Category: Auditioning

Guest: Author Barbara Venkataraman - Audiobooks 'R' Us!

12/7/2014

This is the last post of my Audiobook Blog Series. I launched the series by telling you about how I got my start in narrating audiobooks. Then I gave you practical advice and tips on how to begin your career as an audiobook narrator. Now here to conclude the series, and talk about her experiences of finding an audiobook narrator, is none other than the author of the books that I've been narrating. A huge warm welcome to my first Guest Blogger: Barbara Venkataraman!

Audiobooks 'R' Us!

Making an audiobook with a narrator is like marrying a total stranger and hoping it all works out. As in a marriage, the participants start out starry-eyed, but soon discover each other's idiosyncrasies and quirks, realizing with a sense of dread that they are now stuck with each other--at least until the project is finished. That's why it makes sense to choose a narrator with experience and a stellar reputation, one who has completed at least one project and done it well. Or you could fly by the seat of your pants like I did. Boy, did I get lucky! After hearing other authors' horror stories and seeing reviews of badly done audiobooks, I realize just how lucky I was/am.

Unlike many authors, I write in two unrelated genres, humor and mystery, specifically, cozy mystery. Ideally, I wanted to find a narrator with the talent and skill to handle both genres. It needed to be a woman (my mysteries are told in first person by a female protagonist) with a sense of humor, someone who "got" my jokes. She had to be able to do a range of voices to cover all the characters in my mysteries and, one more thing, she needed to work for free! Now, when I say free, I don't really mean free; I just mean that I couldn't afford to pay her anything. I figured I'd have to be the greatest saleswoman in the world to convince a total stranger to spend hundreds of hours recording my self-published, unproven books as unpaid labor, OR, I could find a narrator through ACX (Audiobook Creation Exchange) who was willing to royalty-share (spend hundreds of hours recording my self-published, unproven books as unpaid labor AND split any future profits, assuming there were any).

I started on my quest to find the perfect Jamie Quinn (the star of my Jamie Quinn mystery series). I stumbled through the labyrinth known as ACX and, throwing caution to the wind, posted two projects simultaneously: a book of humorous essays and my first Jamie Quinn mystery. I listed both as royalty-share projects and put them out for audition. I must add here that ACX allows you to choose the qualifications of your ideal narrator and it's enough to make your head explode! First, you chose the gender and the language. Easy enough. Then, you choose the accent, which can range from British to American to Boston, Irish, to Southern drawl to…well, you get the picture. Now come the hard choices. Do you want a voice that's warm? Scientific? Authoritative? Matter-of-fact? Sexy? And so on and so on…I hate to admit it, but I hadn't given any of that much thought, nor did I want to. I hoped I could pick the right one. But what if I couldn't?

I got exactly three auditions, all of them very nice women, none of them Jamie Quinn material. I felt so bad rejecting them. The only thing I'd gotten out of this project so far was a truckload of guilt. Then I realized that I didn't have to wait around, I could listen to the demo recordings posted on the site. There were only a bazillion of them, no problem at all. I realized that many of the demos were repeats as in the same narrator putting herself up for different projects: here's me narrating a romance, here's me narrating a thriller, etc. I listened to many women reading many different passages until I started questioning the whole project and wondering why I always had to do everything the hard way. Sigh. Finally, I heard a "maybe" voice which gave me a little hope, enough hope to keep trying. I kept slogging through until the heavens suddenly parted and I heard an angel sing, only she wasn't an angel, she was Carrie Lee Martz, an actress who did voiceover. Her demo wasn't of her reading a book; it was a voiceover demo in which she showed off her range of voices. She was perfect! Hallelujah! I made her an offer for both books and she accepted them both. Oh, happy day! Then, I had a sobering thought, what if she didn't like the books? I told her to look them over first and then decide. She decided yes. Then we had an e-mail exchange in which I confessed that I'd never done this before. She confessed that she hadn't either. We said we were both game and we jumped right in. We are now recording our fourth book together (when I say "we", I mean the "royal we"--Carrie is doing all of the recording) and I'm not going to say that it hasn't taken a lot of effort, or that we didn’t hit a few bumps along the way--like when I sent her the wrong version of the second Jamie Quinn mystery and she had to re-record the last 5 chapters! But I am thrilled to report that we are very happy with our arranged marriage and we've even started making some money! So, if you’re thinking of making an audiobook, I hope you find the right narrator and that it’s love at first listen.

