Thank you. this is such a helpful group. For the song prescreens is it acceptable to sing to a recorded track or should it be live accompaniment? Is one thought of more highly?
Using an accompanist makes it easier to make interesting cuts to the song. My daughter paid an accompanist to record the tracks for her (using her cuts) and used a bluetooth speaker to play the tracks while she was singing. (She passed all 7 prescreens).
@DramaLove2020 I don’t think it matters unless a school specifically asks for one or the other. The accompanist won’t usually be in frame, so if you have a good recording and clear sound they won’t really know either way. D used live accompaniment because she had a voice teacher who was comfortable providing it, that she already worked well with, and who knew exactly how to set up the camera in her room for good sound. But we would have gone with prerecorded tracks (recorded by an accompanist) if we didn’t have that. You’ll want to have recordings of all your cuts anyway for the auditions that have you bring your own accompaniment, so it’s not any extra work to get them for prescreens. It’s also easier to control the sound with a recording, to make sure the voice is heard easily over the music.
I would also recommend getting your tracks recorded by an accompanist, verses finding cuts already online for the reason @BrennaK gave above.
(Also realized the bottom of my earlier post made no sense because I started saying something one way and finished saying it another way with some word salad thrown in. What I meant to say was: D passed all but one prescreen, passing 10 of 11.)
I agree with the above posts, it is totally fine to use a pre-recorded track, but for the specific cuts each school asks for it would be easier to have an accompanist play. You can record the tracks to use again for the live auditions that don’t provide a live accompanist for the audition.
That being said, if money is an issue you can always try to find a pre-recorded track and with the magic of technology you can make your own cut. Most smart phones have audio editing software installed already.
My S passed all of his prescreen and this is what we did:
Songs: recorded with iPhone on a cheap tripod (with a phone holder attachment). He filmed on stage at our church with a family friend playing piano. The acoustics are great in our small church and the lighting is good. He angled his shot so that the background was free of clutter but it wasn’t the an entirely blank wall. His accompanist was not in the shot and was further from the camera than he was. We didn’t want the piano to overpower his voice. I was not in the room. I helped him set up the camera and left. He filmed 3-4 takes of each song both full body and up close.
Monologues: Same set-up but he was the only one in the room and he moved slightly to a more open spot on the stage so that he could move around a little more.
Dance: filmed on stage in the auditorium at the junior high school where I work. We turned on the stage lights and he filmed in front of a black curtain. He just played his music from his phone with a Bluetooth speaker.
@DramaLove2020 Yes you can slate each piece separately and splice it together with iMovie. You just need to be careful to keep the total time under the requirement. My D did this. Also for filming in the studio you will really do well to have someone do this for you–if you try to use a fixed tripod it will severely limit your travel. We had a studio that is about 18’ x 22’ with mirrors on two walls. The short side mirrored wall was covered with black curtain–if you have two or more mirrored walls it is nearly impossible not to get the camera operator in the shot (I know from filming other audition material). Also make sure that you have material suitable to each program’s requirements. Even though there is a “common prescreen” this year, there is still quite a lot of variability within those specs (One contemporary, one classical and one contemporary, Shakespeare only, specifically excluding Shakespeare, blah blah blah). Some are strictly 60 second vocal while others are 60-90 second vocal. And while the 30-60s “best discipline” dance is pretty standard, some also want other disciplines, and some want 30s only of those, some want up to 1 min, and some ask for 2 min of material but specify a 30s time limit. Even though these are “more standardized” there is not a common dance requirement. Oh, and some are no dance at all…we wound up taking two attempts on separate days for dance and two attempts on separate days for vocals before we had (almost) everything we needed. We still need some shorter cuts and will rely on iMovie to create those from footage we already have. Also your internet connection should be at least 10Mbps upload to get the videos up to acceptd in a reasonable length of time. We have 15-year old DSL at our house and one of her videos literally took 3 hours to upload. You would probably do better at school, a library, or even Starbucks. BAL!!
I am interested in both MT and straight acting, and I was wondering if I could rely on most schools redirecting me to their acting program if I don’t get in MT or if only a few redirect.
@crazytheatregoer – it really varies from school to school. Some re-direct automatically (or if you check on a form that you would like to be considered for both), some require you to audition separately for each, and I think there are some who will only consider you for one or the other (not allow you to audition for both).
What schools are you looking at? While things change from year to year, some may be able to share their recent experiences with this at specific schools.
Also, never be shy about asking the schools for clarification if it is not clear on their websites.
@KatMT Most of the schools I am applying to are somewhat unheard of state schools. I am sure that contacting them is the best way to get this information. Thanks for the quick reply!
Is there any kind of s list of which schools let you send in a prescreen before having to apply to the college? I read somewhere Syracuse does this? Any others that ppl may know of? It’s hard to figure out from websites.
I believe most of the top schools I have found do prescreens - Penn State, Michigan, Otterbein, Emerson, Coastal, Syracuse, Ithaca … mostly all of them
The majority make you pay the application fee prior to submitting your pre screen. Once you apply ($) they send you the info on how to submit your pre-screen videos.
I am trying to find some schools that might value academics more highly and that they may help me get into a MT program. My MT skills are strong- but my singing is the weakest of the three components. My GPA is 4.49 , I am in the top 3% of my class - my SAT score was average - 1280 and I didn’t want to take it again so I am stuck with that. Can anyone suggest strong academic schools that may that this into account for MT? I have a feeling they won’t care much unless you can sing!