How to Prepare for a Recorded Casting Session

Why the Session Exists

A class is a protected space. That is its strength, and also its limit: sooner or later the work has to hold up in front of someone whose job is choosing actors. The recorded session puts that person in the room while the stakes are still low. The studio has described what to expect from it: a casting director records the scenes, with notes and the kind of feedback that sharpens instincts, and you walk away with your footage in hand, something real to show your agent or to cut into your reel.

In the Week Before

Know the scene cold. Lines that are nearly learned take up attention you need for listening. Aim to be so secure that you could be interrupted mid sentence and carry on.

Decide what the character wants. One clear want, in a verb. Then find the psychological gesture for it and practise it with the whole body, so that on the day you can call it up in a second while standing still. Our article psychological gesture explained walks through the steps.

Find the atmosphere. Where is this scene happening, and what is the mood of the place before anyone speaks? Step into that before you start.

Prepare a second version. You may be asked to do it again differently. Have another reading ready, built on a different want or a different quality, so that an adjustment is a choice and not a scramble.

On the Day

Dress for the frame. Plain colours, nothing with a logo or a busy pattern, and something in the direction of the character without being a costume.

Arrive warm. Do your physical and vocal warm up before you come in, not in the first take.

Use the moment before. When you are standing on the mark and the camera is about to roll, that is the time for the inner gesture and the atmosphere, not for a last look at the lines.

Play to your scene partner or reader, not to the lens, unless you are told otherwise. Keep your eyeline close to the camera so that both eyes are seen.

Taking Direction

The note is the most valuable part of the session. A casting director who gives you an adjustment is doing two things: improving the scene, and finding out whether you can change. The second matters as much as the first, because a set runs on actors who can take a note and deliver it on the next take.

So listen to the whole note before you respond. If you do not understand it, ask one short question. Then make the change clearly enough that it can be seen. A subtle adjustment that only you can feel looks, on the recording, like no adjustment at all.

Afterwards: Using the Footage

Watch it once straight through without stopping, as a stranger would. Then watch again for three things: the moment you were most alive, the moment you left the scene, and whether the note landed. Write them down. That is your work for next term.

If the take is strong, it has a use beyond study. Footage of this kind can be shown to an agent or cut into a showreel, which is what casting professionals look at when they are deciding who to see for a role. With local productions and the international ones that the New Zealand Film Commission works to attract, good recent footage is what gets an actor in New Zealand into the conversation.

Where the Session Fits

The recording comes at the end of each term of the studio's acting classes in Auckland. If you want camera practice every week rather than once a term, add the Friday self tape and screen acting class.