[Music]
- Hi, I'm Leanna Chamish. - I'm Brian St. August
- and welcome to another episode of "The Actors Hot Tub", and what are we
discussing today, Brian? - I thought it would be fun to talk about
audition behavior. - Oh yes, that is so
important how you present yourself in an audition what you do there.
So yeah, let's jump into that. How about when you show up... when should you show up
for an audition? - Well you know it's funny.
I think in our business promptness is so very important. You're never late for a
shoot, you're never late for being on set and I always take it the same way. I'm
never late for an audition. However, that doesn't mean that when you arrive early
you necessarily should go into the audition. You want to talk a little bit
more about that, Leanna? - Yeah, like you said,
we always plan ahead. I think you and I show up excessively early, we'll
drive there hours ahead of time and have a coffee or something because it's a
cardinal sin to be late, but if you go in 15 minutes early that's generally
considered to be on time for your audition. If you go in earlier than that
you run the risk of annoying the casting director by being there before your time,
like you could throw them off in terms of who they wanted to pair you with, or I
guess, just make them uncomfortable because you're there before they expect.
- Because I think a lot of casting directors are setting up for their shoot
just the way that we would have to set up to do a shoot, so they're, you know,
they're making this arrangement for the camera, this arrangement for
talent sign-in logs and you name it, so they don't need somebody just wandering
in an hour before they're expected to get in their way. At the same time I
think it's really important for me, I'll speak just for me on this, I like to get
to the location I'm going to be visiting early, so number one I know I'm there, I'm
not, you know, my risk of getting lost is behind me
and I have a chance to relax. I'll get a coffee in the neighborhood,
I'll go over my sides or whatever I'm going to be preparing for but I'm just
chilling before actually going, that's really important to me. Do you have a
similar...? - Oh, I absolutely do. I'm always
concerned about parking. I don't know if there's a garage or a lot or what the
situation is. I like to make sure that if I get there and there's not a parking
spot, if I'm there early enough maybe I can circle and find on-street parking or
figure out what the situation is and take care of that in a relaxed way
without rushing or having to park in an unsafe place and have an excessively
long walk. It also it gives me a chance to scope out the location and
make sure I'm comfortable even going
there. - Yeah, that's a good point because there
are some locations you might not be so
comfortable. - I've turned away from
locations that just didn't look quite
right. - Let's assume that this
particular audition we're talking about now is one, it's a very reputable
company, we've been there before and so
you've arrived but you haven't gone in.
Leanna had suggested going in about maybe
15 minutes early - Sometimes you go in 20,
I think that's just about the right range
to go in. - Yeah, 15, 20 minutes early is fine,
and what often will happen is the the casting director might even say, hey
listen, Leanna, since you're here early and the client is not here yet, maybe we could go
through a couple of reads with you. That's always nice, it's also rare but it
does happen sometimes. - That is nice
when it happens. So, also you don't want to be there so early that you're in
their way if they plan to have a meeting and discuss private things among their
staff but, yes, once in a while it does work out for you where you get the
opportunity to read against more actors because you're there early. But also
because you're there early if they say they can take you early
don't let them rush you in to your audition if you were counting on that
time to read your lines and get a little more centered or familiar with the
material, especially if it's a cold read. Say, I really do need the extra 15
minutes. Can I just go at the time I was
scheduled for? So that's something to
consider as well. - And what you can do if
you get there early, you could choose not to sign in that way when somebody comes
out looking for the actors that are available your name's not in the book
for them to read off anyway until you choose to put it in and that might be a
way to deal with what you were just talking about. - Very good, that is very good
advice! And you bring up the point of signing in. We may be speaking to people
who haven't auditioned before. This is generally how it goes. You show up and
there is a sheet and you sign your name and usually your email address and you
check off a few other boxes, like if you're willing to work for it as an
extra if you don't happen to book a principal in whatever you're going for,
and then you take a seat in a waiting area which leads to a whole other
series of questions about etiquette and behavior. You want to talk about what to
do in the waiting room?
- Well, the first thing that I do when I get there is to
put my cell phone on airplane mode so that my phone doesn't ring.
