Last night was the first audition for the film, and coming away from it, I can honestly say that there’s a very legitimate reason that the big production companies hire casting directors. If Steven Spielberg had to manage the casting for his own films, I think he would have burned out somewhere between “Jaws” and ”Close Encounters of the Third Kind”, and we would have never met Indiana Jones. What a tragedy.

I’ll be honest, I set my expectations low for yesterday’s auditions. This thing is a non-union, non-paying film, and so the caliber of talent I expected was somewhere between “I drove by a film set this one time” and “I do community theater every now and then”. I was wrong. By a long shot.

By the end of the day, we had auditioned 32 people for the 7 main roles of the film that are still open, and we came back with two or three really sharp candidates for most of the roles. For the role of Vanessa alone, there were five really incredible auditions. I managed to whittle it down to three for callbacks, but it was nearly impossible.

For those who are following the blog and considering making your own movie, I have a few useful tips, and I”m going to present them in a little segment we do here, called

Free Film School – Auditions -setup

Casting is an insanely challenging process, and while not all of your characters are cast during auditions the audition process is essential for finding great talent.

The first step to holding an audition is to decide on a date, time, and location. This is a surprisingly tricky process. Many actors are busy with projects, and a lot of unpaid gigs try to shoot on evenings and weekends, since most of the talent work full time jobs.  In our experience, early on the week seems to work well for many.

Additionally, you want to make sure that your audition spans two or more times of day, for example afternoon and evening, or morning and afternoon. This gives your candidates more options to work around their schedules.

For location, shop around. A good first impression is important, so meeting in the basement of a ratty pool hall might not be the right place for auditions (unless you’re doing a documentary on bikers). Find a place that’s clean and bright, and has lots of space both in the audition room and in the waiting area or hallway. Talk to the managers, and see if they’ll cut you a break on price. Either way, it shouldn’t cost too much, under $100 for sure.

Next, get the word out. There are several ways to do this, but we found that the most successful way is to reach out to local agencies that pool lists of actors. There’s an agency out of the twin cities that will send audition notices to their thousands of subscribers. Most of our candidates came from this pool. Craigslist and other online listing sites are good too, as are physical notices on physical bulletin boards.

The next step is to PREPARE, PREPARE, PREPARE! Get your stuff together and be ready for the audition the night before. This way when audition day comes, you only have to pop into the car and go. Here’s a brief list of things you’re going to want to have at the audition:

• Sign in Sheets – they should have a place for the person’s name, email, phone, and what roles they are auditioning for, if they know in advance.
• Image consent/Nondisclosure agreement. Let’s think about this. You’re giving a portion of your script to someone who is virtually a complete stranger. The two things you don’t want are 1-someone to sue you for any reason, or 2-someone to steal your film or share parts with the public that are confidential. Cover Your Assets, and have a form.
• General information sheet. We stapled these to the consent forms. It gives them an idea of what they can expect in the production, character lists, etc…
• Sides for the parts. “Sides” is a fancy pants Hollywood way of saying “A small part of the script”. Basically, find a page in your script that defines the character. Make several copies of that page, and you’re done. Repeat for each character until you do them all, or until complete deforestation of the United States occurs for the paper usage. Whichever comes first.
• A sheet telling people to sign in and grab a copy of the consent form packet. Believe me, you need this. Tape it to the wall above the sign-in table.
• Clipboards, lots and lots of clipboards. You’ve been there, trying to fill out paperwork on your knee. It’s no fun. You can get clipboards for under $1 each. It’s worth it.
• Pens. Not just for you, but for the people in the hall waiting.
• Refreshments. These folks are nervous. This might be the first audition for a few. Give them something to snack on and wash it down with if they want it. We had great luck with a big tray of cookies and water & soda.
• Camcorder. You NEED to record these things. If nothing else, you will want to review the footage later when you do callback review. Also, bring plenty of storage media, batteries, etc…
• If you can, bring a TV to connect to the camcorder. I found that watching them on the TV helped me focus on their screen presence.
• Note paper for yourself. Again, also useful for reviewing the data.
• Small table for the sign in materials. It will come in handy.

Okay, with that info, you can set up an audition. At the next Free Film School, I’ll talk bout what to look for at auditions. Until next time, keep it real!

-Jim