June 11, 2025 • 13 mins
Are you confused about what a callback actually means or overwhelmed by all the different audition terms thrown around in the entertainment industry?
In this episode of Take Fountain, talent reps Anthony Boyer and Jess Canty break down essential audition terminology that every new actor should know, including callbacks, Zoom auditions, producer sessions, pins, holds, avails, and more.
Whether you're just starting to book self-tapes or you've been called back for an in-person session, this video will help you understand how each step works and how to navigate it like a pro. We’ll also cover the differences between theatrical and commercial auditions, what it really means to be “in the mix,” and why your relationship with casting is more important than you think.
If you're an early-career actor looking to demystify the audition process and make smarter decisions on your way to booking the job, this is your roadmap. Don’t forget to like, subscribe, and hit the bell for more real-world advice from industry insiders who actually work with actors every day.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hello from Hollywood.
My name is Anthony Boyer.
And I'm Jess Canty.
And today on Take Fountain,
we're gonna talk about audition terminology.
Thankfully, because of the great advice we've given,
everyone watching this video has received a
callback. Exactly.
Congratulations. What,
What is a Callback?
(00:20):
So, uh, it used to be, I mean, it's called a callback
because they're literally calling you
back to audition again.
Uh, so either it's gonna be with the same material
or with often with new material.
Um, and some usually there will be feedback.
Sometimes there won't be, sometimes they'll,
you'll just be coming back to do it again
or to do some new material.
(00:41):
Um, so let's talk a little bit about the various types
of callbacks, if we will.
Sure. So again, self-taped callback.
Usually they're gonna send new material.
'cause obviously why would you, it was the same material.
You wouldn't, you just send the same tape. Right.
So it's gonna be some new material
and you're gonna self tape with that. Yep.
Or, or there will be a specific redirection right.
(01:03):
From either casting
or the director about something in your first tape
that they wanna see modulated change
or sort of finesse. Yeah,
I think that's the part of the self tape process
that is much more difficult than the live
'cause obviously they can just give a redirect in the room.
Um, and now as there's all this lead
(01:23):
up to it and all these steps.
Yeah. But it still does happen from time to time.
Um, and that's a really great opportunity to show
that you take direction through a self tape. Yeah. Which
Actually, we didn't really touch on this,
but if you are given the opportunity to choose
between a self tape
and a Zoom audition, we always recommend
(01:44):
that you take the opportunity for that Zoom audition.
It is the closest thing to being live in the room.
You are going to get to meet and interact with casting,
and you are going to be able to have that opportunity
to have a redirect or show them an alternate version
of the scene you prepared in a way that ensures
that they're gonna be present in watching it, which they may
(02:06):
or may not have time for if you send an extra take
that you weren't asked for in a self-taped
Scenario. Yeah. Funny you
should mention Zoom
'cause that's another kind of callback.
Yeah. So a lot of times, even if it's a self-tape audition,
the next level will be a Zoom callback.
Yeah. Uh, zoom,
obviously the benefit being it's in real time, you can show
that you take direction, you can actually meet people in a
(02:28):
way that like self-tape, you really can't.
Yeah. So you can start to build some name recognition and,
and, and some rapport.
Um, and then you may even get called back
to be in the room. Yeah.
Um, and one thing to kind of prepare for,
for a Zoom callback is that there may often be a number of
extra people in that Yes.
(02:50):
On the other side of the screen
that may never show their faces on video.
Yeah. So it will, it will be you and the casting director
and they will be reading with you and you may see three
or four more boxes on Zoom Yeah.
With maybe with people's names
or it might just have a logo, um,
from the company that's producing it.
(03:10):
And you won't necessarily know who's behind that box.
Don't let that throw you. That's normal.
Focus on the casting director.
Focus on making that connection.
Focus on that, you know, witty banter with them. Yeah.
Either before or after. And, and, um, it's your audience.
Your audience has just gotten a little
bigger for that zoom call.
Yeah. And that can happen in person too.
(03:31):
Like in in person callback, you know,
there might be the ad executives might be there
or people from the, the company might be there.
