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VOICE OVER AUDITIONS
Wouldn’t you love to pick the brain of a casting director? Would you like to have a clearer insight into what casting is listening for? And everything NOT to do? You’re in luck! Daily, I get asked for feedback from voice actors on their auditions. And almost every single one of them tells me, “I feel like I just keep sending auditions off into a void and never hear back.” I’m here to tell you two things: 1. That’s totally a normal feeling… Every voice actor feels that way at some point. You spend hours every week auditioning and hearing little to nothing back. Did the casting director hear the audition? Maybe. But maybe not. Did the producer hear it? Maybe. But maybe not. Did the client hear it? Maybe. But maybe not. First thing to understand is – you will never know definitively. So why waste time worrying about it? Let’s learn more and see what you can actually control. THE CASTING PROCESS Every project we cast is personalized, but most go through a similar process. We send out our breakdown to agents and managers that we work with – a very selective group. Actors get the auditions from their representation and submit. From there, it can go a couple different ways. Once you submit to your agent, depending on how many auditions your agent can submit, you may not get sent to casting. From there, we start our process with the auditions submitted. As we look through the auditions, the first thing we check is the labeling. Did you follow the directions provided? If not, we may not listen. We are very specific in how to label the mp3 files, so if it’s not done correctly and you can’t take the time to check, we won’t take the time to listen when we likely have hundreds of others who did follow simple instructions. NEXT, WE LISTEN The next step is to start listening. We will give each audition about 3-5 seconds of our time. Again, if instructions said not to slate and we hear a slate, we will stop listening and move on to someone who followed the direction given. We simply do not have time to edit things that were submitted incorrectly when we have hundreds of other fantastic options who did it right. Once we have sorted through all the submissions based on those first 3-5 seconds, we move on to the next round of the process where we listen to the first 3-5 seconds of the first take AND listen to the first 3-5 seconds of the second take.
The third (and hopefully final) round is when we have it narrowed down and can then listen through to every take on every audition. SUBMIT OPTIONS TO PRODUCER Our casting is extremely specific. We submit only a handful of options to the producer who then chooses their top picks and presents those to the client. All of that means you have to get through your agent to the casting director, then through casting to producer, and finally from producer to client before even having a chance to book the job. It’s a lot. I know. Take a deep breath. HOW TO STAND OUT So… the big question is: how do you stand out? How do you move forward in each step? How can you better your chances of booking the job? Ultimately, it comes down to YOU… Your authentic voice. Your personality. We want to hear YOU. Never what you think we want to hear. It’s not about the voice. It’s about you and who you are. The auditions that catch our attention have an authenticity and a strong connection to what they’re saying. They have an opinion and clear intention in their delivery. If it sounds like you’re just reading a script, or doing the read you think will be the end product, it’s not interesting enough for the audition. There IS a difference between the audition and the final spot. THE KEY IS AUTHENTICITY We don’t want to hear auditions that are stale and lack personality. But we also don’t want to hear auditions that are different for the sake of being different. Please don’t sing the first line of the audition just to catch our attention. Will it catch our attention? Absolutely. But not in a good way. The choices you make and the commitment to those choices will be what makes your audition stand out. We can hear if you’re connected, interested, have an opinion, and care about the copy and audition. You can’t fake that. If you are making choices that work with the script, showing your range with the takes you submit, and following the audition instructions, then hopefully you’re also getting heard. And when the right project comes along, it’s yours. Email: casting@voicecaster.com |
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By Kelly Moscinski
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