You made the tape.
The portal won't take the file.
Every one of those shows caps your audition at 50 MB and3:00. Your phone shoots about a hundred times that. We re-encode the file to fit and never touch what's on it. Back in your inbox in 20 minutes.
Submit your video
Max 50 MB · Max 3:00 · mpg mpeg avi mp4 wmv mov 3gp mkv
The file you attempted to upload is either not the correct file type or is too large.
16,000 tapes. 18 spots.
Almost none of that is in your control. Whether the file uploads is.
Audition tapes received — Survivor, 2022 cycle
Made the season
The cap, on every portal
Upload to inbox
Three steps. Twenty minutes.
You don't install anything and you don't need to understand any of it.
Send us the file
The original, straight off your phone. No trimming, no exporting, no settings. Anything up to 7 GB, in whatever format it came out as.
We re-encode it to fit
Not a slider dragged to 20%. We tune the encode for one person talking to a camera — face, voice, the room — and land it just under the limit.
You check it and submit
It comes back by email. Play it through, confirm it reads under 50 MB, upload it to the portal exactly as you would have uploaded the original.
Same limit.
Three different tapes.
The portals are the same template and the casting director is the same person. What you're making is not the same at all.
Survivor
Casting opens late July · runs to December
A self-portrait. Who you are, told plainly, in one take.
Casting says just turn on your phone. That is a 1 GB file for 3 minutes.
Big Brother
Applications reviewed from February · open calls Mar–May
A persona audition. What you will be like to watch for 100 days.
The open call gives you a minute. The upload gives you three. 21 and over.
The Amazing Race
Casting runs January to May
A relationship on camera. The two of you, and how you know each other.
Two phones, one tape, one 50 MB limit. Both of you need a passport.
We can't get you cast. We can make sure the file isn't the reason you don't get seen.
Nobody can get you cast, and casting has said out loud that applicants who pay for help with what's in a tape don't tend to get in. So here is exactly where we stop: we never touch the content. Not the cut, not the sound, not a frame of what you said. We change the file, not the tape.
We're not connected to CBS, Paramount or any casting body, and using us has no bearing on whether you're picked. It has a lot of bearing on whether you're seen.
Questions.
Will the quality drop?
Some, and we won't pretend otherwise — gigabytes to 50 MB is a real reduction. What matters is where it lands. We re-encode for a talking-head tape specifically, so it holds on your face and your voice instead of falling apart there. Casting decides in the first thirty seconds. The file we send back spends them well.
How fast?
20 minutes from upload, by email. If you are up against a same-day deadline, that is the whole reason this exists.
Can't I just do it myself?
You can. HandBrake is free, and if you already know what a bitrate is you'll be fine. Most people meet one for the first time at 11pm the night before the deadline, guess, and get a file that's either still too big or looks like it was shot through a screen door. You're paying to not spend that evening that way.
What about sending a YouTube link instead?
The portal has an upload field, not a link field — casting asked for a file. A casting editor has said on the record that links add steps for the people reviewing tapes, and that the view counts applicants watch are mostly the editors themselves. Tannenbaum's own advice for a file that's too large is to get help with the file. That's us. Send a file.
My tape is over 3 minutes.
Then it has two problems, and the portal enforces both. We won't cut your tape without being told what to lose — tell us the in and out points and we'll trim and compress in the same pass.
Which formats do you take?
Whatever your phone or camera produced. The portals accept mpg, mpeg, avi, mp4, wmv, mov, 3gp and mkv; send us any of those or anything else and we'll return one they take. Two phones stitched together is fine.
Which shows does this work for?
Survivor, Big Brother and The Amazing Race all use the same portal template with the same 50 MB and 3-minute caps — and the same casting director. Any other application with a file-size cap works the same way.
What happens to my tape afterwards?
It's used to produce your file and nothing else. We don't publish it, share it, keep it, or use it as an example. We never touch what's on it — we change the file, not the tape.
Let's get you under 50 MB.
Send the original. It comes back under the limit, by email, within 20 minutes.