Self tapes are basically the default form of audition these days. So much so that when I actually get in the room with someone I make a point of thanking them for going to the trouble of setting it up. I've never run an audition process before, but from making my own work I know how much of a ball-ache it is to find and book venues, send out invites, manage schedules etc. It's annoying, and it's not the real work that any of us are excited to do.

I have a rant about self-tapes just waiting to be written up but for now I wanted to talk about a trend that's been creeping into the self tape process that's bothering me more and more.

DISCLAIMER: Not every audition is like this, I'm just talking about my own experiences blah blah blah...

The general taping process goes like this: recieve a brief from a casting director detailing the project and a little about your character, prepare a preselected portion of the script they want to see you perform, film your tape, send it back. Done. The filming process can take a few hours and you normally get around 4 days to prepare, this is because casting directors want to give you every advantage they can. They want you to nail your tape. They want you to solve their problem so they can get on with other things.

So why does it feel like avdertisers are determined to waste our time?

Advert briefs actually tend to have less information in them than any other kind. They often don't really know what they want, just that they want someone who looks "real". An everyman of any race, gender, or age who "doesn't play the situation" or something equally vague. All they know they want is an understated performance that can "convey all the comedy with one look". If I see one more audition brief that says they want "Martin Freeman from The Office vibes" I think I'll scream.

And because adverts will maybe have three lines of dialogue max, they seem to feel the need to fill up the time by not even bothering to give you something specific to work on, instead sending you the shot-by-shot breakdown of the entire advert as if to say "just film this".

Oh, and if you can hand it in by end-of-day tomorrow that would be greeeeeat.

Very few of us are doing this as our full time job. We all have other things we're doing to keep the bills paid, and with a normal self tape you can work it in around your other jobs.

But good luck if you have an advert come through. Looks like you'll have to drop everything you had planned and spend the rest of the day trying to get everything done.

Here's a short list of some of the things I've had to do for advert jobs that wanted their tape in the next day...

• Borrow a neighbours bicycle and ride it around my neighbourhood
• Find a cardboard box big enough to hide inside
• Borrow a friend's dog to film with
• and build an entire lego set

Sometimes I've been free that day and managed to get everything done. Sometimes I've had them come through when I've been getting ready for work, knowing that I'll be home past midnight, meaning I'll need to stay up well into the wee hours of the morning to get it done. And good luck if you have bad internet, get ready for an extra two hours of baby-ing the upload to make sure it doesn't fail half way through.

I know advetising can be a fast paced business, but you'd think these big companies can afford to wait a couple more days for the tapes to come through. It can't possibly hurt their bottom line that much. Maybe it would actually save them money in the long run if they got more high quality tapes. Just a thought...