What are major turnoffs for you in audition threads?

You guys have some GREAT responses so far! A lot of this seems to line up pretty well with the stuff I mentioned in the guide to help people who are wondering why they're not getting many auditions for their projects.


If you notice this happening in the future, please use the "Report Post" feature from the upper right drop down menu to alert the mod team as this is a direct violation of the audition rules. Sadly there's not much we can do after it's already happened, but at the very least we can let the poster know that this was not how it should have been handled and warn them not to do it again.

In regards to the people who give sass about deadlines...sure, you can technically make the "it's my project and I can cast how I want" argument, but many times people don't have deadlines because... I'll say it... it's an act of laziness. They want to just cast the first person that sends in something that "kind of works" and not bother to hear all the submissions. Sure, you can argue that that type of scenario happens on pay-to-play sites, but that's not what we're aiming for here. If I receive an audition from any of the local video game studios I work with, for instance, they will always have a deadline (though it will often be shorter than deadlines for indie stuff---usually 24-48 hours, sometimes if it's a rush job it will be "send by end of day" or something.) Those deadlines are honored and many actors submit last minute, though it's argued that submitting earlier if you can is generally better as it may mean your audition is heard first by the clients. But either way, I've never encountered a scenario in a closed-roster email casting where they say "Deadline is Monday 10 am", you submit Sunday night, and they say "Oh sorry we cast it on Friday evening". That would be seen as deeply unprofessional on the studio's part. If for some reason there was a mistake in the deadline or it needed to be updated, it would need to be communicated to actors immediately. We do allow for shortened deadlines here but they need to give at least a day's notice to the actors. Even if you have an "urgent" job there is no reason why you can't at least say "you have 24 hours to send something in and then I will pick". Hell, I've even seen a college student post here who needed last minute stuff for school radio projects IMMEDIATELY but he still said "need these by 2 pm EST today" or something like that, which is at least a valid deadline and lets people have a chance to submit!


THIS. I wanted to find a way to explain this in my thread without sounding sassy, and it kinda just ended up under "temper your expectations", but it's seriously a thing. I understand wanting to have reasonably clean audio and not wanting to cast people who sound like they're recording on an 80s tape recorder or something, but I see so many threads for UNPAID fan projects that say things like "You must have absolutely no background noise or room echo whatsoever" or even "you must not be recording on a USB mic." These are fairly reasonable expectations for paid, professional projects - but if a voice actor has invested thousands of dollars into a home studio and top-of-the-line equipment, do you honestly think they are at the point where they are still relying on unpaid work? It doesn't mean you have to accept mic quality that is utter garbage or has a REALLY LOUD FAN whirring in the background, but if someone has a tiny bit of echo? Part of the whole reason people do unpaid projects is so they can have fun, get experience, and maybe eventually move up in rank, and they need a place to be able to do that even if they can't afford a ton of expensive equipment or soundproofing.

To expand on what I said before, because I realized I had more to say about that, the issue of the sample lines being vague is really a symptom of a bigger problem that I see on fan casting calls, which is that the director is not making it clear what they want. Most directors tend to want something specific, something they have in mind, and sometimes they know it when they see it, which is fine, but if you're going to open a casting call and the most specific piece of information you have describing your character is the pitch of their voice, guess what, you're going to have a lot of voice actors desperately trying to guess what else you mean.

I see this happen a lot on Casting Call Club, but I swear I'm not picking on CCC when I say all this because I've seen it happen on BTVA and other sites as well. Cold reading doesn't work if you don't have any material to work with. We can't look inside the director's head and just intuitively know what they want, which therefore means the burden of explanation falls on the director to make it clear what they're looking for, because we can't give them what they want if they don't tell us what that is.

Ya same here... I wish they could just give us some lines so we know what they want exactly!


Yikes.. That must have been frustrating. Like you mentioned, sure it's good to encourage some improvisation here and there, but the actor could have missed out on an opportunity simply because they didn't say lines that matches what the client envisioned... And it's so unfair because everyone has different interpretations based on the information given!

I gotta be a bit of a devil's advocate here. I know it's not the same situation, but I actually want to be the kind of VA someday that can throw in crazy things and adlib - and maybe have things kept. For example in Tailspin there's a line Jim Cummings says which goes something like, "Come in only if you're bringing me a present!"  He was only supposed to say come in. It was hilarious, they kept it.

The same goes for some of Darkwing Duck's famous one-liners.

How neat it would be to be able to be that kind of creatively brave. Of course right now I'm brave just asking for advice! LOL. But one can dream.

cbdroege Too right, which is why I know it's a different situation. I just wanted to throw a positive note on the thread.

I think an adlib audition should probably be called an improv session. =^-^= Ha ha... and I feel that when that's the case, just full out ask me to write the script for you because that's what you're doing.

Signing my name to ALL the points given by everyone.

One of the things I am wary of is the Discord server as the primary source of communications and the request to meet up constantly and it's more for socializing. Professionals (both VO's and the project leads) don't have time for that.

Something else I notice (I see on CCC a lot) is critiquing each actor's audition. Again, serious professionals rarely have time for that. Solicited critiques from acting coaches, other actors or direction from someone who has hired me is welcomed. Unless an actor requests it, it's not good etiquette.