The client might be there. So yeah.
That's, that's just an extension of the same thing,
especially on the commercial side.
Um, you might see a lot of that in room, in the room, uh,
especially on the theater side.
You're gonna see, like now suddenly the,
the resident director is there
(03:53):
and the associate choreographer is there
and there's all these just like additional bodies.
Yeah. But it doesn't change the work.
The work should still say the same.
So just keep that in mind.
But since we're on the topic,
do we wanna talk about producer callbacks
and director sessions?
Yeah. And hopefully this will be communicated
to you when you're being moving through these processes.
(04:13):
So, um, you'll know if you're having a
callback with casting Right.
And who's gonna be in the room,
or if it is actually a producer session
and now you're doing the same material,
but you know, the, the showrunner is gonna be in there.
Or like you said, the choreographer, the producers
(04:34):
behind the show or on the commercial side.
Not just someone from the agency, but maybe the clients.
And again, that's another term the client in the commercial
world is the advertiser, the product, the product.
Whoever is representing the company
that's paying for that ad.
I think the best way of looking at all
of these things is congratulations.
Your audience is getting bigger. Yeah. Right.
(04:56):
So you as an actor, you know,
you may have started this process as a self tape,
you're performing to your room by yourself,
with your friend who's reading with you over zoom
The stuffed animal for a siteline. Exactly.
Exactly. Or a post-it note.
And now you have 15 people in the room watching
that performance, maybe watching another additional scene.
(05:19):
This is what you want.
You want to keep growing your audience so
that someday you're gonna have all
of America watching this episode
of your latest TV show. Yeah.
And I think two things, well, something to take note
of is in that session, let's say it's a producer session.
Um, let's say that there are four additional people there.
(05:39):
Yeah. Um, they may give you feedback, they may interact
with you, they may give notes, they may not speak at all.
Yeah. Um, let obviously they're gonna set the tone,
follow their lead.
Yeah. Um, be cordial, be collegial, you know, if they want
to have a conversation, have conversation,
show up your personality.
But sometimes they, you know,
(06:02):
don't want to be involved.
Yeah. And that's okay too.
That's, you know, that's something
to take note. Just read the room.
Exactly. Expect everything
and don't necessarily draw meaning from anything.
Right. Right. My dad is not in the
entertainment industry at all.
And, and when I started managing,
he was asking me questions about sort of how this works.
And, and he pointed out to me very astutely that
(06:27):
every single audition,
unless you're auditioning for the exact same show,
for the exact same group of people,
so same casting director, same writer,
Director, Um, every audition is a one of one.
It is unique. So you can't compare
or draw rules across from one audition to another.
(06:51):
You may have a great chat banter
with a showrunner in a producer session in one audition,
and absolutely think
that you've won the room and booked the role.
And it doesn't come through for you.
And the one you book is gonna be the one
where nobody said anything to you
and you were just talking to the casting director.
So don't draw patterns from these things.
(07:13):
Um, like you said, go in, be professional, be cordial.
The casting director is your friend in these producer
director sessions, they are your advocate.
They have put themselves out there
to bring you and a select few of number of actors in.
(07:33):
And they are truly advocating.
They want you to get hired
because then their job is done. Yeah. I
Think that's really important to,
I think we'll state it again.
Um, if they put you in front
of the people paying them mm-hmm.
That's a win. That is a huge, huge win.
Um, because that is their job is to present good options.
And so if you are one of those options, that means
(07:55):
that they believe that you are representative
of their work mm-hmm.
Of their taste. Yeah. So congratulations now and
Make them look good And make them look good,
But also know that they are on your side.
Right. So they have,
they have prepped their bosses about you.
They've told them how awesome your tape is.
(08:16):
They may have seen the original tape, et cetera. So Yeah.
Yeah. Truly your advocates
And assuming things go well in the callback
or sometimes even from the first call, um, you may get,
so there are a lot of sort of different names that are kind
of basically the same thing.
Um, it may be called a pin. Yep.
Uh, it may be called a hold. Mm-hmm.
(08:37):
It may be called in a veil that's a little different.
