I, like most of the casting community, have spent time reading over the latest articles on the current state of casting . It has been gut wrenching to read and try to digest, especially as someone who learned this industry in the southeast where self-tapes have been the prominent form of auditions since I started in 2007 working as a casting assistant and in extras casting.
Technology has done a lot of wonderful things for our industry across the board, but has mostly left casting behind. We have a significant lack of software that streamlines our process, which is why a very large part of an assistant and associate duties are manually creating and entering hundreds of actors into various spreadsheets and tables while we track availability and auditions requested/seen. We spend hours downloading and uploading auditions and self-tapes from one platform to another.
You will never be right for every single role. No one is. It doesn’t mean your audition wasn’t good, and it doesn’t mean we don’t notice you. That’s why the audition is the win, . Turn in a good audition and let it go. If those audition requests keep happening, you can know without a doubt that casting is trying to get you booked. We want to give you as many chances as possible to get in front of producers and directors. We are on your side.
In a face to face audition you learn far more about your potential cast member,you have multiple options to put to them.& they have the opportunity to expand themselves on the spot .
In the article she says she sees between 100 to 500 actors for each role.
I'd rather self tape than wait in traffic for 2 hours and pay for gas. Plus sometimes I don't have to put on pants!!! Callbacks/Chemistry reads can be in person.
Quantity not QUALITY essentially.
Thank you !!!! 🙏🏼
Yeah, just gonna take some getting used to the paradigm shift…I HATE self tapes and miss being in the room, but we must adapt👌🏿
How can she say that she understands Actors put a lot of work into the craft and that it’s about the acting, but say you don’t watch all the tapes and skip through tapes to see the choices actors make?! That in no way shape or form is helpful to the actor and seems disrespectful
“So much pushback seems to be people not believing us when we say: It all comes down to the acting every time. Not the headshot, not the resume, not the reel, not the production quality of your tape, not being in the room, not your slate,” said Winter