This isn't a technical manual. It's what I've learned from nearly 30 years in the room — as an actor, and on the other side of the camera as a director — about what actually happens when you press record and no one's watching but you.

Most self-tape advice stops at lighting and framing. This goes further: why actors sabotage their own tapes without realising it, what a casting director actually sees in the first ten seconds, how to hold your nerve when there's no director in the room to read you. The technical things are in here too — but they're not the point. The point is understanding the tape well enough that you stop fighting it.