Um, and it may be called if it's really old school,
a watch and advise.
Yes. Um, so, uh, let's talk about that.
Let's talk about pins holds
and all the, all the avail checks.
Lovely things, lovely terms.
So let's talk about theatrically first. Mm-hmm.
(08:57):
And so we mean film, television, not theater. Right.
But film and television.
Some of this applies to theater too.
We're gonna talk about commercials separately in a second.
Theatrically, again, you could get a pin,
you could have an avail check
and like you said, a watch and advise.
All of these are typically the same thing.
(09:18):
It means that you're in the mix. That's another one.
Oh, in the mix. Make the mix. Yeah.
Um,
So that just means that you haven't been cut yet.
Yeah. I mean in the mix can mean a lot
of different things. Yeah. But
It can be part of these, those things too.
So any of these terms mean that your tape was well received
by casting and they are likely doing something
(09:39):
with it now. Sending it,
It sending to producers or Yeah,
Exactly. Sending it
for someone else to take a look at.
And so they wanna know if you are truly going
to be available to book that job.
Like casting friends will probably hate that.
I say this in the theatrical world, it is not as strict
as the commercial world.
(09:59):
When you accept an avail, if your agent comes
and says, Hey, we have an avail check for you,
we have a pin for you.
Are you, are you in town for these dates? And you say Yes.
And those dates could be a month out. Yeah.
So what is really going on there is we
as your reps are agreeing that as of today, when we say,
(10:20):
yes, you're available, you are available today.
And if anything changes between today
and whatever future date that they may come back to us,
we are agreeing to update them.
Yeah. Again, this is theatrically.
I I also, there's a little bit
of a nuance called a a a tech avail.
Yes. Um, which is where you are available at that moment,
(10:41):
but there's something likely to happen.
Mm-hmm. Um, like maybe for instance you are
pinned for something else.
Something else or Yeah.
Or yeah, like there is some other activity
that we don't necessarily want, need to tell them about,
but we do need to say like, it is tech, tech avail
or technically he's available, but, but
There are Moving pieces.
Yeah. There might be something else going on in the
(11:01):
commercial worlds, if you accept an avail
that commercial casting director is going to expect
that you're available to work that job when
and if they come back to you to book you.
So these timeframes are much shorter,
(11:21):
um, on the commercial side usually.
So these things move a bit faster.
Although TV can move pretty fast
because they have to go to that producer, director
of the commercial and the client
and get approval from the client.
They wanna make sure that they're getting approvals from the
client on people
who are truly available to shoot that commercial.
They do not wanna have to go back to the client
(11:44):
and say, actually that guy you really loved
for your Budweiser commercial is now not available.
That is not, like I said, not not
so strict in the theatrical world.
Yeah. As long as your reps are effectively communicating
that there's these moving pieces.
So you always wanna be completely 100% upfront
(12:05):
with your reps about your true availability so
that you don't run into a scenario
where you've said you're available.
Right. Especially in the commercial world.
And then all of a sudden you're not gonna be there to work.
Yeah. And I'll add to that,
there is something called a check avail
that's a little bit different, um, than an avail.
(12:25):
So a check avail is essentially
before there's been a session, or maybe there won't even be,
or they won't even read actors for a role,
they'll just check to make sure that you're available.
And the reason that they do that is primarily
because they're going to take a list to the producers
or to the director
or to whomever to the studio, the network, whoever.
(12:46):
And they want to make sure that
before they pitch those names, that those people are
actually available for the project.
They don't want to pitch, you know, Brad Pitt
and then find out, well Brad Pitt's, you know, in Ibiza
for the next six months shooting this other movie.
Like, so that is really just, uh, it's, it's more
of a procedural thing.
And I think I get a lot of instances
(13:08):
where there's an veil check
and then people will be like, well,
so am I still in the mix on this?
It's like you were never really in the mix.
'cause there was no like formal audition or anything.
It was just so, so a lot
of times those dates just take
it with a grain of salt. Right.
And that's why in the theatrical world these
things aren't quite as strict.
