Thought I’d share what a self-tape session looks like nowadays. You can see the screen we purchased behind Don, and the ring light in front of him. Adjusting the light takes a long time, let me tell you. Don’s iPhone is used for taping and it sits in a holder within the ring light, and everything is hooked up to Don’s laptop.
When the set-up looks right (it never looks perfect, believe me!) we go through the lines together, because I read all of the lines in the script other than Don’s. We usually do about 4 takes because something goes wrong; I flub a line, Don gets the word order wrong, that kind of thing. There have been times in the past where we kept flubbing it and got a huge case of the giggles.
After we’re done, all of this gets folded up, put in boxes, and stored up in our office. Self-taping was already becoming a viable option for auditions before the pandemic hit – sometimes actors are working out of town and can’t audition in person. Our friend Guy, who works a lot, now lives full time in the house in Illinois that his father owned. He self-tapes. As you can imagine, nothing happened during the pandemic for a while, but once things slowly started up, everyone self-taped. It’s handy for us because we save the yearly chunk of money we used to have to pay for bus/train travel to and from NYC. Don also saves time. Traveling into the city for an audition takes up most of a day. Now, we can tape for about an hour, then Don edits the tape, and then he sends it to his agent.
The unbearable heat continues for one more day. The lawn is more than overdue for a mowing but we are not foolish enough to try it in this weather. Remember how I said the oppressive heat was enervating? Yesterday, I fell asleep in the middle of the day for over an hour and that never happens unless I’m ill. It felt like I was drugged. Don did the same thing in the office. Cannot wait for this to end!
Stay safe.
Happy Friday.
