@theaterwork I have a couple of funny stories about this whole filming of pre-screens! First of all, I am severely tech-challenged! The very first video we planned was for a summer program. We had watched a ton of videos on YouTube to learn what not to do! I had gotten a new camera, I set up a date and time to go to a friend’s house to use her piano. I hired a local college kid to do the accompaniment. I even went to the house early to fix lighting and make sure I had a good place for my D to stand where the piano didn’t overpower her and that there was nothing distracting behind her. I did everything I could to make conditions perfect. Well, then life intervened! The accompanist got there right on time (I had sent him the sheet music a few weeks earlier so he would be prepared). He sat down at the piano and put his foot on one of the pedals and there was this reverb, echo sound that would not go away. We tried to trouble shoot it with no luck. I drove home and got the keyboard we have, but it was not gonna work. So, now I had a time issue because my D had to be at school for ITS inductions. I was scrambling and finally found another friend that had a piano. She wasn’t home but her kids were. We blew in and had to ask them to turn off the tv and be quiet. At this point we had 20 minutes! No time for perfect staging or several takes. In the end, you can see my reflection filming her in the glass of the picture frame she is in front of, and there were a couple of notes that weren’t great. We sent it in and said a prayer! In the end, she got into that summer program and is now waitlisted for the school! What I gleaned from that is…no one is expecting perfection, they are looking for potential. I believe these professionals can see that potential in the first 10 seconds…regardless of the quality of your video is. That’s not to say you shouldn’t try to do a great job, just don’t sweat the small stuff. Especially if you don’t have the money to spend to hire someone. For the college pre-screens, I emailed my D’s theatre teacher in June and asked if we could use the theatre and piano in August on a teacher work day before the new school year began, he happily obliged. I also found an accompanist and hired one of the tech kids to film for me. The school theatre worked really well. So, my daughter applied to 5 schools that had prescreens. She passed 4 of the 5. After all were in I was on her acceptd site and happened to pull up one of her songs and played it. I was horrified to discover that I had uploaded the wrong one, it was one where she messed up the lyrics, she was being silly and apologized to her buddy that was filming and then started the song again. I had edited that part out and THOUGHT that was the one I uploaded. So, I figured it probably ended up working in her favor, they got to see a bit of her personality. So, again…just don’t sweat the small stuff! The pure talent will shine through!