The process that led the sisters Joana and Mireia Vilapuig to think about, write and finally shoot Selftape, the series that both premiered on Filmin a few months ago, was long, but what was clear to them was that it would be called that, Selftape. In the series, the self-tapes, that is, the videos that the performers record themselves and send to the casting directors to get a role, are a recurring theme and a source of trauma. Both in fiction and in real life, it has happened to them both receiving a request to send a tape aspiring to the same role.
“We have filmed each other a lot –explains Joana Vilapuig– until we learned that we were not the best partners. It is quite a stressful thing and we get to suffer a lot. If you are working little, you put a lot of pressure on yourself”, says the actress and screenwriter. Despite this, she says she is not against this system, the use of which skyrocketed during the pandemic, when castings could not be done in person.
“I do many for projects in Madrid or London and I really appreciate not having to travel. In addition, when we were making the series it went very well for us because we were able to see many actors. What we try there is to take care of everything a lot. We wrote them a letter explaining the project, acknowledging that it was a paradox to ask them for self-tapes, asking them not to be overwhelmed and to enjoy it…”.
It is not a minor matter. The self-tapes are on the table in the negotiation of the Hollywood actors’ strike, which is led by the main union, SAG-Aftra. They are not looking to remove them, because many interpreters value the flexibility they provide, but they do want to impose contractual limits. That you do not have to memorize more than five pages of dialogue for the test, for example. At the same time, a campaign called Auditions Are Work (castings are work) is underway, promoted by American interpreters who claim up to $541 a day for each casting for a film or series, whether it will be in person or recorded.
“Calling castings job opportunities does not capture everything they imply,” they say in a statement posted on the Instagram account @auditionsarework. They ensure that they invest time, preparation (memorizing, rehearsing), the performance and production itself, since the performers themselves have to provide the material and knowledge for the assembly and post-production.
Actress Tavi Gevinson, the former child prodigy who started her own fashion blog when she was just 12 years old, signed an article about it in The Hollywood Reporter saying, among other things: “casting calls are not job interviews, they are job interviews.” samples of work commissioned by the producers that we cannot refuse for other work. I don’t know of another profession in which employees go to so many interviews, with so many candidates, for jobs that may only last one day.”
Some of the usual complaints from performers regarding self-tapes is that they are sent an offprint of the script with very little information about the role and the project. “As an actress, I have come across many roles that only said ‘pretty girl’ or ‘sexy secretary,'” Vilapuig points out. The most complicated one that she remembers was that she didn’t even have dialogue and it was just action, which she had to record on her floor, going in and out of rooms. Interestingly, she got the job.
Carlos Iglesias, the Benito of Manolo and Benito, has also been on both sides, as an actor and as director and screenwriter of the film Un franco, 14 pesetas. “I no longer have to send many because I am a well-known person, but my daughter, who is an actress, Paula Iglesias, is recording them all day. She has half the house occupied with the tripods”. He agrees with the demand of American interpreters. “I would like to be paid for the effort, you have to learn a text after all. The normal thing is that a job is valued ”.
Amada Bokesa, a first-time actress, is used to recording dozens of self-tapes. She registers them with her own mobile phone (she bought a better one so that they would go well) and her brother, her friends or her partner usually help her. “The reprints never explain anything,” she complains. “You have to put together your own version and in the end it becomes almost a roulette wheel. You don’t have anyone in front of you to tell you: she raises her tone, make me angrier. She acknowledges, however, that they work. Every time she’s been called up for a final round it’s been because her tape clicked. Regarding the possibility of collecting them, she believes that she is not entirely realistic in the Spanish industry and that, somehow, she could turn against the interpreters, if that implies fewer opportunities.
One of the reasons that prompted this revolt by interpreters in the United States is that the casting agencies that remained empty during the pandemic began to rent their facilities and equipment to the actors who had to record self-tapes, at around $150 an hour. . “This is rubbish,” actor Merrin Dungey, who has appeared in series such as Big Little Lies and Alias, tweeted a few weeks ago. “Now we have to pay to get jobs.” The SAG-Aftra union intervened and made the practice ugly to casting agencies.
It doesn’t seem that this level has been reached in Spain, but actors and actresses do make other types of investments. Bea Segura, the Cites actress, who also appears in the last season of Black Mirror and has just shot Beguinas, an Atresmedia series set in the 16th century, paid for a course taught by actor coach Manuel Puro, which required recording each day for three weeks a self-tape. “That gave me security. From that, they take me more, ”he admits. “But I had to make the investment, which is something that happens a lot in this trade. We invest in training, in the team…”. They are especially useful for her because she lives in London and thus she does not have to travel to audition in Madrid or Barcelona, ??although she sometimes has a hard time finding colleagues who will give her the reply for the video in Spanish or Catalan.
“Indications vary greatly depending on the project. Sometimes I have all the details at my fingertips and sometimes it’s something very vague. That’s another problem with self-tapes. In face-to-face sessions you have a casting director, or the film’s director himself, who corrects you, asks you for a tone, and you as an interpreter have the ability to react and do it. With a video, you can’t”. He understands that what happens to actors, all the unpaid effort that goes into trying to get a job, happens in other professions too, like architects preparing a project to be submitted to competitions, but he thinks there should be some kind of compensation, perhaps be able to deduct the hours invested.
And what do they say from the other side, those who do the castings? Andrés Cuenca, veteran casting director of series such as El internado: las cumbres and films like El Buen Patrón, Terminator Dark Fate or Competencia oficial, believes that self-tapes have made casting processes more “democratic and accessible”. ” because they open the door to more interpreters.
When he was looking for very young actors and actresses for the reboot of The Boarding School, for example, he found it useful to receive more than 600 videos from applicants. “It’s an ideal tool, even with well-known actors. So you can see how they are physically, how they wear their hair, if they are good for the role”.
Cuenca believes that with current mobiles there is not much technical difficulty in recording them (“you only need to stand in front of a window and record a short shot”). Of course, he always tries to ensure that the performers have as much information as possible, if necessary (in the second rounds of casting, when there are few candidates left), facilitating a call between the actor and the director, who can give him instructions. “Castings are often traumatic for the actor, we try to educate all our colleagues to make them easier.”
In the APDICE, the Professional Association of Casting Management, they also propose to offer courses and guidelines to facilitate the process. Regarding charging for castings, as proposed by American performers, he anticipates that “producers will not want to.” “If you have to pay 50 euros each in a casting of a thousand people, it will not be viable”, although it would be good to consider it in some cases, he admits.
