Of Casting Calls and Auditions: How to Hold an Audition
As I have described in the previous blog entry about my pre-production tasks, I have already sent out casting calls in my function as producer for ACTION! From last year’s academic research, I already knew how to write a casting call and where to publish it in order to attract actors for our Transgender Live Project.
However, since we have received a couple of replies to my casting call and I scheduled for auditions on upcoming Monday and Wednesday, I now need to hold an audition in tandem with our director Lynley.
Since this not only requires me to read up on the producer’s role in auditions (for our production A GOOD ONE, I – as the cinematographer – was only needed to record the audition, not to plan and lead it!), I decided that I would read up on auditions while also taking a look into casting calls again to make sure that I was not only still up to date with the casting call process, but that I would also be able to incorporate new tips and ideas in case a new tutorial had found its way into Youtube.
Research into Auditions
From the four sources that I frequented, three of them were really helpful in getting an idea of what my role as a producer in a student production would be. The one made by The DSLR Chronicles, unfortunately, was not really informative for me apart from the fact that
You should not book out an expensive location for auditions and
You are perfectly able to ask for a recording or an audition tape
For the rest, this video seemed to be rather aimed at actors than filmmakers, which might be why it failed my personal expectation.
RocketJump Film School: How to Hold an Audition
Looking at the three videos previously mentioned, this one stood out as the most helpful one in regard to my role as a producer. It not only helped me to understand how to set up an audition room, it also gave me a deeper understanding of how my role (and thus, my questions to the actors) would differ from the director’s.
In this video, it has been advised in general to read the script multiple times and to familiarise oneself with the characters, the world that has been created within the script as well as the motivations or ‘rules’ that are set by the story. Since our director (who is also the scriptwriter) be present and leading the audition as well, I did not bother rereading the script multiple times beyond what I need to know to take care of in my role.
Another extremely helpful tip that I received was to create a ‘casting spreadsheet’ in which I would enter the entire progress of the casting procedure, such as the name of the actor replying to the casting call, confirmation of audition attendance, address, etc.
One very useful advice to receive for me was the hint to not give away the address in the initial casting call (or casting breakdown, as the American casting director in this video calls it), but to leave it until receiving and responding to the individual applications. While I, as a matter of exposure, naturally refrained from entering our uni’s address onto a Facebook-published casting call, it was also a good reminder to generally adhere to that procedure in order to avoid unwanted or unplanned for actor appearances that might screw with your audition schedule.
The section on the casting breakdown furthermore assured me that I have entered all the relevant information into our casting call such as e.g. title, production type, synopsis, character breakdown, and the rough area of where the audition will be held. This was reassuring, as I then knew that I was up-to-date with the procedure.
The video above furthermore advises to schedule suitors in 10-15min slots, calling five people for every 30-minute block. This strange kind of math was justified by the experience of the casting director who also advised to expect a ‘no-show-rate’ of five to ten percent!
And while this setting might be time-saving in a professional casting agency with a proper waiting room, I did not think this would be feasible for our student production at this point, as we, firstly, don’t have a proper waiting room to offer for our auditions, and secondly, don’t allow outsiders to enter university grounds without a responsible person to fetch and accompany them at any times.
Since this will also be part of my role as a producer, I thus decided to allot one-hour slots for each actor coming to accommodate for any delays that might happen due to traffic, or our lack of experience and routine with auditions in general. However, for the future, I hope that we will generally be able to schedule in a more time-saving way. For a start, I would rather have more time at hand than rushing things.
Much like with last year’s production, my role as a producer will thus require me to set up an audition room that is comfortable and blank, with a table and chairs for both Lynley and me, as well as enough space for the actor to freely roam and act in. Since auditions should be recorded for further reference, I have already booked out the relevant recording equipment for Nathan and Katie to set up on the day of audition.
And as the casting director advised to keep the number of the people in the audition room to a bare but comfortable minimum, I intend to then send both Nathan and Katie to our newly fitted gallery to allow for privacy while still being ready to help out in case equipment or we needed them to.
Further tips! Stagebuddypro: Great Audition Room Advice From a Casting Director
Further, helpful tips, which I not only gathered from my research on Youtube, but also from my experience last year, is to never give more than three pages of the script in total to read and act out and to have a copy of the script ready for the actor to perform with. Thus, I will make sure to print out a script. Another really helpful tip was to offer someone as a reader for delivering lines to the actor as to facilitate their performance, while also allowing for our director to observe the performance without having to read the script with the actor acting.
