NDA

So in an ideal world, this blog would tell you everything that I’m up to. Except that in a professional sense, I can’t tell you anything about what I’m doing, as I’m bound by the terms of an NDA. For the uninitiated, that’s an acronym for non disclosure agreement, an increasingly popular device that actors have to sign in the world of self taping so that nobody knows what they’re doing, sometimes not even the actors themselves.

 I can throw all the preparations given at drama school about having to read the whole play in order to get a grip on character out of the window as they send us 6 to 8 pages to turn into a rounded performance.

 We have to make our decisions on the character and on portrayal from the information available to us, which can be sparse in the extreme.

 If it’s a self tape for a decent part with a couple of scenes, then it’s quite possible to build up a head of steam and characterisation. It can be more difficult when it’s two lines as “Drunken Lawyer”. That means that the self date will be shorter than anything on my show reel, so it should be possible to work out from what is already in existence whether you think I can play it.

But no - much easier to disrupt my Sunday while I set up lights in the hall and rope in my partner to act as sound man and off screen dialogue provider.

And yet, there is another side to the story. Self tapes mean more actors get seen for each part. I know that when casting the film I directed last year; we could look at more actors in the preliminary casting process than we would have done had we set up face-to-face meetings. Having worked our way through the self tapes, we then had face-to-face meetings with the final four people for the major roles.

The major disappointment was that having set up in-person meetings, actors came in and delivered exactly what they had done on the self tape. No development, no sense of exploration, both necessary facets of a good face-to-face meeting.

It’s fashionable not to like the self taping process, and yet it is giving people more chances. It’s worth investing in learning how to do it well. There are a lot of workshops that will give you guidance if you are a beginner. I’m not sure how much it’s taught in the drama school curriculum, but it would certainly be a much more worthwhile lesson than pretending to be something in the zoo.

And I suppose the important thing to remember is that the self tape is there to show your potential. It can be very boring to watch a load of self tapes where all the actors give a discreet filmic performance filmed on an iPhone. Show us something. Take a risk. Differentiate yourself. Even if you don’t know what it is you’re auditioning for, go for it. They’ll tone you down later. Give them something to talk about. Something makes you stand out.

A big dollop of NDA

Non discreet acting.

PS And even though I can’t tell you what I’m doing, I can tell you I’m having a great deal of fun doing it.