Will Live Auditions Go Extinct Like the Dinosaurs?
How Covid-19 has reshaped the audition landscape
(By Carmichael Phillips)
(Photo: Cottonbro | Pexels)
About 65 million years ago, a giant, 6-mile-wide space rock crashed into planet Earth. It caused giant tsunamis, mega earthquakes, uncontrollable blazes and a plume of smoke that covered the planet.
Dinosaurs, the dominant life form at the time, went extinct. But, while the asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs, it also gave rise to a new dominate species: humans.
A similar type of catastrophic event might be taking place in the entertainment industry. Covid-19 might well push live auditions to extinction.
To be sure, self-tapes and virtual auditions predate Coronavirus. But, before Covid-19, in-person auditions were still the norm.
RELATED: POLL | Actors Prefer In-Person Auditions
With Covid, the ensuing lockdowns and the need for social distancing, casting directors increasingly turned to technology. More and more, they came to rely on self-tapes to conduct auditions and apps like Zoom to conduct virtual callbacks.
Actors were also forced to adjust. They built self-tape spaces in their homes and learned to master their new technological requirements.
The result: in-person auditions are going the way of the dinosaurs.
We asked actors, in a recent Twitter poll, when they had their last live audition. Nearly half the actors who responded to our poll say they can’t even remember the last time they had one. Another 25% say they haven’t had one in 2022, at all.
When was your last in-person audition?
— Acting Magazine (@ActingMagazine) May 17, 2022
The decline of the in-person audition may prove to be a good thing, especially as technology improves. After all, the death of the dinosaurs eventually led to the rise of humans. That’s a good thing, right?
On the other hand, is it really good for the planet that humans are now Earth’s dominant life form? Our overconsumption of resources, destruction of habitats and rampant pollution is an extinction event, all on its own.
For now, though, let’s sit back and reflect on the fact that the entire entertainment industry has embraced virtual auditioning and has pushed the old in-person audition to death’s doorstep.
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