Digital Content for MT Pros: Audition Self-Tapes Are Not Digital Content

This is really, really important. 

Creating digital content has become imperative to your success as an actor.

Your entire online presence will be considered for every part of the casting process by everyone on the creative team: casting director, director, choreographer, music supervisor, producer, etc. It can be the reason you get the first appointment, the reason you get the call-back or seal the deal on an offer after you’ve submitted self-tapes or auditioned in person.

Self-tapes for auditions are not digital content.

Can you use other types of shots that are used in movies for your self-tape? Not really. This is where we can begin to make a distinction between professional audition aesthetics and digital content created for public consumption. Digital content includes things like music videos, edited actor reels, movie trailers, web series, pop song covers, performance footage, interviews, etc.

Digital content is produced, edited, polished and showcases you in a positive light. It is created and developed to be viewed by anyone on any device at any time. Do you really think that your brilliant self-tape audition for Sam Shepard’s Buried Child and a classical monologue in your bedroom merit public consumption on your YouTube channel?

Keep those private. They are for industry professionals when requested, not to build an audience. If you are desperate to show off your Shakespeare, consider shooting it in a modern setting or taping a live performance in full costume on a set. Then it elevates itself to digital content and the user experience shifts in your favor.

What is the goal of your online creative portfolio of work? As an artist and actor, it’s to establish credibility, exposure, build an audience and book more work. That starts with your website and curated examples of what you do and builds out to everything we can search on you, including all of your social media platforms, YouTube channels and more. 

You should consider all of your online digital content in light of getting cast as a professional actor. Is it on brand? Does it help us cast you or will it confuse us? Is the quality professional or does it feel cheap and/or amateurish? Can your TikTok duets book you work? Maybe. Can your political Twitter rants get you nixed from a final callback? Possibly. Will the creative team look at your Instagram videos and see how many friends you have in common on Facebook? Absolutely. Everything adds up to support or hurt the work you do “in the room,” which now includes via self-tape submissions.

No one wants to watch your self-tapes from your various auditions except the industry people that requested them. Keep them private.

Trust me on this one.

VP

SEARCH WORDS + HOMEWORK

digital content, digital entrepreneurship, personal branding, online presence, building an audience, content marketing, digital casting, content creator

COMING NEXT: Microphones, vocals and mixing-not-mixing.

Digital Content for MT Pros: Hit Me With Your Best Shot

I guarantee you know more about cinematic shots than you think. You might not know their technical names, but you know a lot about how filmmakers use different shots for different effects from just watching movies.

10 TYPES OF SHOTS EVERY FILMMAKER SHOULD KNOW is a good primer that covers what you need to understand to create fantastic digital content with any camera—including your smart phone. Want to take a deeper dive? The National Film Institute covers 80+ SHOTS YOU MUST KNOW so that you can feed the monster filmmaker inside you trying to break free.

The nifty thing about camera shots is that it allows you, the storyteller and filmmaker, to tell us where to look and what is important. Getting fundamental film shots under your belt uplevels anything you shoot on your phone. If you have a pulse, you have already mastered the closeup, aka “selfie.” You have also mastered a 2-shot with every picture you have ever taken with your BFF. Extreme wide or establishing shot? Yup. That’s that awesome pic you took standing at the South Rim of the Grand Canyon.

Learning about camera angles and shots is fundamental to the digital entrepreneurship that is now required to pursue any professional acting career, including musical theatre. First and foremost, you will be using your phone camera to do your self-tape auditions.

Most professional self-tape auditions require a “medium shot” from the waist up, and a “wide shot” for the slate so that the viewer can see their body head to toe as you state for the camera any important details such as height, agent, location, etc.

You might also use what is known as a COWBOY SHOT for audition songs or material that requires more substantial physical movement. A cowboy shot is a camera angle in filmmaking that frames its subject from the mid-thigh, just below hip level, to the top of their head. This shot derives its name from its use in Western films, where filmmakers kept both the actor's face and guns slung around their waist in the frame.

Everyone has an opinion about what equipment you need and what you can and cannot do in a self-tape. HOW TO MAKE A PERFECT SELF-TAPE is a solid starter guide. The industry standards and the equipment available to everyone as consumers is evolving at lightning speed, so the best advice I can offer for equipment recommendations is ask to around and research current information from industry professionals.

Navigating different types of audition material will dictate different strategies as well as different aesthetics for the genre/medium you are auditioning for. If you are preparing sides for a disturbing serial killer in a new HBO series, it will require a different approach than your setup and prep for a Broadway musical.

The thing to remember about auditioning in person and auditioning with self-tapes is that good acting is still good acting. The parameters are different and require some adaptation for things like volume, physical architecture, movement, eye line/focus and more, but good acting is still good acting.

