Team J, including several of our frequent Stonehenge partners, is doing a second panel session on self-taping, this time with TIVA.
The event will be all online tomorrow night, from 6:30 – 8:30pm. You can register via TIVA’s website.
Category: Stonehenge Auditions (Page 1 of 9)
Stonehenge Auditions are a series of mass auditons designed to connect actors with producers, not unlike Stonehenge Casting.
As previously posted, dues to COVID-19 concerns, we are not doing the previously scheduled Stonehenge Auditions this year.
Instead, we will be holding webinars about how actors can self-tape their own auditions, something that has become a necessary skill in these times.
Tonight, online, Team J’s Bjorn Munson, along with Francis Abbey, William R. Coughlan, and Tara Garwood, will give you tips and tricks for taping your own auditions at WIFV’s Narrative Directors’ Roundtable.
As a sample, Francis has put together a 3-minute video showing some of what he will cover:
For the past 15 years, Stonehenge has been helping connect actors and filmmakers connect with one another with an in-person mass audition. Due to COVID-19 precautions, we are going to forego the in-person event, but want to help the community connect.
We have been discussing format changes with the organizations originally set to host the the in-person auditions. We have an alternate virtual event set for the WIFV session on Monday, June 22nd and are still figuring out the TIVA event.
The latest information will be on the respective event web pages.
DATES:
- Lessons from Stonehenge: Self-taping Auditions: Monday, June 22nd, 6:30pm – 8:30pm (via Zoom, sponsored by WIFV)
- TIVA Stonehenge Session: Wednesday, July 15th, 6:30pm – 8:30pm (also virtual, topic/format to be determined)
Go ahead a pop over to our 2019 information page, but the our dates for this years Stonehenge Auditions are confirmed:
DATES:
- Session One: Monday, March 4th (sponsored by WIFV/during their Narrative Directors’ Roundtable)
- Session Two: Thursday, March 28th (sponsored by WIFV/during their Talent Roundtable)
- Session Three: Wednesday, April 17th (sponsored by TIVA)
Remember, the partner organizations will be handling the registration for both actors and producers (we still run the lottery, those emails, and the auditions themselves). For actors, as always, there is a cutoff for when you can register and still be considered for the lottery. Check the info page for more details.
Summer shooting season is here — and we’ve been hearing from many actors that they’ve been contacted by filmmakers thanks to their audition videos being on the Stonehenge Auditions YouTube channel.
We’re taking this occasion to remind actors about how the videos work.
Stonehenge Audition Videos are Publicly Available
We know it’s probably obvious since they’re on YouTube, but yes, your audition video can be seen by pretty much anyone. It’s public.
Having the videos be publicly available is, in fact, why we’re still doing Stonehenge Auditions. It has served as a resource for the DC-area filmmaking community and beyond. We hear from actors getting contacted not only by local filmmakers, but ones in Richmond, Philadelphia, and New York. While there’s no guarantee any project will be good, bad, or weird, enough actors have contacted us about good projects for us to keep on posting videos.
You May Ask to Update or Remove Your Video at Any Time
As per the video release actors sign when attending Stonehenge Auditions, actors may contact us at any time to remove their video from the YouTube channel.
You can also ask for us to update your contact information listed with the video. We highly recommend you list the email address you use for your professional acting work versus a personal email address. You may also want to list your agent’s email address and phone number, if that’s applicable.
We can usually make these changes within one business day.
Always Research Filmmakers & Production Companies
The barrier to having some sort of online presence is lower than ever, so if you get contacted by producers, look ’em up!
Whether it’s a website for their company, the particular project, or even a reel of their previous work, it can be informative. Even student filmmakers may have online examples of their work.
If anything strikes you as odd or raises a flag, go with your instincts — and always ask questions. In Team J’s Casting Notes series, we have an article specifically about responding to casting notices. The section on researching and asking questions holds true when producers reach out to you as well.
Here’s hoping your summer is productive and creative!
We’re happy to announce that the audition videos for this year’s Stonehenge Auditions are now online on our YouTube Channel.
They’re joining over 800 other videos on the channel for producers and casting folk to search.
If you’re an actor who gets work from your Stonehenge Audition video or you’re a producer who winds up using someone you first saw at Stonehenge Auditions, please let us know.
Thanks to all the actors and filmmakers who attended this year’s Stonehenge Auditions.
As a reminder, all the audition videos will be up on our YouTube channel next week.
Most of you have checked your email, but for those who haven’t, lottery results for Session One of this year’s Stonehenge Auditions have been sent out.
Over half of the actors with guaranteed or standby slots have not uploaded your headshots and resumes to the Dropbox link provided. Remember, there are no physical headshots or resumes this year, so if you haven’t uploaded your materials by check-in, you will not audition.
Please take a moment to check our formatting requirements and upload your materials.
If you missed this session, good news! This year, we have a second audition session on Thursday, March 29th. Registration closes Monday, March 19th at 1pm.
Head Jabberwock Bjorn Munson will be speaking at this month’s Women in Film & Video (WIFV) Talent Roundtable.
WIFV has a series of monthly roundtables, we’re actually holding the Stonehenge Auditions at two of them in March: Session One on March 5th during the Narrative Directors’ Roundtable and Session Two on March 29th for that month’s talent roundtable.
He’ll go over things to keep in mind when doing a mass audition as well as follow-up steps and submitting to casting notices.
For those of you with memories like an elephant, you may remember this sounds similar to a talk he gave in 2016. It is.
