 Hi, my name is Velhika and I'm an actress based out of California and today I wanted to talk about paper backdrops and I'm going to specifically talk about it as an actress because I mostly use these for self-tape auditions but you can also use them for your Zoom meetings if you want something to be able to block the mess that's behind you or just look more professional, online classes, self-tape auditions, YouTube videos, whatever, it all, you know, it's all the same for everybody because all of these things you can use even if you're not an actor and recently I was thinking why are backdrops for auditions always gray and blue? And I don't know, you know, the answer but I can tell you in my experience why I really, really love this gray for my auditions and I recently got this blue and so I'm going to tell you about my experience using this backdrops. These are savage paper backdrops. I've had these little 53-inch ones for a long time and recently Savage sent me this 86-inch one so the little ones cost about $35 and then the big ones cost about $54. This video is not sponsored by the way but Savage did gift me this large one so I would appreciate it if you end up buying it, if you visit the link in the description that they gave me so they know that people are actually, you know, interested in hearing what I have to say about these backdrops as an actress and maybe in the future they'll gift me something that I can then give you. Maybe I can do some kind of giveaway in the future with Savage. I'm going to tell you today why I really like these two backdrops and I'm going to show you with a bunch of different colors of clothing what these backdrops look like because of course when you have something on it's a color and the white balance on your camera changes. Right now you might see that the light changes throughout this video because I have a window over here so backdrops tend to change a lot and also the mood of them change a lot. I'm going to start by saying no to these colors right here, the red and the pink for self-tape auditions unless they are a very specific character so for example if I had to play, you know, a quirky person and it fit, if it fit that audition then maybe I would wear this rainbow shirt and maybe I would put the pink backdrop or the red backdrop because that makes sense with the character but I prefer to keep it simple. I want the attention on me so what I'm going to do is I'm going to use this gray backdrop. This is the one that I use most of the time. I recently got this blue one which I really love the color of it. It's my favorite color and I like that one more for commercial auditions because it feels more bright, it feels more exciting, more energetic and then in the future I might even use these colored ones when again it matches the character but this one I really like because it creates a nice backdrop for my auditions. If I just had the wall like this it feels like washed out a little bit too bright it just feels like too much so the gray one it just feels like I can pay attention. When I watch myself tapes, the attention goes to me versus the color and I do encourage you to be creative when you can, you know, nail an audition and make auditions more creative and cool so you can stand out in auditions when somebody's watching yourself tape but you have to be able to do it correctly and you have to know your audience as far as the casting directors. Some casting directors might not care if there's background noise, if there's a mess behind you but some casting directors they will stop thinking about your acting and stop looking at you during your audition and look at the background like I would not audition with this right now that's in the backdrop because then people are going to be like oh wow she has a neon pothos oh and there's a golden pothos I don't want them to think about that I want them to focus on my audition and you might say well maybe it's your acting because maybe your acting is bad because if your acting was good they would only pay attention to you. Sure maybe but what if they get so distracted from what's around you that they don't even start listening to you they immediately go to something else so my advice is to go with a very simple backdrop like this one and then you can light it different ways if you are a photographer or you're into lighting you might know that this gray absorbs light really really well or absorbs other colors really well so right now I actually have a light on it to give it a little bit more depth because if I didn't have that it would all be gray and it just be more flat right so that's one way where you can make it a little bit more interesting by just adding a white light or if you have an rdb light and you're able to reflect different colors off of it this gray absorbs colors really really well so you can make this thing look black you can make it look white blue you can make this one look a lot of colors so if you did want to invest in some fancier things for self-tape auditions which you don't need to buy any of this this is just gonna make your auditions better if you do want to play around with your backdrops and make your auditions a little bit more interesting you could get this gray backdrop mine is fashion gray I believe you can get an RGB light and be able to make it into a bunch of different colors colors also can set the mood or can remind you of different things for example pink a lot of people think of pink as feminine so if you were auditioning for like a dark film where you had to be like a serial killer or something and then your audition was bright pink that might be distracting and again just like a little thing that takes a person out of the world of the film your audition and it's just it's just gonna be off you know so you want to set the mood for the people watching your auditions gray and blue is the industry standard you can go with both of them I would just say you have to think about what color you're wearing a lot more with the grays unless you have a lot of blue in your closet I mean a lot of gray in your closet I have a lot of blue in my closet so that's why I prefer the gray one it looks more professional I really have loved using all of these paper backdrops let me show you what these backdrops look like with different pieces of clothing the blue backdrop I really like it for commercial auditions because it's just bright and more energetic and it tends to look good with a lot of colors I especially love wearing light blue on front of this blue because I love it sometimes white as long as I can get the lighting right but lighting white can be pretty hard then with the pink a lot of different colors look fun with the pink but it has to be you know specifically good for whatever you're auditioning for for the red one I really like the way the rainbow shirt looks like I would definitely use this for some kind of film audition or a really fun commercial audition this red is obviously very different from this red but it still feels too close it almost feels like my head is just floating and then my favorite is gray and it really looked to me it looks good with every single color I have used the biggest difference between using this big one big backdrop and the smaller one is that the smaller backdrops I can't really put that light behind me because I have to be so close to the backdrops or else you're gonna be able to see the sides you know the side of the wall or this stand so I have to be closer and that's when it it's really hard to put a light like this to give it more dimension so if you want my advice if you're a new actor if you're looking to invest a little bit more into your self-tape audition setup I would say start with this gray backdrop see if you really like using it and then in the future you can purchase some more and I do suggest the smaller one because you'll be able to set it up by yourself I'm really tall I'm 5'10 and I'm pretty fit and putting this blue one up by myself is definitely a little bit of a hassle I would definitely say if you are a shorter person it's gonna be really hard or if you're not used to lifting you know really long paper backdrops it might be a little bit hard so I say go with this one if you can if you maybe don't have the money right now don't put it on your credit card be good with your finances and put it on your Amazon wishlist or ask your parents partner whatever if your birthdays coming up Christmas whatever it is this is a great present that you will have for years and years and years and it's a great investment like I said I've had the small ones for at least two years and they're still they're still going I still have a lot of paper I am using filmic pro to film my YouTube videos right now and it does have auto white balance and that definitely changes the color of you know the way my skin looks with the clothes with the backdrops and there's a natural light window over here it usually doesn't have a lot of light coming in but right now it's starting to come in so of course lighting plays a huge factor in any of these backdrops because I've had this backdrop look like this color before on zoom calls so take that into consideration definitely when you're choosing which backdrop to purchase but let me know if you end up buying a backdrop and thank you so much for watching 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 my foot's asleep