It often happens, oddly, that several students and actors out there will ask the same question in the space of a couple of weeks and I write lengthy responses… and then write a passage like this. So here’s one on choosing showreel material.

As I always tell my student actors when we’re working on audition technique, try to put yourself in the headspace of the casting director. So with showreels, think about who’s going to be viewing it and what their response might be.

First of all, the casting director is usually someone who has been working in the Industry for some time. Some of them are trained actors themselves, some are not. They’re usually 30 plus in age and most are female. Most importantly, they are all looking for excellent acting. Your showreel needs to show them excellent acting. What is excellent acting as defined by casting directors? Well take a look at the stuff they have cast in the past and what they are currently casting and you will soon see the level of acting and the “kind of” acting they are looking for.  Different casting directors will be looking for different things. Some are adamant about precise accents, other’s don’t care so much about that. Some expect the words to be absolutely perfect in the screen-test, others aren’t so worried about that as long as it’s 90% there. Some are interested in transformational acting that shows the life of the character as an individual, unique life force. Others want to see you saying the lines believably.

You can research what different casting directors are after. Some of them do their own casting workshops and you can go along and discover exactly what that casting director expects. I have brought Ali Coffey and Louise Kiely and Mary McGuire in to The Applied Art of Acting over the years so that they can present their expectations and perspectives. This is all important of course.

But that all said, at the end of the day, you are bringing the actor that is YOU to the casting. You are showing the actor that is YOU in your showreel and in doing that all you can do is present what YOU believe is great acting, performed by YOU. You can try to cater that to the individual casting director you are going to see, but that can often compromise your belief in your own piece of work, and that can often be picked up by the camera.

So lets look at two things. First of all, let’s look at the basic thing that all casting directors want to see. And secondly let’s look at what you can offer them that will show the individual actor that is YOU, because that is what will set you apart from everyone else.

All casting directors want to see believability. This is assuming you are auditioning for a piece of realism in TV or Film genres. If it sounds or looks for a second like it has been learned and recited, game over. That’s the easy bit and assumed and essentially that’s about all that is common among all casting directors.

Now it’s down to what you want to show them. If you think that good acting is showing emotion, go ahead and pick a scene in which you are crying, screaming with anger, strung out on drugs and so on. That will show that one string to your bow. However, most casting directors who are casting quality film and TV will also assume you can access emotion due to your talent and training. Again, it’s easy and assumed among the echelon of excellent actors and the higher levels of the business. If you think good acting is showing that you can play the same scene that Matt Damon or Robin Williams or some other star played, then you can find the script, learn it and shoot it. However if you do, the first thing the casting director thinks of is Matt Damon or Robin Williams or some other star doing it and there’s a period of moments that pass before they start truly watching you do it. And unless you do it better than that star, or uniquely differently using some very clever choices, that’s pretty much where the viewers mind is going to stay. If you think good acting is traversing difficult and confronting territory such as graphic sexual or violent material or even nudity, you can do that too. That said, most casting directors have watched more sexually and violently graphic material in the course of their work than you’ve had hot dinners. You’re not going to shock them and again, in the upper realms of high art acting, it will once again be assumed that you are capable and willing to confront tough territory and commit your body to it too if it is required for the telling of the story. Some casting directors are more sensitive than others, that’s true. But most won’t be offended by graphic material unless it’s just gratuitous muck. Sex, violence and nudity that isn’t necessary to the actual telling of the story is cringy and just looks like bad b grade porn. It doesn’t offend. It just leaves the viewer feeling awkward and uncomfortable. This is also true of tons of swearing that isn’t necessary. Yawn. So you can swear. Doesn’t prove anything about your acting.

So what grabs them? Ok here’s my advice. And again, I can only be general because all casting directors are different and have different  approaches. But…

Choose play scripts. I know, that’s sacrilegious and so many people will tell you not to, that plays don’t translate to film. But it’s not true of Streetcar or Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, or Closer, or Killer Joe or the many Shakespeares that have been made into films, so again in my humble opinion, that argument is a little flawed. And besides that, you’re going to be showing a tiny snippet of script only. The transition from stage to screen that has to be done when shooting a whole play script is not going to be an issue for you. For showreel purposes, a good, well written, nuanced play script that many casting directors haven’t seen and that hasn’t been made into a movie, focuses them on you, not on some other star. You choose the scene from the play in which a massive change happens to the character. Why? Because the most interesting thing to watch in a short clip for showreel purposes is a character being genuinely CHANGED. They start in one place, learn something massive and finish somewhere else. Now of course showreel clips are 20-30 seconds long, so you are only going to be choosing about half a page of script at most. But that moment when the character learns that someone has died, that her boyfriend has cheated on her, that he has just won the lottery, that she got the job, we see wonderful, genuine reactions to given circumstances and core problems. These moments might feature an emotional outburst, and if that’s warranted, fine, but usually they don’t. Usually genuine responses to life changing moments are quiet, nuanced, surprising and subtle and it is the audience that feels the outrage. These are the moments that good editors comb the material to find when editing a film. Now of course, if you haven’t trained and don’t have the confidence or knowledge to allow your character to be genuinely and organically moved and CHANGED in the moment, you might manufacture a preempted response of what you think the character should do in that moment. And that’s usually death too, unless you are a very good pretender. Not all actors can do this stuff. It’s the ones that do and do consistently that make casting people and directors sit up and listen.

Great screen acting in the genre of realism is all about transformation; allowing the audience to go along the journey of watching your character respond to their circumstances and change and evolve from the beginning of the film to the end. To show you can do that, live in that character’s world so fully that genuine, organic responses can take place within the character because the actor has got out of it’s way, is a sure sign that you can play important characters in crisis and triumph. You can show that in excellent individual moments in small selections of great scripts. You just have to choose the right script and the right moment.

D.