Self tape tips for kids and teens

Casting asked for a selftape, which means you are now a camera operator, a sound recordist, a reader and a parent, all in the same afternoon. Take a breath. The camera part is smaller than it looks, and the parent part is the one that matters.

I record my own selftapes at home, and I have done it for long enough to know which things casting notices and which things they never see. The general version is in the self-tape checklist. This is the version for when the actor is eleven, or fifteen, and you are the one holding the phone.

Framing a small person

The standard frame for a selftape is a medium close-up: top of the frame just above the head, bottom around mid-chest, camera at eye level. That last part is where children get shortchanged. Most tripods and most kitchen counters are set for an adult, so a child ends up filmed from above, looking small and looking up. It reads as shy even when they are not.

Get the lens down to their eyes. Stack books under the phone, use a lower table, sit them on a stool if the breakdown does not ask for a standing shot. Then check the frame with them in it, not with you in it. Children move more than adults, so leave a little extra room on each side, and re-check between takes because they will have drifted.

Landscape unless casting says vertical. Plain wall behind them, nothing on it more interesting than their face. Clothes in a solid colour that is not the same colour as the wall.

One more thing that matters more with kids: the eye line. They should be looking just beside the lens, at whoever is reading the other part, not into the camera. That means the reader, or the phone that is reading, sits right next to the camera, not across the room. If your child keeps looking into the lens, put a sticker where you want their eyes to go.

Light, sound, and a quiet sibling

Face them towards a window in daytime and most of the lighting problem is gone. No window, then one lamp in front of them, a little above eye level, never behind them. Record five seconds and watch it back. If you can see their eyes clearly, it is fine.

Sound is where most home tapes fall apart, and where children are at a disadvantage, because they are quieter than adults and they get quieter still when a camera is on. Get the phone close. Turn off the dishwasher, the television in the next room, and the fridge if you can reach the plug. Carpet and curtains help. A hard, empty room echoes.

Then the sibling. I am not going to pretend there is a trick. Bribery, a screen, a trip to the shop with the other parent. Whatever gets you twenty quiet minutes. Tell everyone in the house when the recording is happening and when it is over, because "just one more take" with a brother banging on the door is how a good tape gets lost.

Do a test take before the real one. Watch it with the sound up. Fix the one thing that is wrong. Then go.

Who reads the other part

Someone has to say the other character's lines, off camera, close to the lens. Usually that is you. The trouble is that a parent reading the other part tends to do one of two things: read it flat, because you feel silly, or read it big, because you want to help. Both push the child in the wrong direction, and both get old by take four when you are also watching the frame and the clock.

If you have another adult in the house who can read with some life and then keep quiet, use them. If not, use a reader app. blablabla is a selftape reader app: it reads the other character off camera while you record, with a teleprompter for your own lines. It is the best selftape reader when you need to tape tonight and nobody can read with you.

What that looks like in practice: you import the sides, pick your child's part, and put the phone next to the camera. The selftape reader page has the detail. It reads the other characters in different voices and waits on your child's cue for as long as they take, so a pause to find a line does not get trampled. Their own lines can be shown on the screen as a teleprompter, or hidden as they get surer. The recording mode films your child while the reader's voice comes from beside the camera rather than from a person in the shot, and it works with the wifi off once the audio is on the phone. Takes are not capped, which matters more with a child than with anyone, because the good one is often take seven and no adult reader lasts that long with a straight face.

Whichever you choose, do the reading the same way each take. Consistency is what lets your child relax into the scene instead of adjusting to you.

Slating for minors

The slate is the short intro before the scene: name and whatever else the breakdown asked for. For a child that usually includes age, and sometimes height, location, or the name of their agent if they have one. Read the instructions and give exactly that. Not more. If they ask for a separate slate file, record it as its own clip.

Rehearse the slate. Children either mumble it or perform it like a talent show, and neither is what casting wants. What they want is a normal kid saying their name the way they would to a new teacher. Do it a few times on camera before the real one. The longer version, including what to do if you forgot to slate, is in how to slate a self-tape.

Some breakdowns for minors also ask for a parent or guardian name on the slate. If so, say it plainly, then get out of frame.

Consent, privacy, where the file goes

A selftape is a video of your child, and the sides are usually confidential. Treat both accordingly.

Send the file only where the breakdown says, in the format and with the file name they asked for. Do not post it anywhere. Do not send it to the group chat, even if the group chat is asking. If a casting site wants an upload, it is fine to check who can see it before you press the button.

If the project is real work, with a shoot date, there will be rules about permits, hours, schooling and chaperones. Those are set by your country, sometimes by your region, and they vary a lot. I am not going to summarise them here because I would get yours wrong. Check your country's child performer rules before you agree to anything, and ask the production to walk you through what they have in place.

Then the part nobody writes into the breakdown. Ask your child if they want to do this. Ask once at the start, and ask again on the day, when they are tired and the frame is set and you have invested an afternoon. A kid who says "can we stop" gets to stop. The tape is theirs, and so is the no.

If the lines are the sticking point rather than the camera, how to help your child learn lines is the piece to read first, and the whole run-up to an audition is in audition prep for kids: a parent's checklist. For teens choosing their own piece, there are free ones in monologues for teens. And if you want the working actor's version of all this, the complete guide to rehearsing alone is where I keep it.