Preparing for Auditions

Video Transcript

"SCOTT DUPONT: Hi, I'm Scott duPont back on behalf of Expert Village. We're talking here in this segment--this is all about how to be a working actor. We're talking about castings and auditions. Okay, so I'm just kinda pretend at this point that you have an agent. Now, if you don't have an agent, some of the things are very similar I'm going to go through. So just bear with me. Now, what happens is an agent or if you don't have an agent, the production company will call you and they'll say: Okay, we have an opportunity for an audition. Usually, it's going to be for a commercial. Okay. Now, you want to get prepared. You want to make sure you have a headshot with either your contact information such as your cell number, that's all you need on there. Or if you're represented by an agent, you only want to have the agent's contact information on the back of that headshot along with your resume or whatever you have to date whether it's just a special skills, a little bit of extra work, that's okay when you're first starting out. Now, here's something that you need to understand. When the agents are calling all these talent, okay? They're under a time constraint like you can't believe because they have a certain number of time slots. Let's just say for a PGA golf audition I had one last week. So they called up, "Scott, we got an audition for a PGA golf commercial that's going to be showing on TV." Okay. And what I did and this is what you can do before you get all these memorized in your head is you want to ask -- because the agent is so pressed for time. They've gotta fill five or six time slots that they were allotted by the casting director. So, here are a couple of questions you want to ask. First question, when is the shoot date, okay? Because if you're not available at the shoot date, don't go on the audition. You want to also ask when is the callback. If you're not available for the callback, sometimes they'll have another audition just to finalize who they really want to pick, don't go on the audition if you're not free. Okay. Is it union o nonunion? What is the pay? That's a legitimate question to ask a production company or your agent. You need to know how much it is. Don't need to be a jerk about it, but you just need to know. What is the commercial for? What is the character or what's my wardrobe? Are there any scripts or story boards? And they can usually e-mail or fax those to you. Who is my contact or who's going to be the casting director on site? So those are a couple of questions. Boom, boom, boom, boom. You just want to rip through and if you ask that information of your agent in a professional manager, you'll get all the information you need to know and you, my friend will look professional. That's it for this segment on Expert Village."