What Your Self-Tape Score Means: The 7 Areas Sides Grades

When Sides gives your self-tape a score, it isn't a vibe. The number comes from 26 specific checks across seven areas of the take, each graded from what's actually on the tape. Here's what each area looks for, how the score turns into a verdict, and what the score can and can't tell you.

The short version

• Every take is graded across seven areas that casting cares about.
• Each area is a handful of checks, and each check is graded landed, partly or missed, with a moment in the take as evidence.
• The checks add up to a score out of 100. The score sets the verdict: Developing from 50, Callback-ready from 70, Bookable from 85. Below 50 reads Not yet.
• Every note points at a second in the take, and the feedback ends with one thing to change on the next one.

The seven areas

1. Knowing the lines

Did you know the words, keep the writer's rhythm, and recover cleanly if you slipped? Paraphrasing smooths out the writing, and a hunt for the next line pulls you out of the scene. A stumble you absorb in character is fine; real people mis-speak. (When you don't upload sides, the word-for-word check is skipped.)

2. Your choices

Do we know what you want from the other person, what you think of them, and who you're playing? This is the area that separates a correct tape from a memorable one. A specific choice you commit to beats a safe one every time.

3. Believability

Did the feelings look real, arrive on their own, and have a reason we could see? Casting picks the work they can't see over the work they can. Pushing a feeling, or showing it on your face before you've felt it, is the most common thing that costs a tape here.

4. Listening

Were you alive while the other person spoke, and did we see you think before you answered? A lot of acting happens on the reader's lines. Taking a line in can look like almost nothing: the eyes stay on your partner, the breath changes, and your next line comes out different because of what they said. That counts. What doesn't is a neutral face waiting for the cue.

5. Voice

Could we hear every word, and did your pace and volume change with what you wanted? Pace is a real note but a small one, and it's always about intention. Coming in fast on a cue is right when your character already knows the answer.

6. Body and stillness

Did you move the right amount for a close frame, and did your hands mean something? In a chest-up shot, stillness is often the strongest choice. It reads as presence and gives your thinking room. What costs a tape here is fidgeting, swaying, or gestures that illustrate the words (pointing on "you", a hand on the heart on "love").

7. Camera, light and sound

Framing, light on your face, the reader's level, and the slate. This area is never about how you look. It's about whether casting can see and hear the work: both eyes visible, the light in front of you rather than behind, and a reader quieter than you. The lighting guide covers the most common fix.

How a score becomes a verdict

Each area's checks combine into a strength for that area, and the areas combine into the score out of 100. The verdict follows the score:

• Not yet (below 50): the scene doesn't read yet. Usually something concrete is in the way: lines read off the page, no real partner, an eye line that's gone, or a tape that's hard to watch.
• Developing (50 to 69): believable in places, but the want or the listening comes and goes, and the choices are safe.
• Callback-ready (70 to 84): believable throughout, real listening, a clear want and relationship, clean technical work. A casting director would bring you back.
• Bookable (85 and up): all of that, plus a point of view of your own and at least one moment that lands hard or surprises.

Two checks hold a verdict back on their own: knowing the lines, and being heard. If the lines weren't there, or casting couldn't make out the words, the verdict stays at Developing however strong the rest is, because a casting director would stop there too.

Bookable has a bar of its own. A take only reaches 85 when four things fully land through the whole take: a point of view, moments you've shaped, an inner life we can see, and real listening. A high average without them stops at 84, Callback-ready. That's why Bookable is rare, and why it means something when you get it.

Why every note has a timestamp

A note like "the listening could be stronger" is useless at 11pm. A note like "at 0:41, when she tells you she knew, your eyes go to the floor before the line lands" is something you can fix. Every note in Sides points at the second it's about (and notes about what the camera saw show the frame it happened in), so you can watch the exact moment and decide whether you agree.

The one thing to change

The feedback ends with a single adjustment for the next take: what to rehearse, and how you'll know it worked on camera. One change you can actually play beats a list of ten. Tape again, and Sides shows which areas moved since the last take.

What the score can't tell you

• Whether you'll book. Casting decisions depend on the look of the project, the rest of the cast, and things nobody outside the room can see. The score tells you what's on the tape.
• Whether you're a good actor. One take is one take.
• Your taste. If a note asks for something you disagree with, and you can say why your choice is right for the scene, keep your choice. Casting directors themselves say their notes are their taste.

Use the score to compare your own takes and to catch what you can't see yourself. For the rest of the pre-send routine, see how to get feedback on your self-tape before you submit, or get your take rated.