At the end of the day, you will book the job because you are talented, you did your preparation, and are the best choice for the role. The technical stuff is important, but the work is the priority.

I know you know this. And I’m here to remind you.

VP

SEARCH WORDS + HOMEWORK

filmmaking 101, types of shots, camera shot, camera angles, over the shoulder, camera movement, closeup, establishing shot, wide shot, medium shot, cowboy shot, self-tapes, self-tape auditions, auditioning via zoom, smart phone filmmaking, how to slate

COMING NEXT: Audition self-tapes are not digital content.

Digital Content for MT Pros: Learning About Light

Nothing I will share with you about lighting is groundbreaking or new. This blog is about convenience and a speed-read for fundamentals so that I can serve musical theatre pros in the highest possibility of the new casting arena.

Spend the time you need on any area of digital content production, self-tape strategies, technology, editing skills, lighting, recording vocals and the fundamentals of video capture. You must become very, very, very proficient.

It’s that important.

If you’ve ever been on set for a big-budget movie shoot,  you realize that every aspect of the lighting is designed. If you live in a large city like New York, Chicago or Los Angeles, you have probably come across night shoots that are lit up as bright as daylight on entire blocks. It’s impressive, but for a reason.

The sun keeps moving.

Turn that idea to your home studio setup and you will quickly realize that any reliance on natural lighting is an exercise in futility depending on the time of day, which directions your windows face, or the season.

THREE-POINT LIGHTING

A three-point lighting setup is the standard for most basic filming. As the name suggests, it’s accomplished using three lights:

Key light: The key light is the strongest, providing most of the light in the shot. It’s generally placed in front of your subject, around 45-degrees above and 45-degrees to the right or left.
Fill light: This is a softer light, used to fill in shadows on the subject’s face. It should be positioned to the side, opposite the key light. The intensity of the fill light is usually around half that of the key light.
Back light: The back light (sometimes called a rim light) creates depth and provides a soft glow in the background. It’s placed above and behind the subject (out of the shot)

Learning how to master a simple three-point lighting setup will change your game. Remember that lights can be cool or warm, bright or dim, above or below, front or back, and on either side. Can you have five? Sure. Can one of them be your ceiling light? Yes. A lamp? Totally.

In fact, you might choose a type of bulb for your bedroom lamp specifically so it can double as a side light for all your self-tape videos—and require absolutely no setup. A small table lamp that is warm in color is a perfect companion to your ring light to warm up one side of your face or to add drama for audition sides that are dark and edgy.

6 WAYS TO LIGHT A SELF-TAPE is a great post demonstrating various setups and lighting combinations. Remember that natural light is always on the move and will change hour to hour, so don’t rely on it for any consistent takes unless they are fast and furious. If you are striving for professional standards, get lighting skills under your belt. Any light in your living space can serve you well in the right circumstance.

EQUIPMENT

Personally, my professional ring light makes me crazy.

I hate setting it up and I always use other lights to get to my finished look. The tripod takes up too much space in my studio apartment and it scares my French Bulldog, Violet. However, it does the job it is supposed to do and can add great sparkle to your eyes. So there’s that.

Some folks swear by having their phone cameras centered inside the ring, but you will find many other possibilities if you think of your video capture device and your lighting devices separately. Consider a well-positioned LED panel or two on your walls like a picture frame (use Velcro!) and a desk/floor lamp that are chosen specifically for a three-point lighting look. The type of bulb in your ceiling light can be a bright daylight bulb to provide a fresh, general wash of light in your room.

Be creative. It’s your job.

VP

SEARCH WORDS + HOMEWORK

three-point lighting, self-tape lighting, lighting equipment for self-tape auditions, ring lights, video lighting kits, LED panel, golden hour, soft vs. hard light, warm vs. cool light

COMING NEXT: Hit Me With Your Best Shot.

Digital Content for MT Pros: Setting Up Your Bedroom Film Studio

Let’s agree to some assumptions and distinctions for dramatic effect—this is a blog for musical theatre pros after all.

I’m going to assume you live in a small space or have roomies. I’m going to assume that you are creative. I’m going to assume that your resources are limited, but that you do what you have to do to pursue your career. I’m going to assume that you don’t know a lot of things about a lot of things, but that your curiosity and commitment overcome fear. I’m going to assume you will figure it out.

I’ll make one distinction: You are a talented professional who has trained for a career in musical theatre. Why? Because that comes with pure discipline and commitment—which means you can learn most anything you put your mind to.