Award-winning author, Barbara Venkataraman, is an attorney and mediator specializing in family law and debt collection.
She is the author of The Jamie Quinn mysteries; "The Fight for Magicallus," a children's fantasy; a humorous short story entitled, "If You'd Just Listened to Me in the First Place"; and two books of humorous essays: "I'm Not Talking about You, Of Course" and "A Trip to the Hardware Store & Other Calamities," which are part of the "Quirky Essays for Quirky People" series. Both books of humorous essays won the prestigious "Indie Book of the Day" award.
Coming soon, "Engaged in Danger"--the next Jamie Quinn mystery!

Barbara's Blog: www.barbaravenkataraman.blogspot.com

Barbara's Current Audiobook Selections
Click on the cover to Purchase

I hope you enjoyed hearing Barbara's perspective. If you'd like to leave a comment or question for her below, please do so.

I wish you all the best in your audiobook endeavors and remember to come back and re-read these blog posts anytime you're in need of a little guidance. If you find them to be a handy resource, please share them with others as well.

Next Week: Actors: Why You Need a Website

Audiobook Recipe - Serves 1 (Part II)

11/24/2014

Continued from last week...

Audition
Finally, it’s time to audition. The first thing you should do is sort the possible titles by Gender, Project Rate, and Genre (You need to know your voice type so that you can choose the genre in which you are most likely to have success). Next you’ll want to choose between Fiction and Non-Fiction (depending on your genre, this choice may already be made for you). If you can do lots of character voices and/or have a lot of variation in your vocal tone, speed, and inflection, you will likely be great at narrating Fiction. If you have a narrow vocal range, you aren’t able to easily adjust your speed and/or inflection, or you just prefer to read entirely in your own voice then Non-Fiction is probably best for you. Next you’ll want to narrow the results further by choosing Language, Accent, Voice Age, and Vocal Style. I can’t stress enough that you really need to know what qualities your voice possesses to get this right. If you aren’t sure, ask around. As far as language and accent go, if you are bi-lingual or you can do multiple accents, then you may want to do multiple searches for each attribute. Last but not least, you may or may not want to sort by Project Length. If this is your first time narrating a book, choosing shorter books under royalty share deals is a great way to go and will be far less daunting once you book the job. Practicing ahead of time will help you to estimate your time requirements. You may realize that you have the stamina it takes to produce a full-length book. Choose whichever is best for you. One of the pictures below is an example of a very detailed search that I did. (To maintain security and privacy, I will be showing you screenshots that are publicly available. They will not contain all the information that I’m describing to you. Once you get your first audiobook booking, you will see better what I’m talking about.)

Now you can click on titles and see the details about each potential book. I have chosen the first result to walk you through with pictures. This page will have tabs for navigating and tell you details about the book. The first tab is the “About This Title” tab (see below). It will give you a summary of the book, details about the type of narrator needed, and publication information as well as Amazon rank and number of reviews. Pay attention to these details, they will tell you how successful the book has been in print or ebook format and will give you clues as to how successful it may be as an audiobook.

The second tab is the “Audition” tab (see below). This tab will often include notes from the author or right’s holder about how you should audition and a portion of the book to download to be used for auditioning. It is also where you will upload your audition when it’s complete along with a message box, so you can communicate with the author about your audition and any necessary information such as your availability and time frame.

The third tab is the “Produce Audiobook” tab (see below). This tab will change to allow the upload of files once you have booked the job. It is where the author can upload their manuscript to send to you or confirm that they have sent it to you through other means. This is also where you will upload the First 15 Minutes of the book as well as all of the finished files and where the author will approve or disapprove them. Also included here is the copyright information that you will need to record – it will be added to the beginning and the end of the book.

The fourth and final tab is the “Audiobook Sales” tab (see below). This tab will change to show you sales data for your book once it goes live on Audible. Here you can monitor the total number of sales and the types of sales made.