Right, right. Because you can get a veil checks on a number
of projects and they may
(13:29):
or may not even turn into an audition.
Yeah. And a lot of times those are kind of
for the offer only level actors too.
Right? Yeah. That once you get to that, that place,
another term here, offer only, which means
that you do not audition anymore.
Um, you're just going to be on these lists
and people are going to be checking your avails
(13:50):
with your reps and then pitching you,
and then hopefully an offer will come in. Thanks.
So.
Hello from Hollywood.
My name is Anthony Boyer.
And I'm Jess Canty.
And today on Take Fountain,
we're gonna talk about audition terminology.
Thankfully, because of the great advice we've given,
everyone watching this video has received a
callback. Exactly.
Congratulations. What,
What is a Callback?
(00:20):
So, uh, it used to be, I mean, it's called a callback
because they're literally calling you
back to audition again.
Uh, so either it's gonna be with the same material
or with often with new material.
Um, and some usually there will be feedback.
Sometimes there won't be, sometimes they'll,
you'll just be coming back to do it again
or to do some new material.
(00:41):
Um, so let's talk a little bit about the various types
of callbacks, if we will.
Sure. So again, self-taped callback.
Usually they're gonna send new material.
'cause obviously why would you, it was the same material.
You wouldn't, you just send the same tape. Right.
So it's gonna be some new material
and you're gonna self tape with that. Yep.
Or, or there will be a specific redirection right.
(01:03):
From either casting
or the director about something in your first tape
that they wanna see modulated change
or sort of finesse. Yeah,
I think that's the part of the self tape process
that is much more difficult than the live
'cause obviously they can just give a redirect in the room.
Um, and now as there's all this lead
(01:23):
up to it and all these steps.
Yeah. But it still does happen from time to time.
Um, and that's a really great opportunity to show
that you take direction through a self tape. Yeah. Which
Actually, we didn't really touch on this,
but if you are given the opportunity to choose
between a self tape
and a Zoom audition, we always recommend
(01:44):
that you take the opportunity for that Zoom audition.
It is the closest thing to being live in the room.
You are going to get to meet and interact with casting,
and you are going to be able to have that opportunity
to have a redirect or show them an alternate version
of the scene you prepared in a way that ensures
that they're gonna be present in watching it, which they may
(02:06):
or may not have time for if you send an extra take
that you weren't asked for in a self-taped
Scenario. Yeah. Funny you
should mention Zoom
'cause that's another kind of callback.
Yeah. So a lot of times, even if it's a self-tape audition,
the next level will be a Zoom callback.
Yeah. Uh, zoom,
obviously the benefit being it's in real time, you can show
that you take direction, you can actually meet people in a
(02:28):
way that like self-tape, you really can't.
Yeah. So you can start to build some name recognition and,
and, and some rapport.
Um, and then you may even get called back
to be in the room. Yeah.
Um, and one thing to kind of prepare for,
for a Zoom callback is that there may often be a number of
extra people in that Yes.
(02:50):
On the other side of the screen
that may never show their faces on video.
Yeah. So it will, it will be you and the casting director
and they will be reading with you and you may see three
or four more boxes on Zoom Yeah.
With maybe with people's names
or it might just have a logo, um,
from the company that's producing it.
(03:10):
And you won't necessarily know who's behind that box.
Don't let that throw you. That's normal.
Focus on the casting director.
Focus on making that connection.
Focus on that, you know, witty banter with them. Yeah.
Either before or after. And, and, um, it's your audience.
Your audience has just gotten a little
bigger for that zoom call.
Yeah. And that can happen in person too.
(03:31):
Like in in person callback, you know,
there might be the ad executives might be there
or people from the, the company might be there.
The client might be there. So yeah.
That's, that's just an extension of the same thing,
especially on the commercial side.
Um, you might see a lot of that in room, in the room, uh,
especially on the theater side.
You're gonna see, like now suddenly the,
the resident director is there
(03:53):
and the associate choreographer is there
and there's all these just like additional bodies.
Yeah. But it doesn't change the work.
The work should still say the same.
So just keep that in mind.