The primary goal of upleveling your filmmaking skill set is to get cast in projects as an actor. Musical theatre peeps have the added pressure of demonstrating vocal skills and preparing show-specific music for any role or show, so in addition to the fundamental skills and equipment you need for video and lighting, you need to handle added tech skills for recording and mixing vocals.

It is what it is. The sooner you get great at this, the better.

What do you really need?

• Tripod and/or Light Stand

• Smartphone Tripod Adapter

• Microphone

• Backdrop

• Editing Software

• Mixing Software

Everyone has a smart phone, so start there. You will need to invest in a ring light or other lighting options and I suggest you get a good intermediate or entry-level pro microphone. Backdrop? It can be your wall—and usually is.

It becomes a real drag setting up and striking your self-tape setups constantly, so the more planning you put into your shooting area, the better. You want to spend your time working on the material, not shuffling your living space around and bugging your room mates.

I will be breaking down everything on the above list with a simple, logical approach for this blog. I will also be including great links for learning resources and equipment ideas.

What if you didn’t have to take up room in your tiny bedroom or apartment for a typical ring light and tripod setup, but rather installed an LED lighting panel on a side wall with Velcro? Then you just turn it on for video recording and are still be able move it or use it with a tripod on location. Boom. What if you painted a strategic wall in the style of a blotchy-cool photographer’s backdrop in blue/slate/gray so you never have to setup a backdrop or pull furniture around? Boom.

Planning your bedroom or apartment video setup so that it is about the same repetition as making your coffee every morning will make it less of a burden and more of a professional routine.

A little homework goes a long way.

No matter where you are in your digital entrepreneurship journey, you will want to integrate the new demands into your life with the least amount of stress. 

How? Stay curious. Curiosity cures anxiety about what you don’t know yet. Curiosity keeps you in the game to observe the changing industry landscape without getting angry. Curiosity saves the day when you have spent the last three hours trying to figure out how to line up your vocals with the music track in Garage Band so you can punch in one more take for the high note in the middle of the song.

Curiosity is a choice. And it adds a lot of fun to the journey.

VP

COMING NEXT: Learning About Light.

Digital Content for MT Pros: Truth Bombs + Tough Love

I’ve never been the kind of person to beat around any bush, so let’s talk some tough truths.

Musical theatre professionals are facing an entirely new industry landscape post-pandemic. The old school goons that said casting musical theatre could “never happen” online finally had to learn that Skype was dead and Zoom had taken over the world when a deadly virus pushed us all indoors—and shut down Broadway overnight. They also realized they could see more people without the cost of in-person auditions and plug in creative team members from anywhere in the world. The learning curve was fast and changed the game.

Evolve or die. That’s what it boils down down to regarding the digital entrepreneurship and filmmaking skills that are now imperative to book work as an actor for any genre: tv, film, theatre, or musical theatre. Some opportunities will start and end with self-tapes and others will prescreen online and move to in-person callbacks, work sessions and final offers.

WTF?! You didn’t train to be a filmmaker. Or a music engineer. Or an art director. Or an editor.

You also didn’t expect a tiny little virus to wipe out your entire industry (and job opportunities) for a couple of years and then struggle to reinvent itself for long-term survival. Well, guess what? We survived when the comet crashed on earth and took out the dinosaurs. It’s believed that 75% of the earth’s species were wiped out by that global event over 60 million years ago, but it also paved the way for new species to evolve.

We adapt. We shift. We change. We learn. We grow. We survive.

If you are still finding yourself angry about all the new equipment you have to buy to stay in the game, get over it because you have a smart phone. Everyone can make movies now. If you are feeling lost because you aren’t “tech savvy,” start watching tutorials online. If you just don’t want to do the work to get proficient in digital content as it relates to Broadway-level casting and professional musical theatre, go find something else to do. Create a new career path that gives you the same excitement that being in musical theatre used to give you.

Let it all sting for a minute and then get to work on a new life or on some new skills. The question you should be asking yourself is, “Who am I willing to be and how will I show up as a professional in the industry now?” Not the one you trained for 5, 10, 15 or 20 years ago. The one that is staring you in the face right now.

One final truth bomb before we jump into the fun stuff for future posts: Happiness is in your court to create. No one cares what you do because everyone is trying to run their own race.

Do what you need to do—it’s all good.

VP

COMING NEXT: Setting Up Your Bedroom Film Studio.

Digital Content for MT Pros: But I Don't Want To Be a Filmmaker.

The casting process has changed forever and the most powerful thing you can do right now to boost your career is to get your digital house in order. Are you irritated that you've spent years training for the stage, but now have to learn filmmaking skills to book that work? You can get mad or get better.

This new blog will get you started with creative strategies and digital entrepreneurship that directly supports the new audition process for everyone in the industry.

Stay tuned.