ACX Title Search

About This Title Tab

Audition Tab

Produce Audiobook Tab

Audiobook Sales Tab

Right now your focus will be on the “About This Title” page and the “Audition” page. Once you have selected your book, go to the audition page and download the provided “script.” Now you need to record the script and submit it on this page. You can submit raw (unedited & unmastered) files, but unlike submissions for other voiceover work, I recommend that you edit & master your audiobook auditions for ACX. The reason for this is that you are likely to be working with an author who will not understand the post-production process, so you need to submit your best “market ready” work to be competitive. It is not just your voice they will hear – you don’t want them to hear distracting breaths and mouth noises and assume that the finished book will also contain these distractions. You will likely audition for many titles before getting your first book.

Sign a Contract
The day has arrived! An author has contacted you and has chosen you to do their book. They will now make you an “Offer” through ACX to produce their book. The offer will contain the terms of the agreement or contract such as payment terms and due dates for both the first 15 minutes and the final completion of the book. If the terms are not satisfactory to you, feel free to communicate with the author until you come to an agreement that satisfies you both – they can then amend the offer or send you a new one with the agreed upon terms. All you have to do is accept this offer and you are now both bound by the ACX contract. Once you accept the agreement, your author will need to send you the manuscript. When you get it, you are ready to begin. Time to create your audiobook.

Read the book
The very first thing you should do is read the book. Read it in as close to one sitting as possible and with no expectations. You should read through the entire book from start to finish as a spectator. Read it as though it were any other book that you’d read. (Hopefully you like it – if you were careful when selecting books to audition for, it will likely be a book you enjoy. Keep this in mind when choosing your book because the more you like a book, the better you’ll do at narrating it.)

Read the book
Now read the book again. This time you want to really pay attention to what you read, really try to absorb the book and take in as many details as you can. You should also pay particular attention to the tone and the personalities of any characters in the book. Try to imagine yourself in the world of the book. This second read should still be enjoyable, but it will also start to give you an idea of the direction that your narration should take.

Underline Words That You Don’t Understand or Know How to Pronounce
Now you need to skim back through the entire book and underline words and phrases and/or make notes about anything that is unclear, any words that you don’t know the meaning of and any words that you are unsure of pronunciation wise.

Look Up the Words You’ve Underlined and Make Notes About Them in the Margins
After you’ve identified any potential problem words in the book, you should go and look-up all of these words in the dictionary. Use auditory dictionaries whenever possible for pronunciation concerns. (howjsay is a great one.) Make notes on these words in the margins so that when you begin narrating you will have everything you need in front of you. You want to make the most of your recording sessions, so get all of this done and out of the way to avoid having to stop your narration to look up words. If you have done all of this and you still have questions, contact your author. They should be able to clarify anything that you haven’t found answers to in your own research, such as how to pronounce any unusual character names or the meaning of unfamiliar colloquialisms.

Highlight the Characters
It’s time for you to grab those throngs of highlighters you bought. (This is mostly for fiction books – if you’re recording a non-fiction book, you should be reading in only one voice and will not need to differentiate between characters.) You should have a different color for every single character. You may even need to employ different means of highlighting if you have more characters than colors – i.e. using a filled in red highlight for one character and drawing a box around the words with red for another character. However you decide to do it, you should be able to clearly tell each character apart by their highlight. When doing this, take the time to also create a spreadsheet for yourself with each character’s name and then highlight the name on your spreadsheet in the same way it will be highlighted in the manuscript. That way you have an easy key to refer back to at any point. Preparing in this way is an invaluable time-saver and it helps you to easily keep everyone straight and make sure that you’re always doing the right voice. (Extra tip – when doing both male and female voices, use traditionally feminine colors for the ladies and vice-versa for the men to maintain further organization.)

Read the Book
No, I’m not kidding. Read the book again. Now that you’ve gotten all of your characters highlighted, you will be able to pay closer attention to each character as an individual. This time through, you are really getting to know the characters on a deeper level and you are going to pick up little details and nuances that you may have missed the first couple of times you read the book. These things are important, they are what will truly breathe life into your characters. The more familiar you are with the book and the characters, the easier things will be once you get in the booth. And trust me when I tell you that you can never be over-prepared. While I recommend that you read the whole book a minimum of three times, don’t hesitate to read through it more than that if you feel you need to.

