First off, big thanks to the entire team over at the Chicago Virtual Showcase for organizing this amazing self-tape challenge and recruiting a gaggle of amazing industry judges. And then further thanks to those judges for volunteering to watch nearly TWO HOURS of 75 actors reading the same 30s spot. Yeesh, y’all are heroes.
I was ecstatic to learn that I was voted a winner!
75 actors. 15 industry judges. 12 winners chosen based on two weighted criteria:
- Quality of the Performance (75%)
- If you were directing this commercial, who would you want to see in callbacks?
- Who made the script work best?
- Is the delivery roughly on pace for the length of the commercial?
- Overall Professionalism (25%)
- Technically speaking, can the actor be seen and heard clearly?
- Is anything distracting in the background or framing?
- Does the actor and the self-tape video as a whole project confidence and ability?
- Evaluated based on basic technical proficiency; not fancy editing.
Learn more about the challenge and check out the other amazing winners (I’m in seriously good company here) on the Chicago Virtual Showcase website.
In addition to the sweet, sweet glory of victory, winners’ tapes are distributed to major casting directors, every SAG franchised talent agency, a number of non-union agents, theatres of all sizes, and over 100 individual directors, producers, photographers and independent filmmakers. The showcase is hosted on the Chicago Virtual Showcase website for a year. I think you have to be on their distribution list to access the tapes themselves, as they are behind a password.