Astral Digital Video - Audition Taping

Audition Taping

Self Tape Audition Options

With self tape auditions gaining popularity among Casting Directors, we're here to help make it easier for you to get your taping to casting. Choose from

Professional Taping services with a proficient reader and camera operator,
Budget Solution where we provide the tape space, equipment, and pitch services
Tape Yourself At Home and we provide the editing and pitch service
Self-Tape on your mobile Phone - the Astral Mobile Uploader

Professional Audition Taping

Astral Video has partnered with acting coaches to offer professional audition taping and online hosting. Professional coaching and reading, high definition video recording, flexible hours and competitive price points make this service the best audition forum for our clients. Your self-tape audition is recorded by your coach and uploaded directly to our server. We edit, title, tweak the color & sound, and send it to your agent with a head shot and resume for a complete audition pitch package. Check back as we add more acting coaches to our list.

Partner Studios (click the names for more info)

Impact Studio - East Vancouver
Iris Quinn at Impact Studio brings over 35 years of teaching and professional acting experience to the table. Astral Video and Impact Studios have proudly been providing professional coaching, reading, taping, and epitch services since 2008. Together, we have sucessfully helped many clients land roles locally, nationally, and in the USA. We want to make sure you give your best performance on tape and that your ePitch is presented professionally.
ACT-iVATE Studio - Downtown Vancouver
Alison Araya at ACT-iVATE Actors Studio has lived and studied around the world and received her Acting Diploma from Bologna's Teatro de Naville and excelled in the Actors Program at the National Academy of Dramatic Arts in Rome. Alison has spent the last four years committed to the craft of acting and to the cultivation of her teaching skills. She is thrilled to now have her own platform to pursue her passion for teaching the craft.
CAST Coastal Acting Studio - Victoria
Christine Willes at CAST Coastal Acting Studio is a well known Actor and Acting Coach whose willingness to share and teach is exemplary. From beginning actors to seasoned veterans requiring a bit of coaching, or if you just need to tape an audition, go see Christine.

Tape Yourself ePitch @ Astral

COMING SOON - Astral Video is preparing a space in Vancouver for you to use as a self-tape studio. We provide the lighting, backdrop, video camera, editing, setup of your personal pitch page, and ePitch. All you have to bring is a someone to read and operate the camera.

Rate proposed is only $20/hr incl HST
If you have an AstralReel demo it will be linked from your ePitch audition, giving the viewer the immediate opportunity to view your demo reel.

Notify me when the audition space is ready...

ePitch Service

Astral audition hosting is available on its own. Tape yourself at home with your camcorder, webcam, iPhone, or cell phone and upload it to our servers. We will edit the in and out points for each scene, adjust the color, and balance the audio. Send us your head shots, resume, and agent contact information and we'll ePitch it from our private server for streaming or download; All for $15 +hst

If you have an AstralReel demo it will be linked from your ePitch audition, giving the viewer the immediate opportunity to view your demo reel.

View ePich Audition Sample...
Send Us Your ePitch Service Request

Quicklinks

Self-Tape Tips

Avoid wall shadows by standing a few feet away from the background. Set the camera at eye level. If you are doing a slate either start wide with a full length shot and zoom in to a close up or vice-versa to give casting a full length view. Stand about five feet away from the camera so the camera zoom stays within the optical range. Shoot at mid close-up waist-to-head and vary to a medium close-up chest to head.

The reader is an important part of the audition. Have them sit near the camera so your not looking too far to the side. Depending on your microphone setup, the reader or actor might have to speaker louder or softer in order to be heard clearly. The readers pace should be quick and not slow down your performance. At the same time the reader should not be rushing where the listener has to think hard about what was said. It's you they are looking at but the reader feeds you energy to work with. You have a limited time to win their attention, so timing is crucial.

Memory card cameras create a new file every time you start and stop recording. When you review the card information on your computer you'll find the camera's file naming convention might not match the numbered thumbnails you see on viewfinder screen. Make finding the right clip a simpler task job by writing the scene and take number on a sheet of paper or white board and holding it up before each take. When you review the takes they'll be easily recognizable.

Hold a second at the end of your scene to allow for editing. If recording is stopped immediately after the last line it sometimes make for an awkward ending. The extra second lets the editor choose to fade or cut depending on what best suits the scene.

Demo Reel Hosting

With the new client package, your demo reel is streamed and available as a download on Astral's private hosting server for a year. Update your reel at Astral within that year, and we will extend hosting a year from that day. As a bonus, your reel is sent with Astral Video ePitched auditions so Casting can choose to watch your reel supplemental to your audition.
Hosting is available as a standalone at $24/yr
More about AstralReel Hosting...

Aircheck / Clipfinder

To help you find your scenes, Astral offers affordable Aircheck and Clipfinder services through its web site. With a TV aircheck, you tell us when your show is airing and we'll convert your scenes to a digital file for editing. Even if your show has already aired, Astral searches available video collections to serve its clients with HD quality video. High definition video from 720p up to 1080i is our goal, not low quality file sharing video.
Learn more...

Coaches Wanted

We are looking for acting coaches to partner with who require assistance with taped demo reel, or self tape auditions. Allow us to take care of the ePitch component of editing, encoding, web page design, hosting and server management. We'll work closely with you to streamline a process to keep you doing what you do best, and not working in front of a computer.