Develop the Characters – Attitudes, Accents, Speech Patterns, Vocal Tone, etc.
Now take out the spreadsheet that you created when you did all of your highlighting. You’re going to add a few more columns to it. In one column write down all of the words that describe that character’s personality. In another column write down all of the physical attributes included in the book for that character. In a third column write down what accent the character has if any. And in the last column write down any speech patterns or tones you may want to use for them. Another way to help you create your characters is to visualize them. You may be able to do this by simply creating the characters in your head – really see them and know what they look like. Another way you can do this is by going to Google Images, typing in words to describe the characters, and looking for pictures that you think represent those characters. You can then create a file with all the characters’ pictures and their names that you can refer to at any point in the book creation process.

Suss Out Your Character's Voices
Before you start recording the book itself, you should sit down in the booth and figure out a different voice for each character. You should do this now, so you can be sure that you are differentiating enough between each character. You should also make sure that any characters that are related to one another have a distinct but similar sound. While you are figuring out the characters, you should be doing so by using their words from the book. You should also record each voice to a separate track and label it with the character’s name. That way once you start the book, much like your spreadsheet, you will have a reference anytime you need to check to make sure you’re doing the right voice for a character. If you end up recording the same character on different days, it's great to be able to refer back to these files to make sure that the character’s voice is consistent.

Next Week: Audiobook Recipe - Serves 1 (Part III)

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Top 10 Email Submission Tips

10/28/2014

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Hey folks! I’m back to writing the blog. My break lasted a little bit longer than intended, but it was much needed. I got my patio almost finished (pictures below), worked some VO jobs, filmed a short for the 48 Hr. Horror Film project (film below), did some auditioning, and worked as a principal in a haunted house. Ha, what break? While I ended up spending a lot more time working on this break than I usually do, I did get a chance to relax and take a time-out from social media. Now as soon as I get this patio finished, it’s back to work full-force. And one of the first things that I need to do is send out some emails to agents, studios, cd’s, etc. in the hopes of finding more work, establishing new relationships, and getting the ball rolling again.

As actors, we're always sending out emails. It takes a lot of time and energy to keep up all that communication, so here's 10 important tips to help you maximize your emailing efforts.

1. Keep It Short & Sweet
Keep your emails short and to the point. People don’t have a lot of time these days and they aren’t interested in reading a novel in email form. The people you’re sending to potentially get hundreds of emails a day, so when they open an email and it’s really long, they may just delete it. They may feel like it’s going to be a waste of their time, that is doesn’t respect their time (which they view as incredibly valuable), or it could even give them a sense that you are difficult to work with and will be bugging them constantly with way too much information.

2. Include Headshots
You should always include at least one and sometimes a few headshots with every email you send out. You want people to like and remember you, so one of the easiest ways to get them to do this is to include your headshot. They will be able to put a face to your name and will be more likely to remember you when you meet or email them in the future.

3. Attach Your Resume
I suggest you always include links to your website, reels, and any pertinent info (usually in the email signature), but you should always attach your resume. This allows them to get to it quickly if they need to find you again. If you attach it, they can simply do a search for the email you sent them.

4. Target Your Audience
Make sure that you are sending emails only to those people who may take an interest in you. For example – if you are a voiceover actor who specializes in character voices, you should be targeting studios that produce audiobooks, video games, animation, etc. Don’t waste your time or theirs by sending your demo to every studio out there. By randomly throwing these emails to the wind and praying that some will stick, you’re doing yourself, your voice, and the studios a disservice. How’s that?
            a. Wasting Your Time
            You are wasting your time sending emails to people who can’t or won’t help you (If they aren’t                 interested in your type of voice, they aren’t going to hire you. – Yes it may happen once, but it’s             unlikely to happen again. And even if it does, it’s like looking for a needle in a haystack. – Why             spend time on someone you may be able to talk into being interested, when you can spend                     time on people who are already likely to be interested?)
            b. Wasting Their Time
            You are telling them that their time is not valuable (You didn’t bother to check if your voice was             their type, but sent them an email anyway. Reading it will take up their valuable time and result             in no pay-off for them.)
            c. Making Enemies, Not Friends
            You are making enemies (When people feel that someone is wasting their time, they’re quick to             write you off. – If this happens, the next time you send them an email that is targeted to them,                 they may not even bother to open it. – And it’s a small world, you can bet that these people talk             to each other, regardless of their niche. Making just one person feel devalued or                                         inconsequential can lead to them saying something negative about you and get you black-listed             from a whole host of others.)
            d. Appearing Desperate
            You may be implying that you’re desperate (By sending emails to every single studio on the                     planet, you’re suggesting that your voice is not valuable and that you’re so desperate for a job                 that you’ll work for anyone – This may be true at times, since it can be hard to get jobs as an                     actor, but you can’t let other people know that – It diminishes the value of you and your voice. –             No one is attracted to a desperate person. We are attracted to people who are confident                         enough in their abilities that they won’t offer them to just anyone.)

