The Acting Podcast

Ep. 39: The Self-Tape Crisis

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Show Notes: Season 1!

Show Notes: Season 2!

Show Notes: Season 3!

Risa and Steve sat down to talk about the Self-Tape crisis- an actual creative and professional crisis that actors, casting directors, agents, managers, and others in our business are experiencing right now.

Self-tapes are here to stay. But at this point in their evolution, they have the potential to consume you; to pull the entire focus of time and attention as you navigate the technical elements, the lack of collaboration, and the limitations of the process. We see a crisis in our Industry. The proliferation of this process has made actors forget about art. It’s time to take stock, to rework what the self-tape is, and stir up a Revolution in the process that places art first. And PS: that’s how you book work!

More On Risa More On Steve

“We are talking about the self-tape crisis and all the things your mind does to try to control the outcome. By the way, it means you care, it means you want this so badly. But also, at the end of the day, success won’t happen because YOU control the situation and affect your product, your talent and your ability to connect. Experience, in real time, only happens when your mind steps away and allows YOU to experience. And yet YOU have to find freedom in the self-tape process and it can’t take up all the air in the room.”

Steve Braun

“I just grew up at a time where I couldn’t name one female director…or not a single woman would get on stage to accept a producer award at the Oscars…representation matters because if you don’t see it, you don’t know that you can do it. Being a woman on the other side of the camera was not something that I ever saw.”
-Ellyn Jameson

“Then the desperation went away and I had an ease in audition rooms that I’d never had before because I had a life outside of wanting someone to pick me.”
-Dominic Burgess

“It happened entirely because I was following the path that was put in front of me without a tremendous amount of judgment around it. And I’m a judgy motherfucker…if I can do this, anyone can.”
-Johnathan McClain
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“Walk into every room, and everything you ever write, and everything you create, and just make it you, just authentically you. And most of the time, the people who’ll respond to it will love it because you’re being yourself and there’s only one of you in the world. And it feels amazing when you put yourself forward and people reward you for it.”
-Caroline Lindy