Thoughts From A Casting Director

Going through the many (over 1000) submissions from the last casting call, and I have some thoughts I'd like to live-tweet as I do.

1. Please make sure you don't have noisy recordings. Plosives, echos, cars going by, all mean I can't use you.

2. Read and follow the submission instructions. There are SO many mislabeled files. Luckily I'm not as strict as some, but many agents/CDs will delete mislabeled files. If you are told to do Role_FirstnameLastname, doing Role-First Last is wrong. Role.FirstLast is wrong. Ctrl+C

3. Second takes need to be dramatically different from the first take. Like 50% of these files have second takes that are borderline identical. Second take is for a very different accent, adding a rasp, changing age from 60 to 20. Not going down at the end of a word instead of up

4. Everyone sounds the same. 80% of auditions have the same emotions, same beats, same deliveries. You'll hear this all the time, but don't be the 'safe' delivery. Do something exciting, do an ad lib. If you yell, REALLY yell. Be bold.

5. Please leave more space between lines. Most of these have like .1 seconds and so lines bleed together. Very jarring when those lines are an excited greeting to an angry backstabbed friend. Give each line space to breathe within the audition so I can judge each.

6. Please take a final listen through your audition before you submit. I've heard multiple files that had outtakes/extra lines left in. It doesn't disqualify you or anything but it makes you look a little sloppy.

7. Please don't read the whole character description (in character) as your audition and then never read the audition lines. (this happened)

8. Know that I really wish I could hire all of you. I know we all need gigs/new credits/money right now, and I'm glad I still have the opportunity to do this for a living. I hope you get chosen! I hope you all stay safe and stay healthy and succeed. Good luck!