5. Distinguish Between Specialties
Distinguish commercial agents from theatrical agents from cd’s from director’s, etc. Do a little research into them – it won’t take long. Let’s say they’re a theatrical agent. Don’t ask them to look at your commercial reel. For 2 reasons: One, they’re unlikely to truly know anything about commercials and thus will be uneducated as to whether you have what to takes. Two, they are incredibly educated at representing people for theatre and film and would likely do a great job reviewing your film reel or monologue and possibly representing you in those areas. Ask the commercial agents to review your commercial reel, ask the theatrical agents to review your film reel and/or monologue, ask the sound studios to review your VO Demo, ask the cd’s and directors to review the material that is appropriate to their specialties, and for those who work within all these areas, simply let them know that you work in commercials, theatre, film, and voiceover. Then maybe send them everything or better yet, just the materials they seem to be most proficient at.

6. Write Short Paragraphs
Remember to break things up into small paragraphs. These are much easier to read, appear to be shorter and more manageable (especially when being read on a smartphone), and can lead you to make sure that each paragraph directly addresses whatever you have to say. This will also help you to stick to a shorter, better email length.

7. Compliment and Personalize
Compliment them before asking for something and tailor the email to each individual. It can be as simple as starting with Hi (their name) and then a sentence such as “I really enjoy seeing your actors on the screen.” or “I’ve spoken with several friends who have worked with you and they all highly recommend you.” Make sure that whatever you say is true, honest, and specific, in case they start a discussion. You don’t want to tell them you love their commercials, then have them ask you what you thought about their XYZ commerical, only to realize you’ve never seen the XYZ commercial.

8. Forget TMI
Don’t give any more information than is necessary. It makes the email longer and less manageable. They don’t need to know every single thing about you upfront – your sizes, your food preferences, whatever. Think about it like dating, leave a little to be desired. If they want/need any additional info from you, they will ask. The only time to include additional info is if they specifically ask for it either in a post that you’re responding to or in a reply email.

9. Be Plain & Simple
Don’t send emails composed in fancy or elaborate fonts and colors. Use either Arial, Times New Roman, or Verdana and make your default color black. You may think you are being cute and creative and showing off your fun personality, but what you’re really doing is aggravating the person you’re emailing. Other fonts and colors can be difficult to read which translates to wasting peoples’ time. It will take them more time and effort to read and they may delete it rather than waste that valuable time.

10. Sign It
Include an email signature at the bottom, they are easy to create and make it easier for people to find and contact you, plus you just set it and forget it. This also allows you to close an email informally with something like:

Thank you,
Carrie

And yet to include your full name.

Your email signature should look something like this:

At the very least your full name, title, and email address in some configuration. This is an area of the email where you can get a little creative by changing the font type, size, or color, and/or adding your logo gif to let your personality shine.

I hope this helps you the next time you need to send out that all important email. Remember – everyone’s time is precious, including your own, so don’t waste it. If you show someone that you can value their time, they may just be willing to use that time to help you out.

Next Week: How I Started in Audiobooks & Voiceover

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Paver Patio Progress Photos

"Debunked" by "Everything But the Name"

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The Importance of Improv in Auditioning

9/14/2014

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Improvisation is a very specialized skill and yet it’s one that should be in every actor’s toolbox. If you want to be the best actor you can be, then I highly recommend that you take an improv class – in fact you should take more than one. While improv stands alone as an art form, it’s almost a required skill for actors. Actors often need to “Think fast on their feet” and studying improv will help you cultivate the skills to do just that. There are many audition situations in which having improvisation skills gives you an edge. Not only that, but there are times when not having improv skills will actually make you look bad. I’m going to talk a little bit about each of them and the reasons as to why and how improv can help you to be a better actor in each case.

