistakes that people have is, let's say at the very beginning of a scene, it says, and the actor walks into the boardroom and says, I'm really sorry I'm late. And I've had a number of casting directors tell me this, and what actors will do— and once again, I understand it— they're trying to make this look really realistic. So what they do is they start off off camera and there's like a couple of seconds blank, nothing behind you. And by the way, just on a side note, I would never— I'm not going to get into technical stuff here, but I would never shoot an audition with this background. This is my home office, and so this is a section of the home office where I just feel more comfortable. I do have a green screen, a green screen on the other side of the room. That's what I use Things are just too distracting. But still, you get the idea. You don't want to have a couple of seconds of nothing just so that it can look like you're walking into the scene. You can always indicate that by taking a step back. Now, I'm seated right now, but if I were to be standing up and I would start the scene, I'd start back here, take a step, and then start, hey, I'm really sorry I'm late. So that's the way that you can do it. Never have a blank spot, just like a couple seconds of nothing. They don't have the time for that, and it doesn't give a good first impression. Another mistake that actors make is they like to have their name, contact information on a little screen that kind of rolls in. And I'm going to show you right here what you don't want to be doing with that. Because you absolutely don't need it at the very beginning. Let them see your audition. If they want you to slate, and that means you're giving out information about you, whatever information they ask for, if they ask for it at the top and then go into the audition, of course you're going to do that. But don't have a title with your information and just have it spinning in there making it look interesting. Focus on your acting. Another problem that occurs is that if there's some kind of scene change or something is going on, they also— some actors will also spin things in just so they can indicate it's a different scene. Look, if you're doing 2 different scenes, quite often casting directors will ask you to shoot them separately and then label them differently. It's not uncommon. And look, there, there is no one right way to do this. Every casting director wants different things. But sometimes, and this is pretty common, they might ask for your first, last name. They might ask for the role that you're reading for, and then they might ask for SC1, TK1. And, and, and I'll, I'll put this in here so you guys can actually see it. So basically it's your name, the role you're reading for, scene 1, take 1. If they want to, you know, if they, they want to see 2 different takes, or if you want to offer 2 different takes, then you can label them differently and just do scene 1, SC1, TK2, to let them know that. And I'll, I'll show you once again, but don't have things spinning in. It's, it's just distracting. Please don't have any music in the background. Once again, you're not trying to sell yourself as an editor here or try to make things sound interesting. They want to see your acting skills. Let them see it. Don't disrupt it by adding in all these things at the end. And speaking of the end, this is something that I've seen because I've done some casting every once in a while. Actually, there was this one company and And they ask me to find people for these, uh, it's like investment infomercials. So I get a chance to see a lot of auditions, and it's not uncommon to actually see this at the very beginning of their, uh, take and at the very end. So they're getting ready, and here's what they do. And then they'll hit, you know, the start button, the on button. Then they'll get back and then start. And then when they're finished, they do— they hit stop. Don't let people see that. You've got to learn some basic editing skills so that people only see the scene itself. Hey, if you have any suggestions of mistakes that you've seen Uh, other actors make when they're doing self-tapes, please share it here, share it on the channel so we can learn from you as well. If you haven't done this yet, don't forget, subscribe, click the notification bell so you always know when a new video has been uploaded. If you like the video, give it a thumbs up. That's actually very helpful. It helps spread the word and share the link with your fellow actors. That's great. So we can continue to build a great community of actors. Who who are helping each other. I'm Aaron Marcus, and I can't wait to talk with you again soon. See ya.
