I recently completed my first short film. I have acted in many short films over my 3+ year career, but this was the first time the project was mine. The idea was mine, and I did the casting and the hiring, and I paid for it. Actually, “I paid for it” is a little untrue. I paid for half, and donations covered the other half. I don’t want to take credit away from the supporters and everyone else involved, because this project could not have happened without them.

Anyways, the point is I wore the producer cap for the first time and sat on the other side of the casting table, and this is what I learned, the good and the bad.

  • When deciding whether an actor got an audition, I could tell within the first 10 seconds of their reel.
  • There is no nice way of saying this, so I am just going to be blunt. There are some bad actors out there.
  • In most of the auditions, the actor wasn’t in the moment. They said the lines fine and went through the motions, but you could tell they weren’t in the scene in their head.
  • The ones who were in the moment and in the scene were good.
  • One audition was clearly the standout. I believed every second of it. I knew they were “in it.” When you know, you just know.
  • The standout audition didn’t go big or do anything flashy. What stood out was that I believed he believed the words he said and the actions he made.
  • Background, what the actor was wearing, lighting, the room. None of that mattered when I was watching auditions. I was focused on the acting and only the acting.
  • There were probably 5 or 6 audition requests that never produced an audition. Why submit to a casting call only to not turn in an audition when you receive a request?

Sitting on the other side of the table changed how I think about my own auditions. I used to stress over my backdrop, my framing, whether my read was interesting enough. Now I know the person watching is only asking one question: do I believe this person? Nobody in that chair is grading your lighting. So the next time I self-tape, I am spending less time on the setup and more time getting into the scene before I hit record. And if you get an audition request, turn something in. Half the battle is showing up, and I just watched a handful of actors lose a role without ever being seen.