When you’re at an audition (whether it’s for film, theatre, commercials, voiceover, etc.), you may be given a script to memorize or familiarize yourself with ahead of time, you may be handed one on the spot, or you may be required to deliver a monologue. No matter what the case is, there will almost certainly be a time when you will need to improvise.

Let’s say you get the script ahead of time and you’ve done your best to memorize. Great! You get into the audition room, you slate, and you begin “reading” dialogue with a reader. All of a sudden you get to the third line and you can’t remember the next sentence or the exact phrasing of it. Now what? Well, there are a few options:
1. You can stop the read and ask the casting director if you can start over. (This isn’t the best option because it makes you look unprepared and they may say no. I have done this once or twice in a bind and luckily they were gracious enough to let me begin again, but I don’t think I booked those jobs.)
2. You can stand there (for what feels like an eternity) and hope the lines magically pop back into your head as quickly as they popped out. (In this case, you may end up having to go back and choose option one, if it doesn’t come to you. I have also waited a moment and had the lines come back to me, but sometimes the read just feels a little off the rest of the way through, because then I start second-guessing myself.)
3. You can make it up or phrase it in your own words if you remember the gist. (This is almost always the best option because it keeps the read moving along and oftentimes, if done well, most of the people in the room will never even realize that what you said didn’t match the script. I have definitely done this and it always feels better than the other two options because I haven’t lost any momentum.)
In order to choose option three, you need to have improvisation skills.

Ok, now let’s say you get the script ahead of time, you’ve done your best to memorize, you get into the audition room, and are asked to “read” with another actor. This time you get to the third line, but your fellow actor throws you the wrong cue or they improvise the cue line because they’ve either had trouble remembering it or they aren’t prepared. Now you may not know what to say or if you say your next line the way it was written, it may not make sense. You can still choose option one from above, but instead of the unprepared actor looking bad for messing up the line, it’s more likely that you will appear to be difficult to work with since you can’t just “roll with it.” In this case, it is best to make it up or rephrase the line you memorized so that it appears that you’re both part of the same conversation. This is another time, when having improv skills can up your acting game.

Now let’s take the same scenario above, where you are “reading” with a partner. One of your goals when reading with a partner is to make the other person look good – this reflects better on both of you and increases your chances of getting cast. This time you get to the third line, but your fellow actor has forgotten the cue and is just standing there not saying anything. In this situation, you may need to help your partner out by throwing out a made-up line that jogs their memory or by taking over and incorporating their line into your next line in such a way that it appears seamless, as if they haven’t forgotten a line at all. Again, you guessed it – the ability to improv here is invaluable. It can even teach you how to be more in-tune with your partner.

Switching gears now, let’s talk about when you’ve been handed a script on the spot. You are being asked to do a cold-read. Cold-reading takes another set of skills, one of which is the ability to “read” the copy while keeping your eyes out of your script. Sometimes when you’re doing this, you may miss the exact phrasing on the page. Without improv skills, you may be forced to look back down at your paper to rediscover the words that are written there. However, if you have improv skills and you understood what you read, then you can most likely paraphrase it a bit without looking down and keep yourself on track. Improv skills can also help you out if you’re doing a cold-read with a partner, in the same ways mentioned above.

And last but not least, what about when you are being asked to perform a monologue? While you often have much more time to prepare a monologue (you should always have a few in your back pocket), we are all human and forgetting bits or words or making mistakes is bound to happen. Rather than letting these mistakes derail you, you can use them as opportunities to add new life to your monologue. If you have learned how to improvise, you can roll with the mistake and figure out a way to quickly lead yourself back on track.

So I hope that you can now see just how important it is that you learn to improvise as an actor. Whether you’re just starting out or you’ve been acting for years, learning to improv or refreshing your improv skills is a must if you want to be able to compete in the marketplace. There are so many times during an audition where the ability to “think fast on your feet” can elevate your acting and increase your chances of getting cast. If you’ve never done improv or you’re a little rusty – get into a class as soon as you can, it can only help you.