But since we're on the topic,
do we wanna talk about producer callbacks
and director sessions?
Yeah. And hopefully this will be communicated
to you when you're being moving through these processes.
(04:13):
So, um, you'll know if you're having a
callback with casting Right.
And who's gonna be in the room,
or if it is actually a producer session
and now you're doing the same material,
but you know, the, the showrunner is gonna be in there.
Or like you said, the choreographer, the producers
(04:34):
behind the show or on the commercial side.
Not just someone from the agency, but maybe the clients.
And again, that's another term the client in the commercial
world is the advertiser, the product, the product.
Whoever is representing the company
that's paying for that ad.
I think the best way of looking at all
of these things is congratulations.
Your audience is getting bigger. Yeah. Right.
(04:56):
So you as an actor, you know,
you may have started this process as a self tape,
you're performing to your room by yourself,
with your friend who's reading with you over zoom
The stuffed animal for a siteline. Exactly.
Exactly. Or a post-it note.
And now you have 15 people in the room watching
that performance, maybe watching another additional scene.
(05:19):
This is what you want.
You want to keep growing your audience so
that someday you're gonna have all
of America watching this episode
of your latest TV show. Yeah.
And I think two things, well, something to take note
of is in that session, let's say it's a producer session.
Um, let's say that there are four additional people there.
(05:39):
Yeah. Um, they may give you feedback, they may interact
with you, they may give notes, they may not speak at all.
Yeah. Um, let obviously they're gonna set the tone,
follow their lead.
Yeah. Um, be cordial, be collegial, you know, if they want
to have a conversation, have conversation,
show up your personality.
But sometimes they, you know,
(06:02):
don't want to be involved.
Yeah. And that's okay too.
That's, you know, that's something
to take note. Just read the room.
Exactly. Expect everything
and don't necessarily draw meaning from anything.
Right. Right. My dad is not in the
entertainment industry at all.
And, and when I started managing,
he was asking me questions about sort of how this works.
And, and he pointed out to me very astutely that
(06:27):
every single audition,
unless you're auditioning for the exact same show,
for the exact same group of people,
so same casting director, same writer,
Director, Um, every audition is a one of one.
It is unique. So you can't compare
or draw rules across from one audition to another.
(06:51):
You may have a great chat banter
with a showrunner in a producer session in one audition,
and absolutely think
that you've won the room and booked the role.
And it doesn't come through for you.
And the one you book is gonna be the one
where nobody said anything to you
and you were just talking to the casting director.
So don't draw patterns from these things.
(07:13):
Um, like you said, go in, be professional, be cordial.
The casting director is your friend in these producer
director sessions, they are your advocate.
They have put themselves out there
to bring you and a select few of number of actors in.
(07:33):
And they are truly advocating.
They want you to get hired
because then their job is done. Yeah. I
Think that's really important to,
I think we'll state it again.
Um, if they put you in front
of the people paying them mm-hmm.
That's a win. That is a huge, huge win.
Um, because that is their job is to present good options.
And so if you are one of those options, that means
(07:55):
that they believe that you are representative
of their work mm-hmm.
Of their taste. Yeah. So congratulations now and
Make them look good And make them look good,
But also know that they are on your side.
Right. So they have,
they have prepped their bosses about you.
They've told them how awesome your tape is.
(08:16):
They may have seen the original tape, et cetera. So Yeah.
Yeah. Truly your advocates
And assuming things go well in the callback
or sometimes even from the first call, um, you may get,
so there are a lot of sort of different names that are kind
of basically the same thing.
Um, it may be called a pin. Yep.
Uh, it may be called a hold. Mm-hmm.
(08:37):
It may be called in a veil that's a little different.
Um, and it may be called if it's really old school,
a watch and advise.
Yes. Um, so, uh, let's talk about that.
Let's talk about pins holds
and all the, all the avail checks.
Lovely things, lovely terms.
So let's talk about theatrically first. Mm-hmm.
(08:57):
And so we mean film, television, not theater. Right.
But film and television.
Some of this applies to theater too.
We're gonna talk about commercials separately in a second.
