Self-tapes went from occasional to normal in a few short years, and for most screen work they are now the first audition, sometimes the only one before an offer. That means the tape has to do everything the room used to do: show casting who you are, how you think, and how you would play this person, through a phone on a tripod in your living room.
The good news is that the technical bar is lower than it looks. Casting wants to see and hear you clearly, with nothing in the way, and that is about all. Get the basics right once, write them down, and every tape after that is mostly about the acting. This page walks through the whole job in order, with links to the deeper page on each part.
Start by reading the brief, twice
Every self-tape request comes with instructions, sometimes a paragraph, sometimes a page. Read all of it before you touch the sides. The brief tells you which scenes to tape, whether they want a slate and what goes in it, whether they want a full-body shot, how to name the file, how to send it, and the deadline. It may also tell you things about the character or the tone that are not in the pages.
The brief beats every rule of thumb on the internet, this page included. If it says slate at the top, slate at the top. If it says one file per scene, send one file per scene. A casting assistant may be sorting hundreds of tapes for one role, and the actor who followed the instructions exactly is the actor who is easy to say yes to. Copy the requirements into a note on your phone so you can tick them off before you send.
Then do the actual preparation: learn the scene, know what your character wants, and find where it turns. A beautifully lit tape of an unprepared scene is still an unprepared scene.
Camera and framing: phone horizontal, chest up
A recent phone is all the camera you need. Use the rear camera, which is sharper than the front one, and turn the phone horizontal, wide like a TV, unless the brief asks for vertical, which a few social-first projects now do. Put it on a tripod, or a steady stack of books on a table if that is what you have. Handheld is out; nobody can watch a tape that breathes.
Set the lens at your eye height, or very slightly above. A camera looking up at you from a table is unflattering and makes the frame feel like a video call. Wipe the lens with a soft cloth, because a fingerprint smudge turns everything soft and you will not notice it on the small screen.
A few settings are worth checking. 1080p is plenty for an audition; 4K looks lovely and makes enormous files that you will have to deal with later. Turn on Do Not Disturb so a notification does not interrupt take nine. If your phone lets you lock focus and exposure (on most phones, tap and hold on your face in the camera app), do it, so the picture does not pulse brighter and darker as you move.
The standard self-tape frame is a medium close-up: the bottom of the frame around the middle of your chest, the top a little above your head. Your eyes should sit roughly a third of the way down the frame. That is close enough to see what you are thinking and wide enough that you can move without leaving the shot.
Keep yourself centered or very close to it. Leave a small gap between the top of your head and the top of the frame; cutting off the top of your head is a stylish choice for a feature film and an odd one for an audition. Stand or sit about three feet (a meter) from the camera, which tends to give the most natural-looking face on a phone lens. For more on getting the distance right, there is a longer piece on self-tape framing and the three-foot rule.
If the brief asks for a full-body shot, that is usually a separate few seconds at the start or end: step back until you are head to toe in frame, hold for a moment, and step back in. Do not shoot the scene that wide.
Background and light
The background should be plain and boring: a smooth wall or a backdrop in a mid-tone gray or soft blue, with nothing on it. No bookshelves, no posters, no doorway into the kitchen. Stand a few feet in front of it so your shadow falls on the floor and not behind your head.
For light, the rule is soft and from the front. Face a window during the day, or put a soft light (a lamp through a diffuser, a softbox, a ring light at low power) just to one side of the camera at about face height. Turn off the overhead light, which carves dark hollows under your eyes, and never put a bright window behind you, which turns you into a silhouette. Keep all your light sources the same color, so do not mix warm household bulbs with cool daylight.
That is the short version. For setups at every budget, ring light pros and cons, and how to fix a shadowy face, see the best background and lighting for a self-tape.
Sound: the part people skip
Casting will forgive a slightly dim picture. They will not sit through a tape where they cannot hear you, or where the reader is booming over you. Sound gets less attention than light and costs more auditions.
Tape in the smallest, softest room you can: carpets, curtains, a sofa, a bed, clothes in a closet. Bare walls and hard floors make a hollow echo that sounds amateur at once. Turn off fridges, fans and air conditioning while you record, and close the windows.
The microphone in your phone works if it is reasonably close to you. If you are three feet from the phone, it is fine; if you are across the room, it is not. A small wired lavalier clipped out of sight is the biggest upgrade most actors can make for the money. The other classic problem is the reader: they are standing next to the phone, so they are closer to its microphone than you are, and they come out louder. The fix is mostly in the reader's delivery. All of this is covered in detail in how to get good sound on a self-tape.
The reader, and where you look
Almost every self-tape scene needs someone reading the other lines, and the reader matters more than any piece of equipment. A good reader is a real person, standing or sitting just beside the camera, reading at a lower volume than you with simple, honest responses, and keeping up the pace so you are never waiting. They are there to give you something to react to. The best reader is often another actor, but a patient friend who can follow the page does the job well.
