 Hi my name is Veljika and I am an actress and I just took a self-tape audition class you guys. I have been doing self-tape since 2016 or 17. The oldest self-tape that I was able to find an actual video of it was from 2017 but I'm pretty sure I did some before then and I had never gotten any kind of feedback or done any kind of class for self-tape auditions. Of course self-tapes have gotten super popular in the past year so it was really exciting to have the opportunity to take this class and specifically take this class with a casting director so Ranjiv who is also the instructor for the online fundamentals class that I took with the Meisner Center was the instructor for this class so this is a review my experience I'm telling you my experience with the the Sanford Meisner Center's self-tape audition workshop that they hosted and are hosting on Zoom and I really enjoyed it so I wanted to tell you guys about it it's so affordable. Of course for updates on what they're providing and how much everything is you can go online on their website to see what the most current prices are but for me because I had taken the online fundamentals with Ranjiv it was $50 only $50 for this workshop and it was five sessions and two hours per session so it was 10 hours total and before each class you had to do a self-tape audition so we did do five self-tape auditions and they varied which I really loved from some that you only had text yourself some you needed readers some you needed to do slates some you didn't so it really gave you a variation instead of you know getting used to doing your self-tapes one way doing it a lot of different ways because when you get a self-tape audition request very often they will have very very specific instructions for that project so it is very important to get used to you know what they're asking for for that specific self-tape you are able to take this class only if you are a current or past Meisner students so if you were in the in-person sessions and had to pause or if you have taken the online fundamentals you will be invited to do this self-tape workshop but as of right now they aren't advertising it online because they are not offering it who knows if in the future if they have a lot of people requesting it if they will bring it up again but I know it is at a discounted rate for people that have already taken the other ones $50 is such an amazing price I've looked at other workshops for self-tapes and I've seen some from $175 for one session to $325 I'm so grateful that the Meisner Center is pricing these at such an affordable price so that a lot of us are able to actually take these because for me ever since I started doing courses online and taking classes acting classes or some kind of you know leveling up course since being in quarantine it has really helped me to stay happy stay motivated stay creative and doing things yeah so let me tell you about the structure of this class I already told you it's about 10 hours for $50 for people that have already taken it so if you are interested in this class you have to take the online fundamentals first or you know go be in their in-person classes I don't know if they'll offer this after the in-person classes maybe they won't if you know because self-tapes are so convenient and easy and successful that I doubt they are going to be going away completely if you're interested in doing their free intro online session the next one is February 28th 2021 and I'll put a link in the description of course to this but you can see how I liked that class I liked it very much in this video I talked about my experience in that class I learned so much which was why I was immediately interested in taking this workshop when Rendri let me know that they were offering this so the basic structure of this class to me felt like a self-tape audition boot camp because you did have to do a self-tape every time as soon as he sent the text I would start memorizing it because I knew I was going to have to you know turn it in really quickly just like any other self-tape but this one in particular I knew they were coming so I was like okay I'm ready to get that email so I can start memorizing so you get a piece of homework before each class and then once you are on that zoom call we are simply watching everybody's self-tape that they turned in and Rendri is giving feedback um technical feedback on you know the lighting the sound asking questions to see how he can help us and better direct us in our self-tape so they can look more polished and more professional he did tend to steer away from giving us acting uh feedback because this is specifically for self-tapes and I think that's really helpful because if he was to go into the acting side it would take a lot of work because a lot of us you know just started with Meisner so we're not quite there to the level of the that he knows that we can be in and in this class there were actors from every level people that had never done a self-tape audition and people that had been doing it for years so it was really great to see each other self-tape so we can see you know the mistakes that we're making or the successes that we're having because there were some really creative people in my session and uh I was just like wow that's really creative um I want to try some of that stuff because I I'm a theater kid I studied theater in college and for some reason it was ingrained in my mind to go to auditions in all black and you know not distract whoever's watching whoever's happens to be watching in that audition room or in the self-tape um from what's happening right so I would just want to wear all black and just be like look at here don't don't mind anything else don't look at what I'm wearing or anything but being in this class really opened my mind up to okay once the acting is at a good level what else can I do in order to elevate the self-tape that I'm sending in that was pretty much it for the actual class we watch self-tapes we listen to Ranjeev um give us all feedback technical feedback and advice and he also gave us a perspective of somebody who actually works in casting because he does work in casting in LA um he works for a casting office and just from a perspective of somebody who's going to be seeing these auditions he would tell us things like that's a waste of time that's not actually needed this time or um you know you would stand out if you did this so really helpful things from somebody who's actually on that side of the industry there are a lot of things I learned from this class but in general what I got from it what I took away from it was a lot of um little things because to be honest a lot of these things I already knew the essentials like film horizontally and what a full body slate should look like um you know what you should be like during your slate a lot of things like that that are pretty basic I already knew because again I've been doing this for a while I've been told those things from my agents for a while but there were a lot of little things that I found um from Ranjeev he gave me a lot of advice but also from the other students mistakes they were making or things that they were doing that in my head I thought oh I don't think that's allowed but it just it really worked so that made their audition uh more interesting and and it would stand out if I was watching their self-tape that audition would stand out so in general this course helped me make my self-tape auditions more polished and more professional but also it gave me the edge to be more creative with my self-tapes so again once the acting is there what else can I do do I have time to make it um more elevated do I have time to work on something else wear a certain outfit that will have helped me mentally to be in that space um yeah just so many things your eye line there's a lot of things that you learn through watching other people fail or succeed and of course getting the feedback from Ranjeev so I am so excited for whatever next self-tape I get I uh I'm excited to send in an even better improved self-tapes in the future for my agents and for my self-submissions and getting feedback is really important because you can watch 100 YouTube videos um or read 100 different sets of instructions but if every time you're interpreting it incorrectly then you're never going to you know be corrected unless somebody messages you back and they're like hey your self-tape audition sucked because your framing was like this you know because it's very obvious well to me that if I ever filmed something like this I would not I would refilm it it's you know or if I was like way over here anyway you know what I mean to me getting feedback from somebody is so important so that you can make little orbit corrections that you thought oh that's good enough that that lighting looks good or that sound looks good even if it is good people can tell you and how to improve it I would recommend this class to both beginner and advanced actors um if you're a beginner actor and you you're maybe doing some training taking some acting classes and you also want to send in some self-tapes and get some experience get some footage for your reel having a technically good uh self-tape audition is going to make you more marketable and more professional and you are going to be able to book more things because we're going to take you more seriously and if you are an advanced actor if you've been doing this for years and years it's also really great because you will be getting feedback from a casting associate somebody on that side of the industry and um just getting feedback because if you've been doing something for a long time if you and you got into that bad habit of doing something really simple that is wrong then they can uh runchieve and this course can help you correct that and make your auditions like I said like for me what happened was more polished and more professional and in general more creative and better I obviously had a really good time and I definitely recommend it it was a lot of fun and also three people that were in that uh self-tape audition workshop our subscribers are mine which was really cool to be in the class and they're like oh I found out about you know the Meister Center because of you so it's really cool to know that people are taking advantage of these great opportunities that I'm sharing with you guys because you know I'm giving you my honest opinion of what is working for me as an actress I'm learning along the way I'm sharing with you the ways that I'm learning so that you can go and learn as well so that was really cool um I I really love the Meister Center and I cannot wait until we can do in person um classes so I can take the whole the whole sessions all of the sessions uh but thank you so much for watching this video let me know if you end up taking the Meister Center fundamentals um or go in person eventually take the self-tape audition class 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