Follow Directions
Last week, I received an email from someone to whom I had submitted an audition. It said, "Kudos to you and Jane Doe (ok, it wasn't really Jane Doe, but I've not asked this person her permission to use her name!), you two were the only ones to follow the directions in my email."
The email was a little unusual - it asked me for my demo. I was pretty sure this person already had my demo, but heck, he asked for my demo, that is what he shall receive!!
Sometimes the audition emails are very specific as how they want the audio slated, files labled, etc. There's a reason... they received likely hundreds of auditions, and they don't have time to go through the audio to fix mistakes, or re-lable the files. Chances are, they'll just delete your audition if you haven't done it correctly. On Twitter, I'm noticing casting directors and the like commenting on the same throughout the day... in frustration.
I get really busy during the day, and I have to force myself at times to slow down, read the email not once, but up to three times, just to make sure I did what the person asked. As evidence by the email I received last week and the Tweets I've been reading, it's important to slow down and follow directions.
The email was a little unusual - it asked me for my demo. I was pretty sure this person already had my demo, but heck, he asked for my demo, that is what he shall receive!!
Sometimes the audition emails are very specific as how they want the audio slated, files labled, etc. There's a reason... they received likely hundreds of auditions, and they don't have time to go through the audio to fix mistakes, or re-lable the files. Chances are, they'll just delete your audition if you haven't done it correctly. On Twitter, I'm noticing casting directors and the like commenting on the same throughout the day... in frustration.
I get really busy during the day, and I have to force myself at times to slow down, read the email not once, but up to three times, just to make sure I did what the person asked. As evidence by the email I received last week and the Tweets I've been reading, it's important to slow down and follow directions.
Caryn,
I recently did a casting for a client, and you wouldn't BELIEVE the number of people who didn't follow directions. I requested a custom demo of a short piece of a 2-minute spot. I gave explicit instructions NOT to slate, and asked for the audio files to be named a certain way, with the talent's name in the file name. Fully 60% of the auditions had something wrong with them, and 30% just sent me their stock demos...if I had wanted their demos, I would have listened on their site. My client was very specific in what they wanted, so I passed along that specificity.
If you don't have time to carefully read the instructions and do exactly what the seeker has asked, please don't bother submitting. As Caryn said, if your audition isn't exactly what they asked for, the seeker will assume you can't do the actual job properly, or that you won't be able to follow directions during the session.
And don't even get me started on the poor audio quality of about 30% of the demos...sounded like bluetooth headsets or those plastic computer mikes you get with your Dell. But that's another post.
Thanks for bringing this up, Caryn...you'll hopefully be saving lots of casting directors and voice seekers lots of time weeding out bad demos.
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Hi Craig,
Thanks for visiting my blog, and for your comment. It does seem to hit home. I can totally understand your frustration, as well as that of other casting folks. I can't imagine having to weed through auditions that didn't follow directions.
So, if I'm doing the math correctly, only 10% of the auditions you received actually followed directions? Wow. Just. Wow.
Thanks for your comment and for visiting. I hope my blog brings awareness!
Caryn
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Caryn,
Luckily, about 40% were correct, but I was able to dink around with an additional 20% to make them work, for a total of about 60%. Unfortunately, not that many of that 60% were "right" for the job.
That's why it's even more important to follow directions...I summarily threw out everyone who didn't do a custom demo, without even listening to more than 3 seconds of what they sent me...if it wasn't my copy, I threw them out.
I wonder how many of THOSE people would have been perfect for the job?
The world will never know...
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Still, that's not a very good percentage of those that followed directions. You're right... how many of those who didn't follow directions, thus their audition got tossed, would've been perfect for the job?
???
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