Use a human. Some actors are tempted to have a synthetic AI voice read the other part on the finished tape, because it is always available. It is a bad idea: casting watches a great many tapes and can hear a generated voice almost immediately, it flattens the rhythm of the scene, and it gives you nothing real to respond to. Rehearse with whatever helps you learn the words, then get a person for the take, even if that means taping in the morning or reading with someone over a video call. If you are the one asked to read for a friend, see how to read for someone's self-tape.
Your eyeline goes to the reader. Their face should be right beside the lens, at about your eye height, so your eyes land just off camera on one side, close enough that casting sees both eyes clearly. Do not look straight down the lens unless the brief asks for it, which is common in commercial auditions and rare in drama. If there are several characters, place them at slightly different points near the lens and keep each one consistent. The detail, including monologues and phone calls, is in where to look in a self-tape.
The slate and the takes
The slate is a few seconds of you, as yourself, saying who you are. Most often that means your name, and sometimes your height, where you are based, your agent, or the role you are reading for. Say only what the brief asks for. Look straight into the lens for the slate, which is the one moment you talk to camera, and say it warmly and plainly. It should take five to ten seconds.
Where it goes depends on the brief. Some ask for it at the top, some at the end, some as a separate file. If the brief is silent, conventions differ; many actors put it at the end so the tape opens on the work, and that is a sensible default. The full rules and wording are in what a slate is and how to slate.
Warm up before you press record: voice, body, and a run of the scene with your reader off camera. The first take is usually stiff, so treat it as a technical rehearsal. Watch ten seconds back to check focus, framing and sound before you go further; finding out after six takes that the reader was clipping is a bad evening.
Then do a handful of takes. Three to five is plenty for most scenes. Make each one about something, a different want or a different relationship to the other person, so you are exploring and not just repeating. If you find yourself on take fifteen chasing perfection, stop. The tape is a sample of how you work, and casting knows it was made in an apartment.
Start each take with a beat of stillness before your first line and hold a beat after your last. Those beats give you somewhere clean to trim, and they give casting a moment of you thinking before you speak, which is often the most interesting part of the tape.
Choosing a take, editing and sending
Watch your takes back once each, all the way through, ideally on a bigger screen than your phone. Pick the one where you were most clearly listening and something happened you did not plan, even if it felt messier at the time. If two are close, pick the one with the stronger opening, because that is the part everyone watches.
Editing a self-tape is mostly trimming: start a beat before your first line, end when the scene lands, add the slate where the brief wants it, and put multiple scenes in the order listed with a plain cut between them. Do not splice two takes together in the middle of a scene, and do not add music, titles, filters or zooms. For the full approach, including which take to choose when you cannot decide, see how to edit a self-tape.
Then name the file exactly as the brief says. If it gives no format, use your name, the role and the project, something a person can read in a list. Send it the way they ask: an upload to a casting platform, a link, or an email to your agent. Video files from phones are large, and squeezing one through a second round of compression to fit an email is the quickest way to make a good tape look cheap. File formats, sizes and how to send a link are covered in how to send a self-tape, and running length in how long a self-tape should be.
Before you send, watch the finished file once from start to finish, on the device casting is most likely to use. That one check catches the wrong take, the missing scene, and the slate with your old agent's name in it.
A self-tape checklist
- Brief read, requirements written down.
- Scene learned and worked, with a reader booked.
- Phone horizontal, rear camera, at eye level, lens clean, Do Not Disturb on.
- Framed chest up, a little headroom, about three feet away.
- Plain mid-tone background, a few feet behind you.
- Soft light from the front, overheads off, no window behind you.
- Quiet, soft room; reader quieter than you; sound checked on playback.
- Reader beside the lens at eye height; eyeline just off camera.
- Slate as asked, to camera.
- One take per scene unless asked, trimmed, nothing added.
- File named and sent exactly as the brief says, after one last full watch.
More questions
Can I self-tape with just my phone?
Yes. Most self-tapes are shot on phones, and a recent phone's rear camera is more than good enough. Put it on a tripod or a steady stack of books, turn it horizontal, and spend your effort on light and sound, which matter more than the camera.
Should I look at the camera in a self-tape?
Usually no. Look at your reader, who stands just beside the lens, so your eyes are close to camera without meeting it. The exceptions are when the brief asks for direct address, and most commercial auditions and slates, which go straight down the lens.
Do I need to be off book for a self-tape?
As close as you can get. You are usually allowed to hold sides, but a tape gives you time, so casting expects you to know the words well enough to look at your reader. Glancing down now and then is fine; reading the scene is not.
What should I wear for a self-tape?
Solid colors that suggest the character without being a costume. Avoid fine stripes and small checks, which shimmer on camera, and avoid a top the same color as your background. Something that sits well at the neckline matters most, since that is what the frame shows.
How many takes should I send?
Follow the brief. If it says nothing, send one take per scene, your best. Some briefs ask for two takes with different choices, and in that case make the second one a genuinely different choice; a slightly louder version of the first tells them nothing new.
Can I use an AI voice to read the other lines?
You can rehearse with one, but do not put one on a tape you submit. Casting watches a great many tapes and can hear a synthetic voice within seconds. A real person reading quietly off camera gives you something to react to, and that reaction is most of what they are watching.