Furthermore, I will have to be able to read between the lines and see how the actor behaves. This means that I should be able to detect whether the actor is already concentrated and in character or whether they need to small talk a bit first. Which also leads me to the idea of buying water and cups for the actors to have in case they need a bit of a warming-up beverage beforehand.
Finally, and I think that will be the most important part for me and my role, I prepared questions to ask our suitors in order to have all the necessary information ready and facilitate further planning without having to communicate back-and-forth. So far, these questions are (in no particular order):
Could you please state your name and address on recording?
How do you travel? Do you need to be picked up or can you make your own way to the location (with the travel expenses covered by us).
Do you have outdoor gear that you could provide for your role?
In case of the narrator: Do you have a suit and a coat that you could provide?
What dates are you not available? What dates would you alternatively prefer?
In case of us providing the costume: What are your measurements?
And while I am not yet content with asking the last question in a setting such as an audition (it’s rather private after all and who knows their own measurements by heart anyway?), I was still considering it just for time-saving purposes.
The Auditions – Putting Research into Practice
Monday was the day I would be putting my newly-found knowledge into action. For I was able to schedule two auditions in total. I was hyped and a bit anxious, as I am not exactly the best small talker in the world, but felt that I would be required to be by the actors. Anyways, I was ready to start a day of auditions.
Or so I thought.
On the very same day, or rather in the night before, both actors cancelled their audition last minute due to emergency cases. However, I did not receive the messages until about two hours before the scheduled slots, which is why almost our entire crew already sat at uni.
I then proceeded to reschedule one of our actors to Tuesday and agreed with the other to send me a head shot and a recording of his voice instead (as he would be our narrator). I then took our actors from the reception’s registry aka rescheduled them and booked out the studio for Tuesday’s audition.
Tuesday’s audition went rather smoothly. We had our actor coming and signing himself in, proceeded into the studio and held the audition. We recorded his details onto the audition tape, and had him act in his role a couple of times; from his own rendition and interpretation to the specific ones that Lynley and I had agreed on. After his performance, I furthermore settled a couple of the organisational questions above (minus the question for measurements!) and thanked him for coming by and auditioning for us before sending him off again.
After that, the crew sat down and discussed our impressions. Since Lynley as director was amazed and thrilled by his performances, which happened to look really well on the footage Nathan took, we decided that we would take him on.
Now today, on Wednesday, we had our last audition scheduled for the main role of our advert. We got the studio about 45 minutes before the audition, cleaned it and set everything up again. I went to reception and waited for our actor to turn up and sign him in.
And I waited.
And I waited.
After 15 minutes of waiting, I send the actor an email enquiring whether he found us difficult to find and needed further help or directions. I hoped that I would receive a quick response. However, after five more minutes, I gave our receptionist my number in case the actor was turning up late and unable to answer and returned to the studio.
Since we had already booked out the studio until 17.00, we decided to, again, do a blocking session to help gauge the length of the ad and gain a bit more practice. We did this not only for time-management reasons but also because we determined that the bad weather might have delayed public traffic and that our actor might just turn up late by happenstance.
After two hours of waiting and blocking, we finally decided to pull up sticks and go home, which was pretty frustrating to me. I had hoped to practice holding auditions a bit more, but was met with a no-show rate of 33,33% and a reschedule rate of 66,66% in total. Which is a bit different from the 5-10% rate my sources were talking about. But then again, we are ‘only’ a student production that does not pay well, so I should have somewhat expected a lesser turnout in general.
However, I am now back to square one posting casting calls again.
References:
Film Riot (2013) The Casting Process & Casting Call Do’s and Don'ts! [online]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDjTx-BCL-I&t=0s&list=WL&index=152&frags=pl%2Cwn [Accessed on 2 November 2018]
The DSLR Chronicles (2017) How to Hold an Audition for Actors: Filmmaking Tips for Indie Film Casting [online]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmYi58xSNKo&t=0s&list=WL&index=150&frags=pl%2Cwn [Accessed on 2 November 2018]
Stagebuddypro (2014) Great Audition Room Advice From a Casting Director [online] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vi-tlNOWsUQ&index=165&list=WL&t=0s [Accessed on 1 November 2018]
RocketJump Film School (2015) How to Hold an Audition [online] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PoCjSF-QBU&index=149&list=WL&t=0s [Accessed on 1 November 2018]