The Other Side of the Table

The casting process. For an actor, it's where our hopes of being given the chance to shine lay in other peoples hands. We practice, prepare, and perform for Casting Directors, Directors, Producers, product clients, etc.  and when we leave the room, our minds go bonkers in wondering if we nailed it.  Did I hit that mark?  Did I make the right choices?  I made them laugh, so they must like it, right?  I should have looked up instead of down. They didn't give me any other directions or feedback, so I must have totally sucked!  So, much rubbish clouds our minds when we leave the audition room because we don't know what the people sitting on the other side of the table are thinking.  Typically you get little feedback or they say "thank you" and send you on your way and even though we try not to, we continue to think about the whole event long after it's done.  Then you realize, after the shoot dates have past, you didn't get picked, and you wonder why.  It's not a self pity thing, it's just natural and hard not to do.

I wrote and produced a short film. I highly recommend doing this because you get a totally different perspective on the process and production as a whole.  One of the best things I ever got to do was hold auditions and help cast the roles. I was on the other side of the table. 

The start of the audition/casting process was with the submissions.  I posted my project breakdowns on LACasting.com and ActorsAccess.com. It's was very exciting and scary because you don't know if anyone will submit to your project or not or, for that matter, the right looking people for the part.  I gotta tell you, I got a lot of bikini, sexy-glamored "headshots" for the role of a professional couples counselor.  You were also able to tell who probably didn't read the breakdown and just submitted because they were probably mass submitting to everything and anything on the site.  We had a role for a 5 year old girl, and for her submission we got a family photo that looked like those early 90's family portraits where everyone is wearing the same knitted sweater.  This particular family also submitted themselves for the role of our thug, doctor, councilor, street vendor, and homeless man.  In their "notes to the director", they said they they are a family of performers and are all versatile actors who can play anything.  Wow.  On the positive end, I remember picking a guy to audition for me; he looked, at best, basic for the character, but he had a clever note that reminded me of Peter Venkman in Ghostbusters (one of my top 5 movies of all time). I'm not saying that everyone should have a clever note. It's just he happened to hit a note with me at the moment and I liked it.  For our thug, we had a very specific idea of what type of look we wanted; very approachable, but a hint of crazy.  It was even in the breakdown.  We got a lot of typical gangster looking to mafia types, all with very strong harsh looks.  Nothing approachable. Only one guy fit the bill perfectly.  He was the perfect candidate because his headshot, resume, demo reel, and look were all perfect (including his audition).  All these factors have made me, as an actor, aware of what I am putting forth in my submission and paying attention to what they are asking in the breakdowns.  KNOW YOURSELF, KNOW THE ROLES, AND WHAT THEY ARE ASKING FOR.

The team was the Director, the producer ( who happened to be my wife) and myself ( writer and producer), filtering out who we wanted to audition for us based on a picture, resume, and a demo reel if we were lucky.  We argued on some and agreed on others,  but the bottom line is, it was three different people with three different opinions on the actors that submitted.  This essentially played a factor on who was coming in or not for the audition.  So you see, there is already a filter before you even get called in to audition.  You not getting the audition that you thought you were perfect for, may have been for A NUMBER OF REASONS.  It may be in the hands of one person or many.  

Then the fun part; the auditions.  I was particularly excited for this because I would get a chance to see other actors work and how they prepared (or didn't) for the roles that I created.  The audition starts first and foremost with BEING ON TIME!  The playwright, David Mamet, said something like "Being early is being on time.  On time is late.  Late is unforgivable."  The majority of our actors were early or right on the dot, but we had some that were late and they called to inform us that they were.  Only one said he would be late, but never showed up and one that was scheduled and never notified us that he would not be auditioning.  

The sign in sheet was interesting as well.  Most wrote all the info we were asking for.  Others wrote just their name.  Two people just wrote a first name and nothing else.  And a few scribbled and had unreadable penmanship.  I felt that those that didn't write all the info or scribbled their stuff didn't seem to care much.  You may think, they have my info on the website or my email,  but would if we don't, for whatever reason?  The sign-in info is there for a reason.  Fill it out.  

It was impressive to see the work some of the actors put towards my little ol' short film.  I felt honored that they had their scene prepared and made choices.  It wasn't so much about having the scene memorized, but more of having done the homework.  They asked questions if needed and I wasn't offended if they did.  When I first started auditioning, I was already scared to audition, let alone ask a question.  I thought I would offend the writer or whomever, thinking that they thought I didn't get the material.  Ask any Casting Director, and they will tell you that its ok to ask about the material.  Don't be afraid to do so.  

Some actors obviously put little to no care into the material.  Sure, it was a no budget, non payed short film, but you agreed to audition for it then you should treat it like you were auditioning for the lead role in a network show.  If anything, it would be a good practice session, especially if you are just starting to audition.  One actress looked great for the part of the doctor based on her headshot and resume, but she came in looking like she had partied hard the night before, didn't know the script, apologized for not knowing the script, didn't even bother to try to do a good cold read, and basically gave up in the middle of the audition and we were done.  That was probably the worst audition of the day. 

One guy came in and was just naturally the personification of the character of the street vendor.  He was a little dry in the acting department but wasn't bad at all.  The thing that wasn't good was he wasn't keen to the audition routine.  His fault was that he positioned himself at a weird angle so we only got a profile of his acting on camera and he moved a lot and was distracting.  Moving around isn't bad, but you have to center it so everything stays within the camera's frame.  So there is another aspect of auditioning that a good Casting Director workshop or on camera auditioning class would help.  

The most eye opening of the whole experience was this: it came down to two actresses for the marriage counselor.  We will call the first one Dawn and the second one Tina.  The set up of the scene was the counselor was consoling the wife, but would feel a presence in the room that was neither of them.  Based on her headshot, Dawn was a shoe-in.  She had the perfect look, resume and demo reel.  She came in to the audition and was seemingly perfect.  Tina, on the other hand, was good, but didn't quite hit it out of the ballpark in the audition room.  She was more downplayed compared to Dawn, but very pleasant and had a good look for the part, but just didn't quite impress us in the room.  When we got home, I was excited to review the audition tape of everyone.  When we got to Dawn's, it played a lot different on the camera then we remembered in the audition room.  It seemed way over the top and cheesy.  In retrospect, we should have given her the note in the audition, but at the time it didn't seem like we needed any tweaking.  Maybe we should have gave here a note just for good measure, I don't know.  When we compared Dawn's performance to Tina, Tina played differently on camera too.  She was more natural and counselor-ish than Dawn.  The three of us debated for a while about it, but ultimately it came down to us choosing Tina, the one who we initially thought was good-not-great in the audition, because the tape showed us something totally different and better. 

Being on the other side of the table was an experience I hope that every actor can experience. It further affirmed my work ethic, promptness, and studies to be good at what I do at an audition.  I learned that there are so many factors that go into picking the right person for the job and even though you may have done a stellar job and initially impressed the audition room, there may be something else at play that may not land you the job and it was completely out of your hands.  Though I still at times ride that roller coaster of emotions and thoughts after an audition (I don't think any actor, no matter how experienced, can say they never do), I have a better understanding of the process and am more confident and better at the audition process because of this. More often than not, I can walk away feeling really good about my work and not thinking too deeply about it after.