The scene partner in your pocket.
SideKick reads the other characters and follows your cues, so you can rehearse and self-tape without a partner.
Five steps:
Import your sides
Most auditions arrive as a PDF. SideKick reads it, finds the lines and characters, and builds the scene. Four small steps.
Imports are capped at 12 pages per scene.
Cast the reader
Every character except yours needs a voice. Cast a SideKick persona for each, or skip it and record the reader lines in your own voice.
Add reader audio
The reader needs audio for every line that isn't yours. There are two routes, and you can mix them per scene.
On this screen you can play any line back to hear it, or tap the mic to re-record just that one. Lines can be edited here, or anytime later.
Beta accounts include 50 pages of import and 10 minutes of generated audio, free.
Rehearse
Four ways to run the scene, from full control to fully hands-free.
SideKick 101Swipe up on the play button to open the mode picker.
Then choose how the scene advances:
Tap: you advance every line yourself.
Cue: say your line; the reader answers on your cue.
Wait: the reader waits until you finish speaking.
Flow: the scene plays straight through.
Self-tape
Film against the reader. SideKick records video while it plays the other characters.
If you plan to use the raw camera recording, try lowering your phone volume. Reader lines will naturally be loud, because your phone speaker is much closer to the microphone.
Edit lines, voices & audio
Once a scene is built, every line and every voice can be reworked, no re-importing.
Tap the ⋯ on any line to open it. From there, one line at a time, you can change who speaks it, give it a new voice, switch between takes, or fine-tune the audio.
Myself / Reader: flip who owns the line.
Three ways to voice a reader line:
Record: read it aloud in your own voice.
Generate: automatically generate a read in the persona's voice, or Regenerate for a new read.
Direct: record it yourself, then transform your performance into the persona's voice.
User / Persona: a line can hold both your recording and a Persona take. Toggle between them whenever both exist.
Advanced: trim the clip and set its volume, pitch, and speed on their own.
Tap the robot button at the top to open whole-scene controls. It opens two tabs, Cast and Reader, that affect every line at once.
Cast: recast a character, or regenerate all of their lines at once.
Reader: volume, pitch, and speed for every reader line at once, plus how character names are shown.
Watch & share
.sidekick file, with lines, cast, and audio included.
Turn off Wrist Detection and you can hold the watch in your hand as a remote, instead of wearing it, while you tape. On the watch: Settings → Passcode → Wrist Detection.
Build a scene by hand
No PDF? Build a scene line by line — speak each line, tag it as yours or the reader's, and SideKick assembles the scene as you go.
Questions & answers
Cue mode keeps missing me.
Simple Cue listens for the last two words of a line before advancing; Smart Cue listens to your whole line and advances once it has recognized enough. A quiet room helps, but speech recognition isn't perfect even in ideal conditions, and there's nothing worse than getting to the end of a tape and having Cue miss you. For anything that matters, Tap mode with a cheap Bluetooth shutter remote or the Apple Watch is the reliable way to go.
It's not hearing me, or the camera is black.
Almost always permissions. Go to iOS Settings → SideKick and turn mic, speech, and camera back on. The app won't re-prompt once you've denied them.
My watch buzzed instead of advancing.
That buzz means the watch and phone lost their connection. Make sure you're not too far from your phone; the connection can be finicky. Usually force-quitting the app on both the watch and the phone fixes it.