So, since posting the casting call for ‘Blackbird’ last week, my emails have been going absolutely crazy! At time of writing, I have received one hundred and sixty-one applications for the play and I am certain that this number will only increase in the weeks approaching the deadline (Wednesday 21st June). Perhaps it will increase as I sit here writing! This is already far more applicants than I have ever received before, with a few familiar names returning (so pleased to hear from you again), and as I sit waiting with bated breath for the self-tapes to come rolling in, I am thinking about the things that make a tape stand out to me (in both good and bad ways). So, why not share my musings with you? Throw you a bone.
Just before I do start properly though, I just want to reassure anyone who applies through the website application form that your messages are all getting to me. I may not be able to respond immediately as I am currently working during the day most days and I (somewhat amazingly) have a pretty decent sleep schedule but I am seeing them come in. Just for extra piece of mind, we have added an automated response to say that we have received it that won’t trigger unless we have actually received it.
1. Have a reader
I say in my casting call (whichever one you see) ‘to showcase you at your best, please use a reader if possible’ and I am not kidding. One of the most, if not the most, important things for me to see from someone who’s auditioning is their ability to connect with their scene partner. I mean it, nine times out of ten it will be the first thing that I write in my notebook when I first watch an audition. Needless to say, it is very difficult to gage any kind of connection if there simply isn’t anyone there to connect to. That’s not to say that it can’t happen, I have recalled someone whose tape was so strong that it didn’t matter that the person that they were connecting to was imaginary but this was very much the exception rather than the rule. Many people who don’t have a reader also often fall into the trap of addressing their tape straight to camera which I personally find incredibly distracting as it feels as if the onus of making the connection is put on me. This ironically makes me want to disconnect more. Of course, you could always record yourself saying the other lines with gaps in between them but most people that I have seen doing this have actually been done pretty dirty by this method as they seem to be focussing more on their timing rather than their work. My point is, grab a friend, a partner or a family member and ask them to read in for you. My focus is going to be on you so I don’t care if they aren’t the correct casting type for the other character. When she was a teenager, my sister was a reader for me where the other character was a man in his eighties – it can literally be anyone who has the ability to speak!
2. Make sure you record against a plain background
This one may seem obvious, but I have had people sending me tapes of them standing in their living room or in front of their bookshelves…and I can be quite nosy. As much as I may try to focus on you and what you’re doing, the book nerd in me will always be distracted by comparing books to the books that I have and tastes in fiction. Seriously, you could be Ian McKellen playing opposite Judi Dench and Tom Hiddleston and I will still be admiring your furniture. Yes, the thought that I may have some kind of attention disorder has occurred to me but that’s not the point. Use a plain wall, of any colour, and if you don’t have one then borrow a friend’s.
3. Play around with the emotional tone and show thought changes
Now when I say play around with the emotional tone, I don’t mean just change for the hell of it – for instance, don’t suddenly go happy when your character is at their mum’s funeral – but don’t paint the whole scene with the same emotional brush either. Remember, I am only seeing you do two to three minutes of one section of the play so I need to see at least some kind of journey or variation. This could be as simple as slightly changing your action – your character is defensive so is one line trying to backpedal while another is going on the offensive? Even a subtle change in tone or thought process is enough to make me sit up and go ‘oh ok, this is interesting.’
4. Take your time
I always give about a month between opening and closing casting so that people don’t feel like they have to rush to get something in to me straight away. Despite this, however, some people only take a day or send me their self-tape with their application (meaning that they won’t have got my email about the context of the section). In this instance, what nearly always comes back is something that I can tell hasn’t been properly worked on as there is no detail and the lines have only been half learnt (if they have been learnt at all). I get hardly any sense of character or interpretation beyond what could be seen at first glance of the script which means I that I have learnt next to nothing of how they are as an actor. To be clear about lines, I don’t especially mind if they haven’t been fully learnt (at recalls I even specify that people don’t need to worry about learning the pieces by heart) but I do expect to see someone who is at least familiar enough with them that they don’t have to be staring down constantly. Having the script on the table and looking down every so often is absolutely fine, as long as it doesn’t interfere with connection to their reader or the work that they’ve done. Obviously if you’re applying last minute then there’s not a huge amount that you can do as that self-tape has to get to me, but otherwise I’d suggest taking at least five days to really have a think about the extract and the character.
5. Don’t stress yourself out
I know it’s pretty cliché to say this, but I am not looking for perfect. I am only seeing a snapshot of you playing two to three pages of a character from a play you may not be overly familiar with, if anyone got it absolutely spot on immediately then I would be amazed. Perfect is something to be worked towards in the rehearsal room, right now I just want to see your work and get a sense of what you would bring to the character. An amuse bouche if you will. If you’ve recorded something and it’s the night before deadline but you don’t know whether to submit it because it might not be as good as you wanted it to be, send it to me anyway. I want to see it, and you never know – it may be the best out of the bunch.
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