The waiting room in a casting area is one of those kind of rooms almost like a church where
people do talk but they tend to whisper because people are thinking about their
sides. They're going through a lot of mental gymnastics, and also maybe right
next to that waiting room is the room where the actual castings are taking
place, so there might be somebody in the room already and any talking or any
phone ringing that would happen could be conveyed into that room we want to try
to avoid that kind of a situation. - Right,
and sometimes you have chatty people that want to talk to you and there are
different things that could be going on in that situation. Sometimes they may be
trying to intimidate you or distract you so that they have an edge or sometimes
they are being chatty, so it depends on your mood. Are you ready to go
into your audition and you want to chat or you don't? Let's say that you don't then
how do you get out of that situation where someone's talking
your ear off but you want to be looking at the lines you picked up next to the
sign-in sheet or look at the storyboards that are posted on the walls to get
ready, what do you do when someone's trying to talk your ear off and you want to get
away and learn your lines? - Well I might say
something like Harry, it was so good to meet you,
I'm really wish you the very best but you know what, I need to kind of spend a
couple of minutes by myself here, so please don't think I'm rude but I want
to go over the sides quietly for a minute, it's great to meet you.
- Oh, that's a good way to handle it. Sometimes I'll just pick up my sides and
I'll just wander over to a wall where I'll pick a spot on the wall, make eye
contact like it's the camera, and I'll start doing my lines. I don't think I'm
rude to anybody when I wander away, it's like, I've got to work on my lines, and then
I just go and kind of look at the wall or out of a window, or sometimes if it's a
very crowded audition and you know you're not going to be seen for a few
minutes if there's a door to the outside you can go to stand outside for a few
moments, I've done that too. - Yeah, what do
you do in the occasion that you mentioned before about somebody that
might try to intimidate you. - I just try
not to let it get to me, but you know what, it does get to me I have to admit,
because I walk into a room full of people that look very similar to
me in many cases because we're going for the same part which is the same age
range or the same hair color and build and I start to get demoralized like, oh
look at all these pretty ladies and they all look so talented and prepared so, I
really don't have good advice except to know that maybe that's what's going on
with people and just to have confidence in yourself, that, as we've discussed
before, if you're right for the part you're going to get it, if you're not, you're not,
there's nothing that those other people can do to you that will
change your chances at the job, so just
give it your very, very, very best. - Yeah, I
completely agree and we try to use that time in the waiting room to get
ourselves calm and poised and refreshed around the sides. I was mentioning to
Leanna, earlier before we started this shoot,
that in New York I found that it's really rare to get sides for a
commercial audition until you actually arrive at the
audition. I don't know if that's something they do to see just how
quickly you are to spontaneously relate to what they give you or that they just
want all of their people that they're casting to have the same amount of time
to prepare for the read whatever it is. That is something unique. If it's a legit
situation or an episodic you're reading for you'll often get those sides in the
mail prior but for commercial you kind of walk into it, so it really is
important when you're coming to that audition to be able to give yourself a
little bit of time to relax and get familiar with those sides because you're
seeing them for the first time and you want to be able to interpret that,
have in your mind a couple of ways you might want to present them. - Absolutely, and
another waiting room thing I would caution you about is be careful what you
talk about with other people, the casting directors could be overhearing you, just
for your reputation in the business don't badmouth anybody or show any
negative behaviors, because I think it's often said and it's true, that your
audition begins the moment you walk into the building where they may observe you.
The casting people and so forth, they're forming an opinion of your personality,
how easy you are to work with, whether you're a difficult person or a snob or a
diva or something. So be good in the waiting room!
- And a special message to those people who do try to intimidate you by
sharing with you and there and the other people in the room the national
commercial they just shot with Metropolitan or what other major acting
successes they've had recently, always remember, particularly in a commercial
audition, a lot of clients want to see fresh faces and they aren't really
necessarily looking forward to seeing somebody that they've just watched on an
insurance commercial the day before, so you can be shutting down your own
possibilities by declaring that up front. - Right, alright so we've gone past
waiting room behaviors, now the next step is your name gets called it's your turn.
Let's see, that could go a number of ways, sometimes you get called to another area
where there's a shorter line, yeah has
that ever happened to you? -No. - Okay, anyway,
but then you have to go into the room when they're ready for you. What do you
do when you walk into the room where there's a camera, maybe a client and the
casting director, what happens in there? - Well, they'll typically ask you to slate
your name. Is that what you're asking me? - Yeah, maybe even before
that, should you shake hands when do you hand over a headshot if you're handing
over a headshot? That type of thing.
