I came across Edge Studio’s monthly audition contest over the summer, but I kept missing their end-of-month submission deadlines. In October, I decided to finally get my act together and try it.
Honestly, I almost didn’t submit. The script was for a “no nonsense” commercial read – great, I thought – not my strong suit, as I have a tendency to start laughing in the middle of reads. I was also getting over a sinus infection right before the deadline and personally sounding like it. Yuck. But i thought: well, it will be practice for when I’m feeling closer to 100% and the audition is for a script that seems a little more “me”. So I submitted.
Well, never say never. A couple weeks later, I received an email saying I came in second. Wait. What? On my first submission? While still kind of sick? Sweet. While the recognition was much appreciated, the feedback was the more valuable “reward”. Edge Studios posts general comments on the auditions, but posts specific feedback on the top three only!
No idea if you have to subscribe to see the archives, but if you can, take a look at the October 2020 contest: https://edgestudio.com/monthly-audition-contest-archive/ Why yes, that’s me at #2! Definitely glad I went with an obvious username and not something obscure like CatLover18, BakingCookies, or NJ2Maryland. There’s nothing wrong with any of those usernames (and each certainly describes me), but these could describe any number of people. Back to my story…
What Edge liked about my audition file:
Getting CLOSE to a “no nonsense” read. More on that below.
Getting to the interesting point of the script, not following the “pattern” that a lot of submitters did, and sounding real. Yay!
My laundry list of improvements:
Smile less: This one made me…well…smile. I’m usually trying to get more smile, personality, and “acting” into reads. Okay, not for authoritative and straightforward scripts.
No script editing: I left the “www” out of the website announcement section of the script. While Edge noted that most web addresses don’t need that these days, it’s not my call to leave this out.
Enunciation/pronunciation: I missed a few ending consonants. 🙁 Miss all-call it a style and character choice? Miss some-must fix!
Recording and editing: Edge heard a weird edit and an odd background noise in one spot. I played it back and can hear both.
All I can say is wow, what great experience and feedback! I can’t wait to try it again. Since I “placed” in October, I am ineligible to be mentioned in the top three again for 6 months, but I can still submit. Which I am going to do for the month of December…