All right, as I make my way through this pile of 300 demos, I'm gonna live-tweet some thoughts that I hope are helpful, from the standpoint of a full-time voice actor who doesn't have a lot of contact with the online VA community, but who works a lot. Aaaand begin thread:

1. Do not ever format your demo like "Hi, I'm X, and I can do Y voice (said in Y voice), and I can do *Z voice* (said in Z voice)... It's gimmicky, shows no range or acting chops, and I hate it. Other casting directors probably will too.

2. BAD - demo intro junk. "Hi, I'm X! Hope you're having a great day! This is my demo! Hope you consider!"
a. I know you're X because it's in your filename.
b. I know it's your demo by warrant of it being a demo.
c. I know you hope I consider, why else would you submit it

3. Make SURE you know what filetype you're submitting in. The video reel with your contact info was unexpected (and surprisingly common), but also kind of cool and helpful. Never seen that, but gj. But I deleted like 5-7 demos that were just unplayable. No clue what filetype.

4. PLEASE make an attempt to be creative with your writing. By the tenth demo with obviously-faux-outrage-read using this exact phrase "He/They took...EVERYTHING FROM ME!" I wanted to stab my own ears. Insta-delete. There's about 100 other equally ubiquitous tropes.

5. Having some processing is ok, but at least 5-10 demos have been SO heavily processed that the reads and actors were unintelligible, and any acting choices completely pointless. I'm judging acting ability/audio quality, not how many fancy processing tricks you know.

(as an aside) This isn't meant to be mean-spirited or cruel and I hope it's not received that way. For large casting calls this process can take hours, and you want your demo to be a breath of fresh air during that time, not another eyeroll. Moving on down the list...

6. The number of women who submitted is very surprising to me. Maybe I didn't make it clear enough that it was male-only, but it was male-only. Assume the casting director is professional enough to know if it's a role that could accept either gender for reads. Also insta-delete.

7. I am utterly baffled by the number of people putting the date they made their demo IN their demo. Why on earth would you do this? It immediately dates your demo if it's old, and if it's from 2019, who cares? I really must be missing something because like 50% do this. Don't

7b. It has no bearing on the read, no relevance to a project, and no usefulness for the director listening. I suppose the intent is to say "this is me right now!" but that should be the assumption with any demo. No need to waste seconds of listening time by saying it.

8. The number of demos ostensibly intended to be videogame demos that are just anime demos is staggering. Make sure your demos are applicable to the genre you're applying for. Without getting on my soapbox, also make sure you can do grounded, non-anime characterizations too.

9. Misc thoughts - Please practice how to ask a rhetorical question with a realistic prosody. Also a genuine laugh. Also I just heard a demo that bleeped out an expletive in a serious section; that made me laugh. Maybe not the reaction you intended.

10. Aim for 4-8 segments of 6-15 seconds in your demo. Make each bit as distinct as possible. If it's more than 2 minutes long, cut it down (and really it should be close to 1 minute or under, ideally). The number of 3, 4, 5, -9- minute demos I was sent...

11. As someone who needed years of speech therapy to overcome a terrible lisp, I say this with love - if you have a speech impediment, you should work on fixing it before working on demos or character voices. You can do it. (barring physical disability which is understandable)

12. Self-critique: As I realize how many more good demos I received than I anticipated, I'm also realizing I absolutely should have made the submission a Google form sheet with email capture rather than a Dropbox file request. Asking 30+ people for emails is gonna really blow.

13. I got sent several demos completely in foreign languages. Spanish, and Japanese. Why....?

14. Just got to like five more files that were unplayable on my end. What are y'all submitting?? (The answer should be .mp3, always.)

The video thing I've seen a lot is a clever way to show your contact info and stuff, but don't assume the director can play every kind of video

15. Do not submit zip files unless asked for zip files. I hate zip files.

16. Make sure you are aware of what file metadata is, and make sure it's accurate. For some bizarre reason I'm seeing some demos that have metadata with completely different names, images, etc. than what is indicated in the filename, which is weird and confusing.

(another aside) We're down from ~300 to 57 now. Cuts are getting harder. BTW, this isn't just an audition for this one game, this was a public audition for my private list, so you'll keep getting stuff in the future if you make it past this first round. Next one will be ladies

17. Strongly reconsider how necessary your Joker impersonation on your demo reel is, in light of this tweet from this casting director informing you that 90% of your competitors also have Joker impersonations on their demo reels.

18. Having a super-cool voice only gets you so far. There has to be purpose, emotion, LIFE underneath that voice. There have been a good number of people that I'd love to hear them read the dictionary, but nothing compelling beneath the voice to show range.

19. Just because your demo is funny doesn't mean it's good. Got a LOT of demos trying very hard to be funny. Serious question: how often are you auditioning for comedic roles vs. serious ones? Your demo should reflect whatever that priority is. (A couple were REALLY funny tho.)

Ok, now 35 left in the running, but gotta go to a mixer thing. I'll get in touch with the selections later tonight. Hope all this was helpful info! And I'll do another round of this for the ladies next time.