- Well, typically when you walk in the room yeah, either there will be somebody who will
take your headshots and will give you a sense of what they're gonna be doing in
there or what I'm finding more often is that the person that is running that
casting is going to be in the room by themselves, they will typically not need
your headshot because nowadays so much of that is done electronically that they
already have your professional shot. What they're going to want to do is do a
digital shot of you just as we're shooting now, they will shoot a picture
of you at that time, but they'll explain what the commercial is about, what the
client wants to see, how many kinds of reads they want you to do, give you a
little bit of a preliminary and then they're gonna ask you to slate. What is
that all about? - Well, they will probably
tell you what they want, but usually a slate involves stating your name and
sometimes they'll say we're going to get a body, a full-body shot, too, so I've had
them tilt the camera up and down to take a look at me so I say, "Hi, I'm Leanna Chamish"
and then I kind of put my arms out so
they can see my physique and they take a look at that and then...
- Cheer, they cheer then! - Aw, you're so sweet! - I cheer.
- Sometimes they stop the camera between the slate and
you do the audition it depends on the person, they may tell you to slate and
then go into your audition or they may say to slate and then they stop and then
later they'll restart the camera and give you a cue for the audition portion.
- And many times for people like me rather than Leanna, they'll ask me if I would be
willing to shave, if I get the opportunity would I be willing to shave for it.
- I don't get that question much. - No, I
wouldn't think that you would, but there might be somebody, who might, but in any regard, that's not a
really simple question because if you're booked on other projects that are
shooting within a relatively short time your response to that might be, you know,
I probably couldn't because I'm in a project another week that requires my
mustache, they cast me that way and so unfortunately, I hope you can use me as I
am, but at least that's a response. If in fact you can cut it off, great, yeah
sure, I'd be happy to shave for that. - Yep, so we covered walking into the room.
A general rule of thumb is don't shake the casting director's hand unless they
extend their hand first. You don't want to go up to a table full of people, if
there's a table full of people, and start glad-handing them unless they extend a
hand to you, but it is in my experience more what Brian is saying, it's usually
just one person behind a camera and they do want you to slate, state your name and
what you're auditioning for and then you go into the audition portion where you
do your very best, follow their direction, whether or not you're supposed to be
making eye contact with the camera or if you're supposed to be looking off to the
side as though it's a character or an interview type of situation that you're
portraying in the audition, follow their lead. And after that, that's all you
need to do for that part. - And then I like to thank them very much for giving me
the time and the consideration. And one thing that I try to do, and it's
something that I suggest you might want to think about, when I get ready to leave
the audition area and leave the waiting room I just turn and thank everybody and
wish them the best in the audition, because we pay it forward that way. There
are always going to be enough roles for everybody, we don't have to get every one
and we may not get that one but we can always wish other people the best in
their attempt. - And I always wish the
casting director and anybody else who's there with the staff good luck on the
project and I hope you find who you're looking for.
I know it may not necessarily be me and that's fine, I've had a chance to go in
there and show off and have a good time and stay on their radar, which is really
important. - That's right and I await your
call tomorrow! - You anticipated my next
question, because when I first started out in the business I would follow up
with emails the next day, yeah, when will I find out? I know it's not important,
I don't ask any more, I just, you wait right? - You wait, that's right.
- Yeah and if you don't hear from them
well, okay, you got your answer. - I think
that I had mentioned it on one of our earlier videos that I when I leave an
audition the first thing that I do when I get in the car is I think about it, how
I did. I compliment myself on having gone there in the first place because it
takes a lot just to get there, and then after I've done that and kind of gotten
my hands around it, I just forget it, put on some music and go home and I try
to forget about the audition entirely, because at that point it's out of our
control, totally out of our hands. - Yep, I think we've covered it from when
you show up, what you do when you walk into the waiting room, what you do when
you get in with the casting director and/or the client, and leaving. Is there
anything you think we've left out? I don't think so, but if you think so, yeah,
please drop us a note and let us know so we can add it to out thoughts.
- That's right, and we can discuss it in a future episode of "The Actors' Hot Tub".
Thank you so much for joining us today we'll see you again soon! - Be well! - Bye!
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