Small personal discovery a few years into making TV: after the series regulars are cast, I find it pretty essential to still be involved in the episodic "day player" casting process as much as possible: to not just look at audition tapes, but to show up in person for auditions.

Main reason: as I've gotten more producing experience, I've come to realize that I can use the casting process to improve my script and (eventually) (most importantly) my edit.

Obviously, the first priority is casting the right person. I think you get a much, much better sense of an actress or actor's strengths if you're in the room. You can give notes and see where their instincts lead them. Invaluable. Pretty obvious.

But also, the audition stage is a first chance for me to see my script really put to the test. I try to use that. Is every actress or actor struggling over the same line? Or is the same line repeatedly making me wince? If so, chances are, it's not the performer, it's my writing.

My LONGMIRE showrunner Greer Shephard made a point to watch every audition tape all the way through: if someone took the time to put in the work, we owe it to them. Greer's an honorable, wise individual and if I can't be at an audition in person, I try to follow her footsteps.

But doing this also has creative benefits. Maybe an actor is wrong for the part, but puts a cool spin on a line later in the scene. I can file that line reading away and keep it in mind on set. Or tweak the script to prepare the ground for such a reading.

Watching each audition all the way through, I learn more and more. Because I'm not just evaluating and judging the auditioning performers. I'm also evaluating and examining and hopefully making discoveries about the scene itself.

Sometimes an actor will go slightly off-script, or will improvise a line, or they'll "correct" or "improve" a line. Instead of being annoyed, I try to ask myself: well, would the line work better this way?

Usually, no. There's a reason why I get paid to write the scenes and they get paid to perform them. But, there's been at least a dozen times I've had someone slightly tweak a line in auditions -- usually unintentionally -- & I've immediately opened up Final Draft to revise.

So, the audition stage is the first time to test the script. The next test is the table read (if your show does one), & then the next test is walking through the scene just before filming it, and then the first take or two of filming itself.

I now think the script should be open to tweaking through each of these stages. The concrete should still be a little wet, letting the scene find its best form.

At the start of my career, my attitude was: the script is sacred and it's my job to protect it from all of these barbarians.

At the current stage of my career, my attitude is: how can I be alive to this unfolding collaborative process so I can have the best material possible waiting for me in the editing room? So, still just as selfish, but now in a bit more fluid way.

Back to auditions. I love to be there in person. Why? First off, I'm probably going to cast one of these performers. I may as well start our working relationship as quickly as possible.

& since time is so rushed on set & most attention will be focused on lead cast, this is probably the best chance to teach a guest actor about the character & scene. That way, when they walk on set, they know what the scene is about & what the creatives are expecting from them.

So if an auditioning actor or actress (usually local) looks promising, I try to take a little time, tell them about the character, & ask them to play the audition scene in different ways. I give notes, seeing whether they can make adjustments. (Something you don't learn by tape.)

But secondly, the episodic director is usually in the audition room with me. So if I'm there talking with the auditioning performer, I'm also indirectly informing the director as to how the scene and character have been conceived, and what my expectations are.

This isn't meant to be passive-aggressive. (Though maybe it is, a little.) But if a director is coming onto a show for the first time & has 7-8 days of prep to learn the sensibility of our show, I need to be a glowing ball of info constantly broadcasting that sensibility.

In prep, I try to err on over-teaching the show. Probably to an annoying degree, I'm constantly (tho fairly casually) trying to impart as much as I can so my intuitions and my collaborators' intuitions hopefully align.

Thirdly, the audition is also a chance for the director & I to explore a scene before we actually film it. Sometimes I'll tweak the scene during the audition: hey, let's drop this line. Or let's try this bit of business. Or let's add this line. It's "free" rehearsal time.

And fourthly, even if we don't cast an actress or actor for a role, if they have an interesting energy, & have chops, & can take direction, now I know they're out there. I've also already got the start of a relationship with them.

A few times, I've even written guest or recurring roles with a local actor or actress in mind who had previously auditioned but weren't the right fit for the prior part. They're a local resource I can now utilize and write towards.

Similarly, I try to oversee ADR sessions. If you don't know: this is when a cast member comes in to re-record dialogue that was muffled during production, or to perform new dialogue that was written during the editing process...

(if a line of dialogue is spoken while the camera is on the back of the speaker's head, it was usually written during editing and ADR'd)

When you're overseeing an ADR session, you're essentially in the director's chair. First off, that's a humbling proposition, because giving the right direction is hard: you have to be concise and clear and you have to have a specific idea of what you want the performer to do.

Should a line be spoken more to themselves than to other characters? You have to communicate that. And if the performer asks why, you have to give a reason they can buy into enough to honestly play.

For me, this process forces me to better understand the intentions of my own writing, and it's (hopefully) helped me to convey those intentions more clearly on set and in the script itself.

So, ADR and auditions have been good practice for me to learn how to better work with cast on set: the way we talk about a character in a writer's room doesn't usually translate well to filming.

On set or in the studio, you need to give concise, playable notes. An actor can't play theme, or big idea, or symbolism, or other writerly crutches.

Also, these auditions and sessions are a bit lower-stakes than actual filming (at least for the writer!). So they're also a chance for me to experiment a little bit with how I approach the process. They help me to refine my working methods and to find new techniques.

PTA has been making music videos for years. Partly because he digs it. But he also uses these videos as lower-stakes opportunities to test new lenses or cameras or lighting approaches or equipment or camera moves. I think auditions & ADR can be like that for a writer-producer.

For instance: during DAMNATION, I was overseeing an ADR session with a local child actor. He had just one line, off-camera: "Geez mister, thanks." It should've been simple. But I don't know if it was over-coaching, inexperience, or nerves, but he overdid the line every time.

We tried it over and over. He sounded like a character from LITTLE RASCALS. It was supposed to just be texture to the scene, but the way he performed it, it was crazy distracting. I changed the wording. It didn't get any better. We were running out of time.

I just needed him to say the line simply and naturally, but he couldn't. Finally, I asked him to balance on one foot and try saying the line again. And bam: a totally natural, unforced line reading that didn't distract via its painful fake theatrics.

The kid just needed to be thinking about something else while he said the line, an insight I've used a few times since then when there's been a performer on set overdoing it: give them some business to focus on while saying the line and often the over-acting diminishes.

So anyway, even if I find myself frustrated with how a project is going, I try to shift my focus towards using that project as a workshop where I develop my specific skills & techniques in writing, producing, editing, & hopefully eventually directing.

Doing this usually always has the side-benefit of making me refocus and newly engaged with the project itself.