 So I just reactivated my LA casting and SF casting account and I just got a self-tape audition and I realized I haven't done a step-by-step self-tape audition process in a while so I already have my light set up in my backdrop. But I'm going to tell you every single step that I do, everything I do for my self-tape auditions and I'll put timestamps in the description so you can skip ahead to different things but I'm going to tell you everything I do and all of the things that I am currently using for my self-tapes. The first thing I do when I get a self-tape audition request of course is read it all every single line. I know sometimes there's a lot of information on there but I make sure to read everything carefully at least twice. For this one in particular it's through SF casting and I have my text alerts on so I actually got a text message and I immediately went and logged on and checked my alerts and it was self-tape audition request for a tech commercial in the San Francisco Bay area so they do ask you to confirm it a lot of the time they will let you know if they want you to confirm that audition just so they know who's going to be sending in a self-tape if they should you know send out more requests to more actors. In general with my agents they do ask me to confirm make sure I don't have any questions with SF casting and this one in particular of course you can confirm it through the website so that's the very first thing I do is read it all and if I have a question I can ask it right away and that way if they take a long time to reply I still have some time to fill my audition and for this one I am seeing it on a Friday and it's actually not due till Tuesday but the sooner you send in an audition of course the better as long as you can perform it well you know do it and send it in as soon as possible. If I didn't have time to do the audition right now what I would do would be go to my calendar or my alarms on my phone and set a reminder to when I know I'm going to be able to film this audition especially if I'm doing another job or I'm going to have to shoot it you know in the evening um after a full day of work like I can get distracted by things happening in my life and I really don't want to forget about filming an audition because also you can procrastinate and be like oh I'll have time this weekend well if the weekend gets crazy then you're going to forget to film it so I usually set a reminder on my phone if I can't immediately do the audition. When I'm reading the audition information I pay close attention to a few different things this one in particular doesn't have any side so I'm not going to have to memorize anything so I know I'm going to be able to shoot it you know really quickly I don't have to take the time to memorize it and work on the dialogue and set a time for somebody to be my reader this I can do right away usually if I'm doing a theatrical audition where I have to memorize something I like to write it down at least three times and then work on memorizing it 15 minute increments because I've realized that's how my brain really absorbs the most information as far as memorizing things memorizing lines I will work on it heavily for 15 minutes nonstop put a timer on my phone and then go do other things do it again and again until it feels like it's in my brain and after that I just say it out well continue to say it out loud because throughout those 15 minutes I am saying it out loud and then after I feel like it's in my brain then I go and do whatever I need to do put makeup on get ready whatever and just say it out loud a bunch of time so it's really in my head in this case it's an action that I have to do because it's for a commercial so I just plan what I'm going to be doing for that specific audition for this one in particular they're asking for a wide shot and then a close-up shot of me working on my computer and interacting with somebody on a zoom call because I know this is a tech audition they're not giving me it's an nda they're not giving me any information on specifically what it is but they do want me to improv talking on a zoom call and I know it's tech and my boyfriend's actually in tech so I just ran a line by him and I was like hey can I just say this line of oh it was just a bug in the software you know it does sound correct and he was like oh that sounds a little redundant so essentially I still plan these improvs you know just so I can sound more natural and I'm not in the moment like I don't know what to say that way it's a little bit more prepared um sometimes if they do want me to be silly and you know in the moment really improv and I'll do it in this case they don't care as much of what I'm saying versus what I look like but I will feel more in character if I'm actually saying something tech related and I don't know that much about tech but because I have a boyfriend in tech and a lot of friends that are engineers um I know a few words uh and I'll just feel more in character if I have something that's you know more legit than me just making up gathering different things and putting them together so now that I know what I'm going to be doing for the actual audition the actions that I have to get the shots that I have to get I see exactly what they want for my slate for this one in particular they want my name height location and what I'm auditioning for um so that's pretty easy and then because it is a commercial audition they also want me to show my profiles and then my hands and that's something that I try to have as much as possible ready are my nails because I do have to show my hands I try to always do my nails and I actually do gel polish on my hands all of the time at home with my own kit because it's a lot cheaper and if they need me to redo it in a different color I have a bunch of different like nude colors and pinks and reds black so essentially you know my hands can always look professional because I get asked a lot to show my hands on camera so I got my slate and I got the you know the meat of the audition and for this one they also want me to take photos so they want a close-up essentially what you're seeing right now like this of me and then a full body shot so they can see what my entire body looks like um they also want a couple of seconds of my entire body during the slate so I am going to have to take some photos in addition to filming now that I know exactly what I'm going to be doing for my self-tape audition I get physically ready so because this is something that I'm going to be seeing head to toe in I'm going to change my clothes I already put makeup on and I already have my hair done but I'm going to of course change my clothes and my nails are thankfully already done this is something that would set me back if I didn't already have my nails done I would definitely take the time because I know I have it to do my nails and make sure that they're good for this audition it is somebody that's working from home so I'm going to put on a blouse that's maybe either the headshot that I sent in which is a blue business casual shirt or I'm going to put something on that's a little bit more relaxed like I'm working from home but I still want to look professional for my zoom meetings this is what I decided to wear because this is a shirt that I wore in the headshot that I submitted with and if it's a zoom audition like a live zoom audition versus a self-tape audition I will make sure to put shoes on and you know be ready from head to toe because you never know if they're going to ask you to flip the phone vertically and see your entire body turn around because they're not able to meet you in person they really want to see what you look like on camera so I always either put my shoes on or put or have my shoes handy near me so that I always am like a full picture versus like them looking at your toes or