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Jessica Bell with Bell Blogging, here! This week, we’re talking about SELFTAPES! They’re the easiest way to audition for projects because of convenience… But are they really? Before I had my selftape set up, they gave me shivers. I used to hate doing selftapes because I didn’t know what I was doing! Where do I do them? What light do I use? What if I need to play a backing track during it? Lots of questions surrounded the topic of selftapes. The solution was to accumulate and set up a collapsible selftape studio in my home. In this article, I’ll walk you through everything you need for an at-home selftape studio!
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My selftape fiascos
My selftapes have had a lot of variations because of the trouble I had with them. At the very, VERY beginning, I did a selftape in front of my living room.
It was awful, naturally, so my agent told me to find a blank wall. The only blank space we had was outside so we filmed on an outside sun shade. That was also a mess, now because of ambient noise, and she had to use the selftape of me in my living room instead. Mortifying.
Because I was so embarrassed, I started doing them at the end of my hallway, putting blankets on the walls, trying to suck up some of the echo.
Then, when I realized that a white background on me looks terrible, I decided I would use my parents’ bedroom when they weren’t using it because it had a big brown curtain along one wall. But then I had the issue of full body slates. There wasn’t enough room for a full body slate!
And anyways, I wanted my selftapes to look more professional than a curtain. My mom and I decided, once and for all, that it was time to get a backdrop and find a place to plant it.
My setup
A lightsource/phone tripod
I’ve written an article about this before, which you can check out here, but for good reason. The #1 thing you need for selftapes is a good light source. This Neewer brand one is everything I needed.
A flattering background
Not a living room. Not an outside wall. Not a hallway with 2 inches on either side of you. You need a plain, solid color background that works for you! Lots of people can use white, just not me! So that’s why I chose gray (Thunder Gray from Savage to be exact!). It looks so professional and I’ve got friends from miles around wanting to use it.
My mom screwed hooks to the wall, found a long pole in our backyard, and hung the background on that. It works perfectly! If you don’t have a screw gun, screws, hooks, and an 10-foot pole hanging out at your place though, Savage (the background brand) also sells stands! We always try to be as thrifty as we can here at the Bell house. Hooks and a pole made sense to us!
You also don’t need to have it so wide; I wanted a wide one (107″ wide, about 9 feet) so that when I do the dreaded full body slates you don’t see the rest of the room. Savage also sells 86″ backgrounds (about 7 feet) and 53″ backgrounds (about 4.5 feet), if that’s what you prefer!
A mic if you use a camera
Camera audio is not good. I prefer using a camera versus my phone, so when I use a camera, I attach this mic from Rode. It works really well! One of the most important things to nail with selftapes according to casting directors is sound, because it can be really distracting if you don’t get it right. The sound with this mic is great. Make sure that outside power is turned on, though. This mic uses the camera’s power and if you don’t have outside power on, the mic won’t turn on! (Google it or YouTube it if you’re confused like I was!)
Sound insulation
Blankets! Towels! Quilts! Rugs! I use tablecloths! You need something to absorb some of the echo of the space you’re in, or your selftape will sound echo-y. Clip them to pants hangers and hang them on the walls or ceiling around you using:
Removable hooks
Command hooks are one of my favorite products to ever be invented. They don’t ruin your walls and you can hang almost anything. In this case, hang sound insulation!
How the process works!
Now that I have everything setup and ready to go, the process to make a selftape goes like this:
- Unroll background.
- Hang insulation.
- Attach mic to camera and turn on outside power.
- Attach camera to tripod light.
- Adjust tripod so that it’s the perfect frame for me.
- Adjust light so that the lighting isn’t too much or too little.
- Record!
That’s how easy it is nowadays to film a selftape with my new setup. I whipped out 4 selftapes this last Saturday night and it took no time at all! This makes it so that you can put more time into acting and preparing for an audition and less time into worrying about the logistics of how you’re going to record it.
I hope this was informative!
Thanks for checking our selftape studio out and I hope to see lots of new at-home selftape studios in the future! Let me know your selftape stories and setups in the comments! Be sure to sign up for our emails below so that you never miss an article, and don’t forget about our Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest! We love visitors! Until next time!
