Recording A Video Audition

From becoming a YouTube star to entering contests held by talk shows, to sending in a video audition to become a game show contestant or star of a reality tv show, opportunities to use videos to help you find your fifteen minutes of fame are all around you. But with video recording and editing technology so prevalent, there is also a huge amount of competition. So, it is important to make a lasting impression with what limited time that you have.

To help make sure you shine in your audition roles, here is some advice for creating an audition tape for all of our VideoPad video editor users and friends.

Eliminate Distractions

Many of the tips for entering video contests we mentioned back in May can apply to video entries to other types of competitions as well, but instead of selling a story, you are going to be selling yourself. And instead of editing a script to cut out anything not important to the central story, you will instead need to cut out things that could distract the judges from that star of this short film—you. Most of the advice below is centered on this idea of eliminating distractions, so if you don't take anything else away just remember that you want to keep people's attention on you.

Planning and Preparation

Creating a video of yourself certainly sounds a lot easier, you don't need to craft a storyline, but that doesn't mean you should skip straight to filming. Read over the rules/requirements. What do you need to include? What are they looking for?

While you may not be writing out the story you may still want to write yourself a script or dot points to practice from; like you might use if you were giving a speech. Let's face it, you may not have a big audience while the camera is rolling, but if you do your job well there could still be a large audience who watch your video later on.

Practice, Practice, Practice

Remember practice makes perfect, so practice, practice, practice. While writing out notes when you're getting ready will help you prepare, you don't want to stand in front of the camera reading from a piece of paper. Make sure you know what you want to cover in and out. Don't be afraid to film multiple takes and pay particular attention to filming and editing below to make sure you have a clean video to send in.

Be Yourself

Filming multiple times may also help you get any camera-shy nerves out of your system. You need to know what you want to say which is where the practice will help, but those nerves can sometimes make you stiff. Practice several times with the camera rolling to help you feel natural even with the red light on so that people will still see you and your personality, not just a robot regurgitating a script. It may be easier for some, but you want to come across as genuine.

Location, Location, Location

One thing that can hurt your chances but is easy to control is the setting. With few exceptions, you want to avoid a cluttered backdrop that could distract people away from you. Try recording in front of a plain backdrop like a white wall or a solid-colored door. You can also consider filming at a nice outdoor location, but remember that focus should be largely on you so you want to avoid areas where there will be distracting sounds or commotion like traffic or people walking by. Filming outdoors could also make getting clear audio a bigger challenge depending on your device(s), so be prepared to need to do some audio editing with WavePad in addition to working with VideoPad.

Polish With a Little Video Editing

Editing your video shouldn't be an arduous task. The point of editing is just to polish off what you have already done. Cut out mistakes; make sure you are meeting any time requirements. Maybe add in a photo or two, but don't be tempted to use every effect at your disposal. Any editing you do should be to help you talk about and sell yourself. Keeping it simple is in your best interest.

For some help getting started and learning the simple editing basics, see our post on video editing tips and tricks and the VideoPad video tutorial.

Hopefully, these tips will help you stay focused as you record and edit your video audition tapes. Most importantly have fun and good luck!