your socks like that's not professional and after I know what I'm going to do for my audition I set up everything that I'm going to use for my self-tape so I have a ring light and I just got a new little newer light that's actually right behind me right here so I'm going to be using my ring light and this today I'm testing that out but I've used this ring light for since 2018 and I film on my phone so it's really easy to just put it on the tripod like it is right now and backdrop tripod ring light that's pretty much it of like what I usually use but this time because I do need to do some actions on a computer I brought my desk it's right here my computer is right here so I have this as a prop that's one of the things that I get ready if they ask me to you know tell me something about yourself and I'm going to talk about something in particular that I do have something physical to show I'll grab that make sure you know I can use it and I like to use this gray backdrop just because I think it looks nice and it looks nice and plain professional I really like this it's a savage I believe it is in fashion gray they have a bunch of different grays I think these are just really great for pretty much any skin tone I would like to get one that's a little bit darker because I also like the look of those but I just use this because it looks professional in the past I've also just used you know a blank wall especially if I'm traveling or visiting my mom or something and I don't have my usual setup I will just make sure that the wall is blank that there's nothing on the wall behind me now that I'm ready to film what I do is make sure that my phone has enough battery in it if not I can just plug it in right here and enough storage because I want to be able to film this a few times and have enough storage so that I don't have to stop and figure out what I can delete and then restart it again so now that I know I have enough storage my lighting looks good I had some fingerprints and some of the test shots before so I went ahead and clean them so I like the way this shot is looking I'm going to do the shots that they asked me to do which is a white shot basically what you're seeing right now and then one that's closer for the other action and then I can get to editing and then I would do all of my takes until it feels like I got the right take or I'll look at them while I'm filming I'll just watch you know whatever shot I just took usually I can feel it out when it's a theatrical audition when it you know I had a good take and for these commercial auditions I do really need to watch it back to make sure that I'm getting the right look of it and then I edit it something that has changed in how I do my self tapes is the app that I use I actually use filmic pro which is 1499 and it's available for pretty much any phone and I really like it because you can adjust the lighting on your phone you can make it darker brighter you can adjust a lot of things and really what I use it the most for is adjusting the lighting because it's really easy but other than that it's not you know that crazy different when you're just shooting a self-tape audition and you can adjust the quality of your video so if you want to make it a bigger file smaller file if you want it to make it look more professional but really whatever app that you have on your phone is probably good enough for a self tape let me show you an example of the brightness so right here let me I'm gonna make it a lot brighter and then I'm gonna make it all the way dark yeah you can see that it really changes everything I think I had it about there but I really like that you don't have to necessarily move the lights around you you can just move the the light within the app and today I'm going to edit my self tape on iMovie because that's what I used to use and that's what's free to most people if you have an Apple computer desktop it comes free with your computer but it's really easy to use and that's what I like to use and I'm going to show you how I edit that as an example but I do now use Premiere Pro just because that's what I've started to learn and use for my YouTube videos so I've also transitioned to using it for my self tapes and really there's no other reason other than I like to do this kind of thing and there's more options there's more things that you can do and experiment with on Premiere Pro versus iMovie but still iMovie is amazing I edited my self tapes on there since like 2016 I think so you know I just recently started using Premiere Pro for my self tapes so if that's all you have it's more than fine what I like to do when I edit my self tapes is start my slate and you know the slate section and put my name on the screen especially because my name Belchika isn't a name that people hear every day or might not be familiar with I like to put it on the screen for a few seconds and then fade it out and then to transition between my slate and the actual activity that I'm doing for the self tape I do a little bit of transition again just to look professional and not jumpy and then I put my audition there and that's pretty much it for this audition in particular they do want me to do a we transfer so I'm going to be downloading this onto my computer as an mp4 and then putting that file on we transfer for different auditions they request for you to submit it in different ways they gave me the option to do youtube unlisted link or whatever I wanted to but they do prefer we transfer for this one so that's what I'm going to send them what they prefer instead of you know what I prefer which would be the youtube unlisted just because I want to make it as easy as possible for them and show them that I am paying attention to what they're telling me and you know just giving it to them in a professional way but before I send that file what I do is read the details one more time because it can get really repetitive and my brain can auto correct things so before I send it in even though I've done all of this work already and read it a few times already and I think you know I'm doing everything correctly I still read the notice one more time to make sure that I have labeled my file correctly to make sure that I have done everything that they describe I'm sending all of the photos and speaking of labeling your videos in your photos they will usually tell you how to label your files but if they don't I suggest putting your name the role that you are auditioning for and then the project name so belgica rodriguez jessica honda that's what you know that's what the an example of the file would be and then for photos I would put belgica full body or belgica close-up belgica hands front belgica hands back and now that I know everything is correct everything is good I made sure my name is spelled correctly on my files then I upload it to we transfer and after I submit then I'm done and I don't wait to hear back from them I know that they're not going to get back to me unless I get cast in the commercial so once I'm done submitting my job is done of course I don't schedule anything for those dates in case they do cast me but this one in particular they're going to be shooting May 6th and 7th or 7th and 8th so I'm just going to make sure that I'm in town you know for those days and don't plan anything too crazy but still if I get an audition for another gig for those dates I will of course still audition for that other job because who knows which one I'll book it'll it's very unlikely I would book both for that one weekend so that's it that's my entire self-tape audition process because I hope you enjoyed this video of exactly how I do my self-tape auditions and at the end of every video I feature another channel this is today's feature if you would like to be featured on my next video make sure you're subscribed like this video and leave me a comment