public enemy #1
every once in a while, i have “the actor’s nightmare.”
the plot details vary from dream to dream, but the gist is almost always the same. i’ve suddenly been thrust onstage, it's opening night of Seussical, Jr. or All My Sons or a play my brain has invented that involves climbing skyscrapers and eating several grilled cheeses onstage, and i don’t know my lines. i tend to resolve this issue by either running offstage or deciding to improv everything, and it usually ends terribly for everyone involved, myself included: i’m ruined, i’ll never work in this city again, etc. etc.
grilled cheeses aside, there is something truly existentially terrifying about the concept of trying and failing to making art - my livelihood, my life’s passion! - so publicly, to such derision. ha ha ha! she doesn’t know what she’s doing!
self-tapes are basically the waking equivalent of an actor’s nightmare.
before you start booing, i will (begrudgingly!) recognize the value of self-tapes. thanks to the pandemic, audition protocol has shifted, and now actors who wouldn’t even get to set foot in some audition rooms are able to share their work nationally and internationally, without paying for a flight! it would be wrong of me to ignore how much this shift will benefit me and young actors like me. in theory, this is all awesome, and i love self-tapes, and the next however many years of my career will involve zero self-doubt!!!
but oh, boy, do i despise filming myself. this is not to say that i dislike acting for the camera - there’s a delicacy and nuance to screen acting that i’m eager to explore more of. but the act of sitting alone in my room and setting up my little blue background and my little soft box and pouring my heart out to a spot on the wall and then realizing i forgot to press record? it makes me feel as lost as i do in my nightmares: floundering, alone, worthy of ridicule.
so here is my 4-step plan to get more comfortable with self-tapes in 2023:
film more of them
not even just for auditions, just to have them! maybe i’ll film a self-tape a week. maybe that’s way too ambitious. but i’m going to start getting used to it, so then i can start getting good at it.
invite collaboration
i’m at my most comfortable creatively when i’m surrounded by those whose opinions i trust and appreciate. why shouldn’t this extend to self-tapes? part of the awkwardness of filming alone comes from the fact that there is no life in the room except my own, no living breathing counterpart off of which to base my character’s exploration. so if you live with me and you’re reading this, prepare yourself! i will be recruiting you!
have a good time
why not film myself reciting this monologue from mean girls that i know by heart? why not write characters inspired by my friends and film scenes reading with them? life’s too short to make art out of obligation. thinking about all the fun stuff i can film and create to get comfortable behind the camera actually makes me want to set up my space and get started.
be a real human person
the last time i filmed a self-tape, the most fun part of the process for me was after the fact, when i cut together a blooper reel of all my slip ups, all the weird stuff i’d said between takes, all the bits of myself that slipped out through the cracks in my “actor” facade. i think, really, it all comes down to the fact that right now, filming myself feels like performing humanity rather than living it. maybe one day soon i’ll be able let the girl from this blooper reel show her face in a self-tape.
p.s. nexplanon sponsor me pls
