Audition Dos and Don’ts

As I was reviewing the audition footage last week, I realized that there were ways I could have made it easier on everyone, talent and crew alike. I expect this list will grow with experience, but for right now:

1. Assign only one side for each role. We wanted to give everyone a choice as to which side they’d wanted to do, so we originally sent out a mess of selections for each role. In retrospect, I think that was a mistake. Some of the talent ran with it, but others appeared to be swamped with too much variety. Next time, I’ll pick one good side, and save the variety for callbacks.
2. Direct the crew with specific expectations. (A delicate subject when you depend on the good graces of others to get anything done, but still.) Camera operators want to get fancy. They want to put all that “divide the screen in thirds” and “this button does something cool” training to work for them. It’s understandable. The problem is that in auditions, we’re not interested in storytelling, which is what fancy shots are for. Instead, we’re interested in seeing what the talent does. Fancy is distracting. So convey the expectation simply: put the subject in a middle shot. Keep them centered. And don’t fall asleep.
3. Send out a thank-you email immediately to all talent. Sabina’s been swamped with phone calls asking if a casting decision has been reached yet. A thank-you email, carefully worded to make everyone think twice before calling us for the third time, might have stemmed some of that back. Also, it’s just good manners to say thanks.

While I’m on the subject, a vital contribution to the auditions came from Katie Doyle-Smith, whose invaluable offer of technological resources made the audition reviews possible. Thank you, Katie!

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