I designed this video course for actors newly-signed on with Big City Casting, a fictitious client for this concept project, to explore how to be successful in their first film audition with the agency.
Ready for Your Closeup: Landing Your First Film Audition
Overview
Audience: newly-signed actors with a large, urban casting agency
Responsibilities: instructional design, collaboration with SME, action mapping, text-based storyboard, scripting, eLearning development, voiceover, syncing closed captions
Tools Used: Google Docs, Miro, Vyond, YouTube, Vimeo
Problem & Solution
Big City Casting (a fictitious client for this concept project) noticed that many of their newly-signed actors were not delivering strong performances in their first film auditions. Regardless of background -- whether recent grads or career transitioners -- these actors lacked a clear sense of expectations around preparing for, delivering, and following up on auditions.
The consequences of this problem were significant for all stakeholders:
The actors missed opportunities at roles they could have been right for and were becoming demoralized early about the auditioning process.
The casting agency faced negative impacts on their professional reputation with clients, and casting agents felt their time was being wasted in setting these new actors up for auditions.
The clients of the agency likewise felt that their time was being wasted in viewing a crop of underwhelming auditions and were considering not working with the agency moving forward.
After analyzing the performance problem, I concluded that these actors didn’t lack the skill to deliver a successful audition, but they did lack knowledge of the film audition process. I proposed an asynchronous video course that could be delivered to newly-signed actors with the agency as part of an orientation process. In particular, I suggested Vyond as the video platform because I felt the course would work best if learners could get a visual sense of the learning material (for example, being able to see where their mark is on the floor), but the animated nature of a Vyond video would avoid any confidentiality issues with actually filming auditions for real clients.
Our goal was to strengthen new actors’ knowledge of the entirety of the audition process before they arrived for their first audition.
The client agreed to my proposal and we moved on with the process.
Process
Interview with SME & Visual Course Outline
I began by requesting that the client arrange for me to collaborate with a subject matter expert (SME) to design the learning materials for the course. They introduced me to an actor signed on with the agency who had a significant track record of success in landing film roles.
I conducted an initial interview with the SME to gather a complete picture of the knowledge that would be helpful for an actor to know about the audition process. I compiled all of this info into a Google Doc, focusing on specific actions new actors should take to prepare for their auditions.
Then, with the principle of constructive alignment in mind, I reviewed our notes to determine which information was truly essential to include in the course. For example, from the above screenshot, I determined that point iv.2 was really more of an action for more advanced actors to take and was not essential to include for our audience of new actors.
From there, I reorganized the pared-down information into a visual course outline using Miro. The SME and I decided that the course progression that would make the most sense was a chronological one, exploring actions an actor should take to prepare for the audition process before, during, and after. We sorted these into the buckets of Communication, Logistics, and Performance that would apply across the stages of the process.
Text-Based Storyboard
Next, since the proposed learning material would be a video, I began writing a text-based storyboard. I drafted the script and organized the course into scenes, detailing for each one any text that would appear onscreen as well as the accompanying graphics and animations.
The SME reviewed the initial draft and offered some feedback on the script. For example, he thought it was important to include an action about arriving early to review any last-minute script changes, which we hadn’t discussed in our initial kickoff meeting.
I then revised according to his suggestions, received his approval and client approval on the next draft, and entered into development.
Development
Using the text-based storyboard approved by the client, developing the video in Vyond was initially straightforward. I utilized characters, scenes, animations, and transitions just as I had intended. I thoughtfully selected the characters to ensure representation across a wide range of identities and decided on a color scheme that I thought thematically echoed the colors of a spotlight.
However, I quickly learned that in my storyboarding, I had not accounted for the length of the voiceover. For the sake of video pacing, many more graphics/ animations/ transitions were needed to make each scene feel vital and dynamic.
I returned to the text-based storyboard and revised one more time to account for that, then returned to Vyond to develop the revisions.
Original draft: description of “On-Screen Text & Graphics” is limited
Revised draft: description of “On-Screen Text & Graphics” is expanded
Results & Takeaways
I shared the finished course with the SME, who agreed it would be helpful in coaching new actors with the agency to deliver a successful first film audition.
I also shared it with my online network of instructional designers. Across the board, feedback was positive on the quality of both the animations and the voiceover.
This was my first experience working with Vyond, so I gained a significant amount of technical knowledge from developing this video in the program. In particular, I honed my ability to use camera movements as I progressed through development and explored what kinds of scene transitions are appropriate for illustrating different kinds of relationships between scenes.
As I mentioned above, one of the biggest takeaways for me here was that even a compact script on the page requires a lot of graphics and animations to feel dynamic in visual form. This is an incredibly useful lesson to have learned as I go on to develop other video courses in the future.
Finally, small parts of the script sounded a bit clunky when delivered via voiceover, so I revised those parts of the script on the fly to sound more natural.
Original script: a little clunky headed into the conclusion
Revised script: a more conversational transition
If I were to rework this course more thoroughly, I could see breaking up the video into shorter segments so it is less content-heavy and offers participants a chance to engage in more active learning throughout. For example, I could see actors watching the section on delivering their slate, then pausing for them to actually practice recording their slate crisply and cleanly using their webcam. This would require developing a more complete eLearning course in a program like Articulate Storyline 360 and exporting the video there.
This project was a lot of fun to shepherd from start to finish. I enjoyed tackling some steps in the ID process that were new to me, such as collaborating with a SME, learning a new video creation program, writing a video script, recording my own voiceover, and generating synced closed captions for accessibility. I’m proud of the final product and think it’s a good representation of my current skills as an instructional designer.