Theatrically, again, you could get a pin,
you could have an avail check
and like you said, a watch and advise.
All of these are typically the same thing.
(09:18):
It means that you're in the mix. That's another one.
Oh, in the mix. Make the mix. Yeah.
Um,
So that just means that you haven't been cut yet.
Yeah. I mean in the mix can mean a lot
of different things. Yeah. But
It can be part of these, those things too.
So any of these terms mean that your tape was well received
by casting and they are likely doing something
(09:39):
with it now. Sending it,
It sending to producers or Yeah,
Exactly. Sending it
for someone else to take a look at.
And so they wanna know if you are truly going
to be available to book that job.
Like casting friends will probably hate that.
I say this in the theatrical world, it is not as strict
as the commercial world.
(09:59):
When you accept an avail, if your agent comes
and says, Hey, we have an avail check for you,
we have a pin for you.
Are you, are you in town for these dates? And you say Yes.
And those dates could be a month out. Yeah.
So what is really going on there is we
as your reps are agreeing that as of today, when we say,
(10:20):
yes, you're available, you are available today.
And if anything changes between today
and whatever future date that they may come back to us,
we are agreeing to update them.
Yeah. Again, this is theatrically.
I I also, there's a little bit
of a nuance called a a a tech avail.
Yes. Um, which is where you are available at that moment,
(10:41):
but there's something likely to happen.
Mm-hmm. Um, like maybe for instance you are
pinned for something else.
Something else or Yeah.
Or yeah, like there is some other activity
that we don't necessarily want, need to tell them about,
but we do need to say like, it is tech, tech avail
or technically he's available, but, but
There are Moving pieces.
Yeah. There might be something else going on in the
(11:01):
commercial worlds, if you accept an avail
that commercial casting director is going to expect
that you're available to work that job when
and if they come back to you to book you.
So these timeframes are much shorter,
(11:21):
um, on the commercial side usually.
So these things move a bit faster.
Although TV can move pretty fast
because they have to go to that producer, director
of the commercial and the client
and get approval from the client.
They wanna make sure that they're getting approvals from the
client on people
who are truly available to shoot that commercial.
They do not wanna have to go back to the client
(11:44):
and say, actually that guy you really loved
for your Budweiser commercial is now not available.
That is not, like I said, not not
so strict in the theatrical world.
Yeah. As long as your reps are effectively communicating
that there's these moving pieces.
So you always wanna be completely 100% upfront
(12:05):
with your reps about your true availability so
that you don't run into a scenario
where you've said you're available.
Right. Especially in the commercial world.
And then all of a sudden you're not gonna be there to work.
Yeah. And I'll add to that,
there is something called a check avail
that's a little bit different, um, than an avail.
(12:25):
So a check avail is essentially
before there's been a session, or maybe there won't even be,
or they won't even read actors for a role,
they'll just check to make sure that you're available.
And the reason that they do that is primarily
because they're going to take a list to the producers
or to the director
or to whomever to the studio, the network, whoever.
(12:46):
And they want to make sure that
before they pitch those names, that those people are
actually available for the project.
They don't want to pitch, you know, Brad Pitt
and then find out, well Brad Pitt's, you know, in Ibiza
for the next six months shooting this other movie.
Like, so that is really just, uh, it's, it's more
of a procedural thing.
And I think I get a lot of instances
(13:08):
where there's an veil check
and then people will be like, well,
so am I still in the mix on this?
It's like you were never really in the mix.
'cause there was no like formal audition or anything.
It was just so, so a lot
of times those dates just take
it with a grain of salt. Right.
And that's why in the theatrical world these
things aren't quite as strict.
Right, right. Because you can get a veil checks on a number
of projects and they may
(13:29):
or may not even turn into an audition.
Yeah. And a lot of times those are kind of
for the offer only level actors too.
Right? Yeah. That once you get to that, that place,
another term here, offer only, which means
that you do not audition anymore.
Um, you're just going to be on these lists
and people are going to be checking your avails
(13:50):
with your reps and then pitching you,
and then hopefully an offer will come in. Thanks.
So.
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