The casting directors of ‘Paddington 2’, ‘Sex Education’ and ‘Father Brown’ share their top tips for preparing for, filming and sending off your self-tapes.
Between them, casting directors Hannah Simons, Lauren Evans and Emma Sylvester have cast a variety of commercials, films and television shows, including: Paddington 2, Sex Education, Father Brown, Sister Boniface Mysteries, Casualty, Lost Boys & Fairies, Renegade Nell, Apple, Rightmove, Autotrader and Just Eat.
With so many amazing projects, you can only imagine the number of self-tapes they’ve seen over the years, and the advice they wish they could share with the performers submitting them.
Hannah, Lauren and Emma are our judges for our 2024 ‘Into the Spotlight’ Young Performers competition, and we asked them to put together a list of their top tips. Whether you’re planning to apply for the competition or not, be sure to keep these in mind next time you receive a self-tape request for a role, especially if they’re the ones casting for it!
Hannah Simons’ Tips
- Try to be as confident as you can, it’s never great to see people fiddling with their fingers, or looking nervous/scared. Just enjoy yourselves – show me why you love performing!
- If you don’t tell us your name or agent at the start of your self-tape, and your file isn’t labelled, it means we have no idea who you are!
- Make sure we can see and hear you clearly.
Lauren Evans’ Tips
- Find a quiet space. Don’t worry about finding a plain or fancy background. We just want to be able to see you clearly (ideally your head and shoulders) and hear you.
- Pick a point of focus (left/right of camera – not directly down the lens), but don’t end up in profile. Think about where you are placing your eye-line if there is a third character in the scene. Build the scene for us and it will inevitably help your performance.
- Put down that camera and walk away. Please don’t keep going and going because you have the time and the inclination. Give yourself a maximum number of takes and let it be.
Emma Sylvester’s Tips
Preparation
- Read the casting director’s instructions carefully and thoroughly. Don’t skim read the invitation email.
- Time and perspective are your best friends. If the casting team has sent you the full script, read it. Allow yourself an initial read, then put it down (overnight is best). Look at it again with fresh eyes and different thoughts, and ideas will come to you on that second read. This is crucial to get those creative juices flowing.
- Do your research, who is the Director – what have they done before? Who is the producer/production company? If it’s an established show can you look it up and watch an episode or two to get a sense of the style, period or genre.
- Try, as best as you can in the time to get on top of your lines you will feel more confident when the time comes to press record.
Taping
- Make sure the environment you choose to record your tape in is conducive to doing your best work. If you find too much noise distracting, find somewhere quiet or wait for a time you can safely feel that there will be no interruptions.
- A reader should be someone that you can work freely with. If you find they are correcting you on how to say words or lines, it might make you feel a little annoyed, and that will stop you from performing at your best.
- Something that I think is often overlooked is warm up and rehearsal. An opera singer won’t perform unless they are warmed up, and the same goes for actors. Do some simple stretches, a bit of yoga, star jumps – anything to get into your bodies physically!
- Together with your reader, go through the scene a few times. Allow one run through to settle yourself in the space, and then try a few more run throughs until you feel that you have found your way with it and are ready to press record.
- Remember that there is no right or wrong way when it comes to your performance of the scene. We (the casting director, director and producers) are still finding our own way with the characters, and at this point the characters only exist in black and white on the page. Trust your own instincts and ideas and don’t aim to please us or second guess what we are looking for. You are being asked to tape for a reason and we are excited to see what you can bring to the role.
- Make sure you are taping against a plain background, not with your back facing a window (facing a window is brilliant for natural light) and make sure the shot is tight, so head and shoulders only. If the casting team has asked for an ident and/or longshot, you can add this in at the end of the tape.
- Keep your eye-line nice and tight. Have your reader left or right of the camera, and keep your face in profile so we can see all of your lovely work.
- If there is very complicated physical action written in the script, you don’t need to do it in your tape. You could mark it with a change of energy or just ignore it altogether.
- Record the scene a maximum of three times. Hopefully, with your rehearsal, you have gotten yourself to the best possible place performance-wise, so you won’t need to do lots of different takes.
- When you have finished recording, refer back to the casting team’s instructions. Do they want one take or two? How would they like to receive the tape? Via Dropbox? WeTransfer or Tagmin?
- Always ensure you label your tapes with your name, the role you are auditioning for and the project. The casting team will be very grateful, as sometimes they are working across multiple projects so will be receiving a lot of tapes at the same time. Doing this will ensure all of your hard work doesn’t get lost.
- Once you have sent your tape, try as best as you can to put it out of your mind.
- You will hear from the casting team as soon as any decisions are made, and sometimes this can take a while. There is a lot going on behind the scenes.
A massive thanks to Hannah, Lauren and Emma for sharing these extremely useful self-taping tips with us!
Take a look at our website for more self-tape tips and advice, including:
