Different people are telling us different things. Wo WILL NOT do grad school prescreens ourselves. Too much at risk.
Should we go with a recording studion that will have pro quality sound, so so video and the studio itself…lots of stuff, not attractive. Or use a pro video guy with decent videos with decent sound. He is not a wedding videographer. My gut is telling me one thing, but would like some input from those who have been through this for GRAD school prescreens. DD Is good, has been told by a few people (who would know) that any grad school would be happy to have her. Whiich will lead into my next question in another post.
My D had a friend of hers at school tape her in a classroom. He had the equipment (but nothing fancy). For UG, my D did have professionals do it at her music school in a performance space.
She had done a lot of pre-screens for summer programs etc during UG and was comfortable having a friend do the recording. She didn’t want to mess with the equipment. Many of her friends did the recordings on their own.
She passed all pre-screening for both UG and grad.
The video is going to be a lot less important than the audio, the video is more to prove that the person playing is the person applying. Remember that a pre screen is to assess level of playing to see if they can meet the criteria to potentially pass the audition, and to be blunt a slick video won’t do much, even slick audio might work against someone because they are going to be experienced ears, and for example the old trick of using reverb to make it sound better works for untrained ears. The biggest thing is to have a decent audio , prob as unretouched as possible, and have the student work to making it sound as good as possible. Keep in mind you need to use a whole take (no editing). My advice would be to find someone who can do decent audio, knows how to arrange the mics, have a good space to do it in, and let the playing do the talking, this isn’t the entry video in “legally Blond” done by a “Coppola” chuckle, not going to get past prescreen with a slick video:)