In this instructional video, Aaron Marcus warns actors that using a ring light alone for home audition videos can create distracting catchlights—such as bright circles or diamond‑shaped reflections—in the eyes, which casting directors often criticize. He offers a series of practical, low‑cost solutions: (1) supplement the ring light with side softboxes to create even, flattering facial lighting; (2) position the ring light farther from the face, preferably pointing at a clean wall so the wall reflects soft, even light onto the subject; (3) if space is limited, bounce the ring light off a white tag board or poster board to diffuse the light. Marcus notes that a basic softbox kit can be assembled for around $70‑$75, making the setup affordable for beginners. He encourages viewers to share their own lighting experiences, subscribe, and watch a linked bonus video on powerful audition tips for TV and film beginners.
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In this video, I'm going to be sharing with you how to stop using ring lights the wrong way in auditions. Here's an easy fix, and watch this to the end. I've got a great bonus video for you. Powerful auditions for TV and film beginners. Here are 5 tips you need. Hi, I'm Aaron Marcus, and welcome to the Acting and Modeling Quick Tips channel and the Actor Career Center. Look, everybody's shooting home auditions these days. It might change at some point, who knows? Maybe we'll go back into casting directors' offices all the time, maybe just some of the time, which I know happens now. But a lot of people are using ring lights to create the lighting for their auditions. You've got to be really careful with ring lights, because if they're not used properly, it can make your audition look absolutely horrible. And so I'm going to be sharing with you a couple of really important tips that will allow you to use your ring light in a smart and, and really interesting way. So here's the problem with ring lights. If you're only using a ring light, and as you can see in this photo, You get these crazy eyes sometimes depending on the ring light. Some ring lights will have those circles in your eyes and they really are pronounced. Sometimes you get these diamond-shaped things in your pupils and it is so distracting, and I've heard casting directors complain about them all the time. So you need to learn how to avoid Running into this situation and having crazy eyes. So here are some suggestions. One, well, when I shoot auditions, I do use a ring light, but I also have soft boxes, and I find them to be really, really helpful to me. And so this way I've got soft boxes on the side of my face, and I have a ring light on the opposite side of the room. But maybe you're not in a position to have all 3. And by the way, the softboxes, they're not that expensive. I mean, look, everything is relative, I get it, but you can buy the entire kit for like, I don't know, $70, $75 for both softboxes, the bulbs, the stands. So anyhow, that's one thing to keep in mind. Now for the ring lights, and, and they, they, their costs are very, very different, but Here's one suggestion, and this is going to be dependent on your room, where you live. You might be able to— because let me just back up for a second. So when you do have the ring light right in front of your face, that's what gives you the crazy eyes. If you can move the ring light farther away, then that can help prevent that from happening. So here's one suggestion. If you are shooting in a room that has a blank wall, it's clean, you don't have pictures on it and things like that, and it's far enough away, what you can do is take the ring light and, as you can see in this photo, have the light facing the wall, not you. And then have the wall reflect all the light from the ring light onto your face. Hopefully, that will make things nice and even, and the background will be really clean as well. So that's one option. If you don't have that kind of setup available, here's another one. And you can see in this photo as well, once again, the ring light is not facing you. But what you can do is take a piece of white tag board, And just bounce it off of the tag board. And that also can make your face look really nice and even. So those are 2 really important suggestions when you are using a ring light. So either have it far away from you, all the way at the other end of the room. If that's not possible, maybe you can just Bounce it off the wall far away from you, or it doesn't even have to necessarily be that far away from you. Just have it bouncing off the wall and have it fill your face. And the third way is, once again, turn the ring light around and bounce it off of a white card or just some kind of white poster board and have that fill your face. So hey, if you've had any interesting experiences with ring lights, if you've had to play around with them to make them look good, please share, uh, share your comment, uh, on the channel so that way we can learn from you as well. Uh, before I give you the link for the great bonus video, if you haven't done this yet, subscribe, click the notification bell so you always know when I upload a new video. If you like it, give it a thumbs up and share the link with your fellow actors. If you look up here, you'll see the link, Powerful Audition tips for film and television for beginners. Here are 5 that you absolutely need, and I hope this is really helpful to you. I'm Aaron Marcus, and I can't wait to talk with you again soon. See ya.