Here are a few places to study improv in Pittsburgh and around the U.S.
Pittsburgh
Steel City Improv
Arcade Comedy Theater
Unplanned Comedy
I have personally taken classes at Steel City Improv and highly recommend them.

Elsewhere
The Second City
Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre
The Groundlings
Peoples Improv Theater

I encourage anyone to comment to this post with any other improv classes and/or resources (in and out of Pittsburgh) that you can personally recommend.

Next Week: Improv is Crucial in Your Work

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I'm performing onstage in "Scattered" this weekend and next in Group D of the Pittsburgh New Works Festival at Off the Wall.
The show runs from Sept 19-28.

I'm playing June (June-Bug) among a wonderful ensemble cast in this incredibly lovely, charming, funny, and heart-wrenching tale.

For details and information on purchasing tickets, click one of the links above.

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Acting Appropriately After the Audition

8/20/2014

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Auditioning is the same as interviewing for a job, but different. So basically you need to treat it like a job interview with a slightly different set of rules. This also means that after the audition, you need to continue to behave professionally as if it were in fact a job interview, because it is. This week I’m giving you some simple DO's and DON’Ts that outline appropriate ways of behaving post-audition, from immediately afterwards to a few weeks out.

DO: Smile and thank those who were present at your audition, answer any questions they have, and make a quick but graceful exit. Then sit down in the waiting room to collect your thoughts before leaving, hanging around just long enough in case they call you back in.
DON’T: Dash out of the room without thanking anyone and head straight to your car. This will only leave them wondering if there is something wrong with you. This is not the way you want them to remember you.

DO: Take note of what happened and how it went. Analyze your audition from your own perspective and make notes on what you can do differently or better next time. Learn from the experience.
DON’T: Try to decipher what the Casting Director or Director thought. It’s an impossible task and there are way too many variables for you to make sense of anyway.

DO: Forget about the audition the minute you walk out that door. Assume you did not get the role and move on to preparing for the next thing or focus on honing your craft. Then if you do book the job it’ll be a lovely surprise.
DON’T: Continue analyzing your audition for the next 3 days. It’s a self-defeating behavior that will take your mind away from your goals and prevent you from quickly taking your next steps.

DO: Send a note thanking the people who auditioned you. This can be done by snail mail or email. Include a headshot with your thank you, this will remind them about you and your audition, which they hopefully loved.
DON’T: Attempt to call the Casting Director or show up at their office to say thank you. This is akin to stalking – Creepy!

DO: Touch base with the Casting Director in a few weeks or months with a simple note that tells them what you’re up to and reminds them that you’re still around and would love to audition for them again. They may have a perfect role for you and end up calling you in.
DON’T: Send a note like this too often (more than once in 4-8 weeks). You want them to remember you for all the right reasons, not for being a pest.

So there you have it – 5 simple and straightforward tips that you can use the next time you audition. While you don’t need to do all the DOs all the time, you should never do any of the DON’Ts. These tips will help you to behave appropriately and professionally after any audition. The more you do them, the more routine they will become. And before you know it, you’ll be auditioning without a care in the world! (Well, mostly anyway.)

No Post Next Week

Next Post: Authenticity in Acting

photo credit: andres.thor via photopin cc /Added Border

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Guest: Author Barbara Venkataraman - Audiobooks 'R' Us!

﻿Audiobooks 'R' Us!﻿

﻿Barbara's Current Audiobook SelectionsClick on the cover to Purchase﻿

Audiobook Recipe - Serves 1 (Part II)

Top 10 Email Submission Tips

﻿Paver Patio Progress Photos﻿

﻿"Debunked" by "Everything But the Name"﻿

The Importance of Improv in Auditioning

Acting Appropriately After the Audition

Acting Up Blog

Get Email Updates

﻿﻿BloggerCarrie Lee Martz﻿﻿

﻿﻿Archives﻿﻿

﻿﻿Categories﻿﻿

Website Policies

Audiobooks 'R' Us!

Barbara's Current Audiobook Selections
Click on the cover to Purchase

Paver Patio Progress Photos

"Debunked" by "Everything But the Name"

Blogger
Carrie Lee Martz

Archives

Categories