But if you didn’t attend two years ago, we hope it will help you as an actor learn more about navigating the indie world. If you’re an actor who’s gotten the lottery results for Session One or are hoping to get an audition slot for Session Two, this should be particularly useful.
The event is free for WIFV members and $10 for non-members. You can learn more and register at their event link.
If you’re signed up to the Team J mailing list, you already know this, but the 2018 Stonehenge Auditions dates are set and registration is open for both producers and actors:
- Session One: Monday, March 5th, 6:30 – 9:30pm (during WIFV’s Narrative Directors’ Roundtable)
- Session Two: Thursday, March 29th, 6:30 – 9:30pm (during WIFV’s Talent Roundtable)
If you’re an actor, you can check WIFV’s event pages or StonehengeAuditions.com for the deadlines to register. Audition slots are assigned by lottery as always. For producers, space will be limited, so if you want to see the actors in person and otherwise network with your peers, you should register earlier rather than later.
If you just want to know that registration is open and where to do it, click the links above and rock on.
There are a few major format changes to the auditions this year which we hope will make Stonehenge Auditions a sustainable community resource for years to come. If you want to learn more, please read below.
A Format Change was Inevitable
This may come as a shock to actors, but the day-long event is not equally beloved by producers. Don’t get us wrong. They like to see you all audition… and they love to see the videos after the fact. It’s simply that, again and again, producers tell us they can’t set aside a whole day to watch auditions.
Combine that with the fact that, for the past few years, most of you actors tell us you’ve gotten additional work and auditions from the online videos not the in-person audition itself.
A new Stonehenge Auditions model: Multiple Sessions hosted by Area Organizations
So we have a service that both actors and producers tell us is valuable: we tape and post dozens of audition videos online.
If anything, people want more than the roughly 120 videos we get from the day-long event. Only we can’t support the day-long event. Oh, and we need a space to hold the auditions that is both inexpensive (or free) and available. And could we have more audition dates?
Enter many organizations around the area that regularly hold events in mornings, afternoons, and evenings. They already have mechanisms to register people for events. They already have spaces to hold their events. The Stonehenge event is arguably a benefit for their members and the resulting online videos are a benefit to the community as a whole…
You may see where we’re going here.
Women in Film & Video (WIFV), the organization that has partnered with us for the past few years to put on Stonehenge Auditions, has volunteered to pilot this new format in 2018. Our goal is that next year, 2019, other groups will join in. Ideally, every Spring, there will be four or five sessions of Stonehenge Auditions. There will be more videos, more producers finding actors, more actors finding work, and all the related goodness that comes from those connections.
Nevertheless, this format means changes — some more significant than others.
Non-members have to pay this year
Area organizations like to hold events to benefit their members and, not surprisingly, often charge non-members to attend those same events (or they charge members AND non-members, they just charge non-members more). Since the organization is securing the space and managing the registration for that session, we don’t mind that the event benefits their members.
Most producers, even non-member producers, will probably wind up paying less to attend Stonehenge with this new format, but actors who aren’t members could, for the first time, have to pay to attend Stonehenge Auditions.
For 2018, we’ve confirmed with WIFV that everyone that doesn’t get an audition slot will have their registration cancelled and non-members can have their fees refunded around the time we release the lottery results (a week before the session).
Actors who get guaranteed, standby, or waitlist slots will need to cancel with WIFV if they can’t attend — and non-members will need to do that 48 hours before the event to get their fee refunded.
Does this mean that mean that actors who are not WIFV members would need to pay $10 to attend the event — and thereby have their audition taped and put online?
Yes.
Does this mean non-members will still want to cancel within 48 hours even though they won’t get their fee refunded — because otherwise they get on the Mud List?
Yes.
Actor registration is entirely through WIFV this year
Unlike the past few years, actors do not need to update and submit through their StonehengeCasting.com profile. It’s done entirely through WIFV event pages this year (see the top of this post). You’re not entirely off the hook for being tech literate, however. (see below)
There are no physical headshots and resumes this year
This makes logistics exponentially easier, but that does mean adjustments for actors and producers.
Actors will need to upload their headshot and resume to a DropBox link that will be provided when you register. Headshots should be in PDF, JPG, or PNG format — and resumes should be in PDF (preferred), DOCX, or DOC format. Plan on labeling your files YourfirstnameYourlastname_headshot.pdf (or .jpg or .png) YourfirstnameYourlastname_resume.pdf (or .docx or .doc) Your headshot file size should be 1mb or less and your resume should be 500k or less. Combined files could be 1.5mb or less and would be wonderful as a PDF (YourfirstnameYourlastname.pdf).
Producers need to have some means to view the headshots and resumes, whether it’s a tablet or laptop — and they should probably have some offline or analog method of taking notes if technology and WiFi connections act up. We’ll email out a spreadsheet list of everyone who auditioned as well for reference.
Actors must provide a signed release to audition
As should be clear at this point, we’re now doing Stonehenge Auditions to make sure we can provide the community with online audition videos. If an actor doesn’t want to be taped, they shouldn’t register. We will collect actor’s signed release when they check-in.
The usual policy for the online videos remains: the videos can be taken down from our YouTube channel at any time for any reason, usually within 24 hours of the actor’s request.
If you have additional questions, feel free to check out this year’s Stonehenge Auditions page as well as the Actor FAQ and Producer FAQ. We hope to see many of you at the henge.