Alice W-Smith – Commercial Audition
Age: 18 Location: London
“So, I recently went to an audition for a well known computer company that went pretty badly. It was my first audition for a commercial, and the whole casting was a bit of a mess. However, it’s completely useless to blame the company’s lack of organization for me having a bad audition and not getting the job. It was entirely in my hands to turn things around for myself and make a good outcome out of a bad situation, but I didn’t, and needless to say, I didn’t get the job. In hindsight, it’s easy to see what I could have done to help myself, so hopefully by telling you guys about it I might be able to help you for any badly organized castings you might go to in the future!
My audition was at 5:20. I hadn’t been sent a script, but had simply been told that I would be playing a 15 year old girl who is a typical teenager and thinks that her parents and her family are a bit embarrassing. My first mistake was to arrive at the audition late. Arriving late is NEVER a good idea – I was only a few minutes late because I had got a bit lost getting there, but it really is no excuse. I’ve learnt that it’s far better to be early and to go and get a drink or something somewhere and calm down than to get there with no time to spare and to then be flustered at the audition. But anyway, I rushed into the audition, and found a smallish room with chairs in it, and around 6 people sitting and waiting with scripts in their hands. I went up to the reception desk, told the receptionist my name, and was handed the script and a form to fill in with my details. I sat down, filled in my form, and looked over the script. It told me that all I really had to do in the advert was sit on my phone texting and trying to stop my two younger ‘brothers’ from annoying me.
Because I was late I had expected to be rushed in pretty promptly, but that wasn’t the case. After waiting for about 15 minutes, the casting director (c.d.) came out of the audition room with the 3 people he had just been auditioning – the ‘mother’, the ‘father’ and the ‘daughter’ in the advert. Whilst he waited for the cameramen who were filming the auditions to change tapes, he explained to the rest of the people waiting to audition what the commercial was about. It turned out that my main part in the advert was to give my ‘mum’ a sarcastic smile and roll of the eyes at the end of the advert, and then to go back to texting on my phone. This seemed simple enough, and so when the casting director called the next ‘family’ into audition (which, despite it being over 20 minutes after my scheduled audition time, didn’t include me) instead of practicing my sarcastic smile, I doodled on a piece of paper, texted my friends and watched the TV in the waiting room. After a while the c.d. and the auditionees came out again, and another ‘family’ were called in, which again, did not include me. By this time it was only me left in the waiting room, and I was starting to panic. I had a family thing which I needed to be at for 7; it was already almost 6 and it took over an hour to get there. And in my panic, even though I knew I had to be auditioning next as it was only me left, I still didn’t practise! I called my Mum in a panic and sat waiting impatiently, but I didn’t practise.
At 6:00, the casting director finally came out, and suddenly seemed to realise, that I was still left. Clearly he hadn’t noticed that I still needed to audition, and there weren’t any ‘mothers’ or ‘fathers’ left for me to audition with. He ended up asking the ‘mother’ and ‘father’ he had just auditioned to stay behind and do another audition with me. We all went into the room, and the audition (finally!) began.
This was my first audition for an advert, so I didn’t really know what to expect. The first thing I noticed was the camera. In all of my other auditions for TV programmes or short films, the camera had been a small handycam operated by the casting director, but this was a massive, very professional looking camera, operated by a camera man who also had a monitor on which he could see what was being filmed. The casting director told me to stand in front of the camera and hold up a piece of paper which said my name on it, and then say my name, my age, and the name of my agent to the camera. He then asked to see my ‘profile’. At first I got a bit worried that he wanted to see my CV or some sort of portfolio of my work or a showreel, but after confusedly asking him what he meant he motioned for me to turn sideways so that the camera could capture my profile – as in the side angle of my face! Woops…! Anyway, after that slight embarrassment, I then had to show the camera both sides of my hands, and then I was told what to do for the audition. At the other end of the room there was a sofa and a desk, which was the set for the audition. The c.d. told me that my ‘Mum’ was going to sit at the desk, my ’Dad’ would sit on the sofa, and I would sit on the edge of the sofa turned away from my family and texting away on my phone. He also explained that the two cushions on the sofa were meant to represent my two younger ‘brothers’, and that my ‘Dad’ would be using them to annoy me whilst I tried to text, as the two boys would be in the real commercial. And then, all too soon, the audition began. I sat at the edge of the sofa texting away and mumbling at my cushion brothers to stop annoying me; it was all going well and I definitely thought I had the moody teenager thing down (possibly because I was in a bit of a mood myself because the audition was running so late!). And then, just as suddenly as the scene began, the scene stopped, and I had completely missed my cue for my starring role – the sarcastic look. Completely embarrassed, I apologized to the c.d. and he politely asked me to do it again and to emphasize the sarcastic look (he was too nice to remind me that I hadn’t done it at all!). We ran it again, and although I did manage to do the look in time, it was flat and under dramatic – I was far too distracted by my nerves and my embarrassment and my fear of being late for my next commitment to do it properly! But unfortunately, that was it. It was the end of the audition, the c.d. shook my hand and thanked me for coming, and away I went.
So, what did I get from the audition? Well, not very much. I had wasted an hour of my day, had made a bad impression on quite an important casting director and had completely blown a great opportunity. But, at least it was an experience. I learnt a lot - that preparation is the key (if I had practised my sarcastic look beforehand then I wouldn’t have been so flustered and nervous in the audition!), that being really early is always better than being a bit late, and that you should never book anything important too soon after an audition for an advert – they almost never run on time!”
Olivia’s Comment
Thank you to Alice from the Haymarket Academy for submitting her story! Her audition story is a really good example of how commercial (TV advert) castings run: chaotic! They are normally always running behind time so a long wait of up to an hour can be expected. Even when you turn up on time, ready and pumped to audition, you can lose your steam when the wait is so long! It’s okay to move outside for fresh air and return to the waiting room – as long as the casting assistant is aware you’re just freshening up and haven’t disappeared! Always sign in at reception as most of the time the staff are briefed on how the day will run. If they don’t know you’re there, you won’t be seen.
Look out for commercials on TV and make note that every actor has auditioned for those roles. Each part they play is nearly always witout dialogue and playing out a ‘situation’, like Alice’s moody teenager and brother’s set up! So instead of expecting a script for a commercial audition, prepare to play out different ‘situations’. Thanks Alice!