One Awkward VFS Audition And Request
Jan 29th, 2009 by Alan Yu
Recently I was sent an e-mail from a student in the Vancouver Film School in regards to possibly auditioning for one of their projects. Upon reading it, it seemed like the age look that they were looking for was way out of my range such as a 40 year old look. On top of that, the sides that were given to me beforehand was for like 40 year olds and an 8 year old it seemed.
So just to be sure, I gave the person my online demo reel as I didn’t think I had the right look for any of the roles. Upon looking at it he still thought I may be suitable for one of the roles. Therefore, I agreed to pop by for a read as I figured why not. When I arrived today the person who e-mailed me recognized me.
It started getting a little odd from there as he asked me which parts I wanted to read for. Considering to my knowledge that every character but one is either 40+ or under 10 it seemed like an odd question. I was then given the side too and It was completely different than what was given to me beforehand. I wasn’t really given time to really sink it in either and was brought to the room.
It was extremely awkward as I didn’t really have a good grasp on the background story as well the side for the character only had one line with the rest being reaction shots. You can imagine how that makes the situation worst as if you don’t truly understand the scene itself it is almost hopeless in terms of giving the right reactions. Overall, I wasn’t really comfortable and don’t think it went too well.
It always made me wonder though when it comes to this school and whether or not they are just required to audition an X amount of people to get a certain grade. Or at worst, just calling in actors as guinea pigs to give themselves experience in casting people. I say this too because I had a friend that was requested to audition once where the role required the person to speak Japanese which he had no knowledge of. Yet, they still called him and he read the Japanese parts in English. Of course, he didn’t get the part.
Interesting audition day though I must say.
