Step 6 of 8

Record a self-tape

Shoot it on your phone, or use Subtext as a teleprompter and film on a separate camera. Then cut it and send it as a link.

Set up the tape

Open your script and tap Self-Tape.
Pick the part you're reading. Your lines drive the teleprompter.
Answer How do you want to tape? — with a reader, or Record on my own.
You land on the call sheet: one row per scene, and Assemble & Export at the bottom.

Tap a scene and you're on its Takes screen. Everything in the next two sections starts from here.

1. Shoot it on the phone

Tap Record first take. The phone turns sideways, the front camera opens, and your lines float over it. Tap the record button, and a countdown gives you time to get back into frame — tap anywhere to cancel it.

The prompter follows your voice. It doesn't crawl on a timer: as you speak, it scrolls, then rolls into the next line by itself. Your lines are in amber, everyone else's in white. Once you're rolling the buttons melt away — tap the screen to bring them back, and press and hold a line to nudge the prompter on if it loses you.

Prompter: Shows or hides the lines. Turn it off and you get a clean camera.
Reader: Plays your reader's recorded lines back at you between yours, with a slider to set how loud. It only appears if a reader has actually recorded for this script.
The timer: Your lead-in: three, five, ten, or twenty seconds. The last three beep.
A− A+: Sizes the prompter type. Set it before you roll.
The meter: Your level. Green is good, amber is loud, red is clipping — back off, or turn the reader down.

Tap the record button again to stop. You stay on the camera, so roll another take straight away. Tap Done when you've got it, and the takes are waiting on the Takes screen.

2. Or film on a separate camera

Filming on something else? Let Subtext be the teleprompter and nothing else. Run it on an iPad, or on a second iPhone, and point whatever you're filming with — another phone, a proper camera — at yourself.

On the Takes screen, tap Run-through (no recording).

Set your camera rolling, prop the prompter where you can read it, and play the scene. That screen goes black but for your lines — it films nothing and saves nothing; it's there to feed you the words while the other camera does the work. The prompter still follows your voice, exactly as it does on camera.

If a reader has recorded for this script, their lines play out loud — loud enough to act against, and loud enough for the camera to hear. Place the prompter with that in mind.

Your tape lives on whichever device is running Subtext, so that's where the footage needs to end up. Get it across — AirDrop, a cable, a card reader — then come back to the same Takes screen and tap IMPORT A CLIP:

Import from Photos: For anything that's landed in the camera roll.
Import from Files: For iCloud Drive, Dropbox, or wherever else the clip lives.

The clip joins that scene's takes as though you'd shot it in the app, and everything from here treats it the same.

3. Pick your keeper

Rolling takes is one job. Choosing between them is another, and it happens on the Takes screen — never while you're recording.

Tap a take's thumbnail to watch it back. When you find the one, tap its PRINT pill. That's the take that goes in the tape. Only one take per scene can be the print — printing a second one unprints the first, so you can change your mind as often as you like.

The ⋯ beside a take gives you the same thing from a menu — Play, Mark as Print or Unmark Print, and Delete take for the ones you'd rather nobody saw.

Work through each scene, print a keeper in each, then tap Assemble & Export on the call sheet. It stays greyed out until at least one scene has a take.

4. Cut it and send it

Edit & Export shows your tape in order: the slate, then the printed take from each scene.

Slate: The intro that opens your tape. Record a new one, Import a clip, or reuse the Saved slate you keep for every audition. It can sit at the start or the end, and you can save this one as your default.
Trim a clip: Tap any clip to open the trimmer: drag the amber handles on the filmstrip to top and tail it, and set that clip's audio level.
Transitions: Between any two clips: Cut, Crossfade, or Fade to black.
Fades: Fade in from black and Fade out to black, top and bottom of the tape.
Clean up audio: A subtle pass — eases hiss, evens the level, a touch louder.

Tap Assemble & Export, then name it. Subtext fills in the casting standard for you — Your Name – Character – Project — and that's the filename they receive.

Send your agent a link

Tap Get shareable link and Subtext hosts the tape for you. Your agent opens it in a browser, watches it, and downloads it — no app, no account, nothing to unzip. Copy link puts it on your clipboard; Share link hands it to Messages or Mail.

The link works for seven days. If you'd rather send the video itself, Share the file instead is always there.