- Hi there, I'm Leanna Chamish - I'm Brian St. August
-and welcome to
"The Actors' Hot Tub". It's where we two actors do what we love, we talk about
acting in an intimate setting like we're sitting in a hot tub
-Come on and jump in - Alright, so what are we going to talk about today?
- You had agreat idea it was to do with self-recording and Skype - Yes alright, well I
have to say in this day and age being able to audition for something when
you're not physically present with the director in their home towns or
locations is wonderful! What a benefit we have in this time. So I have had
situations where I have recorded myself on an iPhone doing a dramatic scene to
show a director how I can perform, or I've used Skype and run lines with a
director in order to obtain a part. I use my cell phone to record audio to get
radio spots, and I used my home voiceover recording studio to send in samples to
compete for spots. So I just think it's great. It really is help in leveraging
your time, to take advantage of these technological tools. Have you had
experience doing them? - Well I'll tell you I've experienced it both ways before this
was available. There's a big soundstage in Wilmington North Carolina, Sony
Screen Gems soundstage, Dawson's Creek, One Tree Hill there's a lot of Sandra
Bullock movies were shot there. For me for an audition, the the famous casting
office there is Fincannon's, for me to get there is a 10 hour drive, so
before the age of being able to video yourself or in some other way do a
recorded audition I used to drive all night to get to Wilmington, get a cup of
coffee, go there be totally road-weary and get up and they'd have you do
something that required you to react, which I couldn't react at all. Yeah, so
now what I'm finding is that a lot of the roles
with those people, yeah, and for other projects all over the country I'm able
to do a video audition at home and send that to my agent who who then sends it
on to the casting director. And the same thing with Skype. -Yeah, as for the actual
mechanics of it it doesn't have to be that fancy. One movie role I got my
boyfriend to video me sitting at a table drinking some wine and doing the lines
because I was auditioning for an alcoholic Mom.
In other cases I've gotten commercials, on-camera jobs by just setting up my
Android phone, I have an Android, facing myself on a music stand at my house
while pointing at just a blank wall, and I've taken the floor lamp and I goose-neck
it to give myself some light and I read the part. And, you know, that
shows them my skill and personality even if it's not the most technologically
perfect situation. And I remember once you and I went out for coffee and you
got an email while we were having coffee that you were to audition for a radio
spot and you're like "oh my God what do I do?"
I said let's go out to the car where it's quiet and sound-isolated I'll
record you on my phone and I'll email it to your agent. And we did it! - Yeah, and I was, like
next on the list, you know if the person that they were hiring didn't do it
- So it was very effective audition and it was even raining I think we could
sort of hear the rain drops. - Rain drops on the car - So, you have tools available to audition. And you
told me a story about when you got the Chick-fil-A commercial - Yeah, I want to talk about that a little bit
because the whole idea of Skype is pervading the entire industry. I mean you
might be at home and a casting director might want to have a Skype audition with
you or you're right there in your own house doing it but what I had... number one,
I auditioned for the Chick-fil-A commercial, which I did shoot last summer,
in New York and did the audition in front of a regular casting director. When
I got the call back the next week and had to go back up again
I was in the same office but instead of the casting director being there, there
was this gigantic screen and on the screen was the director from California,
and the client. So I was Skyping in the casting director's office to the
real casting director and the client by virtue of a Skype audition and, knock on wood,
I was able to get that, but it's amazing how this happens and so our
suggestion, I think, is if you don't use Skype, begin to use it, begin to bring it
into your lifestyle a little bit so that if you get a call that requires you to
do it you won't have to run around trying to
invent the approach. It's very easy but it does take a little getting
used to. The same thing for looking at the type of work that you like to do,
like Leanna does a tremendous amount of voiceover work, so these audio auditions
are very, very important to her. You have certain things that you use in order to
do that, Well, what are some of those devices you use? - Oh, sure, I mean I could
get into details about what kind of mic I use and software, which is great when
I'm at home and can use all that gear, but really it is effective to use your
phone. So learn the tools that you have available, like if you're out on the road
and you do have to record an audio audition with your phone, I think it's
better that you make the fast response to the request for the audition rather
than go home and make everything perfect and delay by hours or a day or whatever
might be necessary. So learn the tools. You, for example, for your video auditions
you have a camera and you've learned how to shoot yourself and download the
videos to your computer and compress them out into email-able forms or
upload-able forms, so just get to know that I mean it would be hard to kind of
get into specifics on every possible situation with you right now,
just be aware that you can do this and use the tools that you have available or
start researching your options and we can probably discuss this in the
comments below the video. - I think that's a great idea let me just suggest to you
there are a couple of things when you're doing video auditions that are basic and
there are things you need to keep in mind because they are the things that
are most likely to turn off an agent or casting director if these things aren't
done correctly. Number one is make sure you have good lighting. Don't put
yourself in a situation where there's shadows on your face, they can't make you
out. Make sure that your background is clean that you don't have clutter, you
know, pictures hanging because anything that detracts from your presentation and
from your eyes, your making contact with them, is going to work
against you. And I've gotten feedback on that from a from an agent through a
casting director who said, you know, "I thought Brian's thing was really good
but what was this thing hanging behind him?" So take my my lesson and use it for
yourself. So good, lighting non-distracting background and try to frame it so it's
right just just above your head to about your chest level, and for all intents and
purposes, with your slate and with your delivery that should be fine. - Yeah, I was
just about to mention slating and other options. You should follow the
direction that they give you in the audition notice, for example what Brian
just said, maybe frame like this. Well, maybe they want to see more, so listen to
what they tell you to do. Also pay attention to how they tell you to slate
it or if they want to slate. A lot of my audio auditions they don't want
it slated but in my video auditions I usually do say like, "Hi, I'm Leanna Chamish
and I'm auditioning for Royal Farms". Then you take a beat and then you
do it. And also file naming conventions. If the agency tells you name this file
with your name, the client name the date, just follow their instructions so it's
"Leanna Chamish, audition for GBMC, date whatever" and you send it in, So, pay
attention to that - Excellent, excellent advice - mm-hmm, you can use things like
attaching to email things, audio and video, but sometimes it gets clunky, it's too
big. You may want to have Dropbox or some sort of other cloud sharing, Google Drive,
there there are others, but what is the one that Apple uses? I think it's called
Airdrop? So, yeah, but large file sharing options... have you done that? - No well, Dropbox
- Dropbox okay let's just use that. For example, you've created a
video audition but maybe it's too big to email, the agency's email rejects
attachments over a certain size, so you are able to upload your video to Dropbox
or another cloud service. Copy a link to that, paste that link into your email and
say, "Hey agent click this and you will see my audition", and you can download it
if the client chooses to do so. - And anyone having technical issues with
doing this I want you to send a note directly to Leanna, put that comment
in your comments and I promise you she will get back to you personally with the
technical information you need in order to do that correctly, right? - I will need a
salary for IT if I do that! How do you handle it? Like I said, I generalized a lot of things
about different kinds of equipment but I just want to point out that audio and
video auditions in this day and age are possible and desirable and you really
should get on board. Do you have anything to add? - No, I would just say and they're
probable I would I would guarantee you that by the end of 2018 you will have
done several of each of those, it's just the way it's going. - So, I'd love to
have a conversation with you about this, please write in the comments below
and like and subscribe to our channel so that every time we put out a new video
you'll be notified. - Look forward to hearing from you and see you next time.
- Thanks for joining us in "The Actors' Hot Tub"!
Bye Bye!
you
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