Self Tape vs In Person Auditions — Which One Is Harder to Book?

In this video, I'm going to be sharing with you in-person or self-tape auditions, which is better for actors. And watch this to the end, I've got a great bonus video for you. It's 4 tips that will make your audition stronger. Okay, let's get started. Hey, I'm Aaron Marcus. I am traveling right now. I'm doing workshops out of state, so I had to shoot this at the hotel. That's why the lighting is a little Funky. Um, but hey, I just wanted to let you know, let me start with the positives about, uh, going into a casting director's office for an audition. And I realize they do— they're starting to happen. Um, I don't know if we're ever going to get back to fully, you know, having all auditions go, uh, in front of the casting director. My guess I'm purely speculating. It's not going to go back. But I do know that quite often I get auditions and that is an option where they will see some people. So for the positives of auditioning in the casting director's office. Number 1, the casting director can give you information that you're not going to get when, when you're doing a self-tape. Perfect example. I'm going back quite a few years, but there was a Netflix show, House of Cards. Actually, it was the very first Netflix show that they produced. And I auditioned for that show 14 times. Kept— sometimes I'd get callbacks, sometimes they were asking about dates, never booked anything. 15th audition, go in there. And in the sides, I'm reading with a character, not with the actual actor, but in my scene. And that character had never been on the show before because I would make sure I watched the show, so I had a really good sense of the feel of the show. So I asked the casting director, what is my relationship with this other character? And she said, you work for her. Got it. That completely changed the way I did the audition. She's my boss. I work for her. And look, who knows if that made the difference where all of a sudden I booked a recurring role on the show. Maybe they felt sorry for me because they brought me in 14 times and never got— and got the booking. But in either case, that information was incredibly helpful. The other thing that is really helpful when auditioning in front of the casting director is that there's a certain sense of energy that you will get unless you can produce this on your own when you're doing a self-tape, which maybe you can. But, you know, when you're live with the casting director or if they have a reader, you know, reading with you, it just brings more to the audition. So I find that to be incredibly helpful. And the third thing is it gives the casting director a better sense of who you are, how you are presenting yourself, your style. Maybe if they are giving you notes, how well you adapt to the notes. And so just in general, they get a better sense of you, which is incredibly helpful. Before I share some of the complications of shooting self-tapes, let me just tell you, if you haven't done this yet, don't forget to subscribe, click the notification bell so you always know when I upload a new video. If you like it, give it a thumbs up because that's actually very helpful. And please share the, share the link with your fellow actors. When you are doing a self-tape, the great thing is you don't have to travel. Or even if you're not shooting it at your place and you're going to a studio or a friend's place, it's not like you're traveling a long distance to do this. Look, when I was doing my auditions in New York, which I did regularly, and I live Depending on the day, depending on how I would get there, it could easily, easily be 3.5, 4.5 hours each way. And then once I would get to the city, depending on where the casting was and the weather and things like that, either I'm walking to the, you know, to the office, taking a subway, and then turning around after a 2-minute audition And traveling back home. So it was an expensive proposition, but I was more than happy to do it and excited every time I would get an audition. But it was a long day. I would drive to Pittsburgh. Sometimes I drove to Atlanta, drive to North Carolina. So to be able to block out, I don't know, just say an hour. You know, just to go over things, make sure everything is set up, things look good, have a reader. I'm talking about an hour for my day. I can still walk my dog twice a day and get my audition done. So that— the expense of it and just the time is just incredible. The other benefit of doing in-person— I'm sorry, self-tape in in-home auditions is that you get an opportunity to do multiple reads most of the time. I mean, typically I just do one read unless the casting director asks for 2 takes. But every once in a while, like I just did one the other day and I decided to do 2 takes. You don't always get that opportunity when you're with the casting director. Sometimes you do the audition And they go, thank you very much. See, and you can always ask, hey, by the way, could I try something else? They probably will let you. Not always, but this way you know that you have that option. And the third benefit of doing a self-tape is that you're going to be much calmer. You know, the pressure isn't there. And let me just tell you, Sometimes it was really hard. I'm traveling half a day, you know, to get to an audition, or a full day. Sometimes I would have to drive and sleep over because I'm not driving, you know, 13 hours to Atlanta and then walking in and doing an audition. And there's just so much more pressure. You're thinking, oh, I just spent all this time and money, I've got to do it. And you're exhausted, at least for me. Yeah. It was very tiring. So doing, doing self-tapes, it allows me to relax more. I can take my time. If I don't like the take that I did, I redo it. No big deal. Now, you don't want to do 100 takes because at some point they're gonna start dragging. Trust me, that happened to me once. So you still want to limit the amount it takes to make sure the energy is still there. But those, those are really strong benefits to doing in-person auditions. So it's completely up to you if you have both options. Or actually, there is another option that happens sometimes where you can do a virtual audition. It's live with the casting director, so that way you do get an opportunity to ask questions and they can give you notes. You know, if needed, and get more of a sense of your personality. But yeah, I've been really enjoying the self-tapes, even though I do know that my auditions typically will be better when reading with a casting director. But boy, the self-tapes has really changed my life. I did promise— oh, actually, before I even do that, hey guys, let me know And let everybody else know what your feelings are about doing self-tapes or traveling and auditioning for, you know, to the casting director. Love to hear your ideas. Please share them on the channel so that way we can learn from you. And that, that's the whole point of this, to have, you know, this group, this family of actors who are sharing information and learning from each other. Okay, so if you look up here, you're going to get a chance to see, uh, the link that you can click on so you can watch 4 amazing tips that will make your audition stronger. I'm Aaron Marcus, and I can't wait to talk with you again soon. See ya.