My self-tape kit, under £300

The light, the mic, the backdrop and the reader app I use for every audition from home. A single soft LED panel at forty-five degrees, a grey pull-down backdrop and a lavalier mic clipped out of shot cover ninety per cent of tapes. I frame from mid-chest, keep the eyeline just off the lens and always slate separately. The best investment was not kit at all: a reader who gives me something real to play against. When nobody is free, a reader app with my own lines muted is the next best thing.