SaVoA, the Society of Accredited Voice Over Artists has imploded.
Six members of the executive board resigned last week, citing irreconcilable differences between them and SaVoA’s founding father.
On hearing the news, I was stirred but certainly not shaken. To me, the real news was how the worldwide voice-over community responded. The overall reaction can be summarized in two words:
“So what?”
Of course a few inner circle members -sorry, make that “certificate holders”- reacted as expected by telling their version of the break-up. And yet again, thousands of voice actors answered silently in unison and said:
“Who cares?”
If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?
You see, in the five years of its existence, SaVoA managed to attract and accredit a whopping 170 people, and it never became the organization it set out to be. Instead, it was regarded by some as an old-boys network.
The idea was to bring together a group of voice artists who had proven to their peers that they could provide “vocally and technically proficient, broadcast-quality voice over services” and who would “conduct business in such a way that it enhances the profession as a whole.”
Apart from a few discounts on trainings and gear, accredited members received a SaVoA certificate and a seal that could be displayed on websites and business cards. Like the Good Housekeeping seal, it was meant to reassure prospective clients that they were about to hire an established, highly qualified voice talent.
Upon seeing the seal, most clients said:
“What the heck is that? Just because some unknown body has accredited you, doesn’t mean you’re a good fit for the job. Let me hear your demo. You’re a voice-over. Words speak louder than actions.”
Many colleagues responded the same way. Why would an experienced talent even need to be accredited? Paul Payton:
“My accreditation is 24 years in the VO business, 22 without a back-up job, working with great clients including many who bring me repeat business. If a certificate works for someone, great; for me, every check I cash is an accreditation. Color me grateful.”
Others like Todd Schick questioned SaVoA’s technical standards:
“How good are standards that can be easily faked? What good is legal gobbledygook to a consumer who hired a SaVoA talent, only to find out that they didn’t have a phone patch, the editing was horrible, the sound sucked because they had a -40dB noise floor… and couldn’t work after 5 pm EST because they had a day job?”
The SaVoA certificate still hangs on Danish voice talent Jacob Ekström‘s wall. Even though SaVoA as we know it is no more, he believes it’s useful to set standards.
“Certification in general is not a new thing, and in an industry like ours where clueless noobs armed with a $20 RadioShack microphone can build a website and/or sign up to a p2p-site and think they can compete with VO-veterans with $10.000 studios, it certainly could be an asset to voice seekers with limited time to listen through 500+ auditions or demos. But alas, not if they don’t know what it means, and I guess this is where SaVoA failed.”
“As a well-established talent you can always argue “Sheesh, why would I need this, a $75 badge on my website isn’t going to get me more gigs anyway!” – and that’s true. But for the remaining 90% of us, just maybe it could. Mind you, the original idea was NOT to build a “boys club” – it was to make the industry better, not only for our clients, but more importantly for ourselves.
Having a SaVoA badge on your website should be something everyone should want to strive for, not because it looks good, but because it means you’re serious and you want your clients to know. And yes, we all know you don’t need a $75 badge to actually be serious, but all the $20 microphone guys who clutter the p2p-sites do not, and, apparently, neither does the industry. And that’s why I feel it’s a damn shame SaVoA never made an impact.”
Audio producer, script writer and voice actor Matt Forrest has a different take on the viability of a professional organization for voice actors:
“Unless the standards or code are adopted by an organized group (like a union or SaVoA) and used – and promoted – for the benefit of its members, I’m not sure what good any of it would do. Being individual contractors, we all know how we want to treat our customers and our craft, but getting everyone to abide by them would be like trying to herd cats.”
Dan Lenard is one of the former members of SaVoA’s executive board. He strongly believes the voice-over community has to have a SaVoA type of organization:
“We have common needs. We need to come together in an organized manner to harness this energy that has created this unique virtual community, and work together to deal with the unique marketing, legal and technical issues involved, along with the socially isolating nature of our trade.”
OUT OF THE ASHES
Together with other ex-SaVoA directors, Dan has been building a new and more transparent voice-over organization, modeled after a Trade Association. It was incorporated on April 25th 2012, and it was launched a day later. It’s called the World-Voices organization. Lenard explains:
“It’s an organization founded and funded by businesses that operate in a specific industry. An industry trade association participates in public relations activities such as advertising, education, and publishing, but its main focus is collaboration between businesses, or standardization. Many associations are non-profit organizations governed by bylaws and directed by officers who are also actual voting “members” of the association, not just certificate of Accreditation holders.
This is a model that makes sense for us, the independently based freelance voice artist, here and now. To have an individual competitive advantage we need to have agreed standards of business to strive for. Marketing wise, legally and because of the new territory of being able to produce quality audio at home, Accreditation of technical skills based on the reality of today’s digital marketplace, not outdated, obsolete broadcasting standards.”
Founding Executive Vice President, Dave Courvoisier says:
“Our founders are Dustin Ebaugh, Dan Lenard, Chris Mezzolesta, Robert Sciglimpaglia, Andy Bowyer, “Kat” Keesling, and myself. All are SaVoa ex-patriates. With certain obstacles out of our way, we’ve been able to organize, conceptualize, implement, and carry-out an amazing array of technical, foundational, and legal collaborations in just a matter of days.
The newly established World-Voices Organization will actively work to promote certified members to potential voice seekers through its website and in an aggressive marketing campaign. Materials explaining a proposed structure will be posted on our website.”
And what do I make of this?
If teachers, lawyers, roofers and even DJ’s see value in building a business organization with a code of conduct and professional standards, I see no reason why voice-overs should not follow in their footsteps.
I am in favor of defining criteria for excellence and ethical behavior. It’s important to create programs that will further our field and promote professionalism. Let’s show the outside world what being a voice-over pro entails!
We have a vibrant, supportive and growing community. It’s time to take ourselves and our line of work seriously. If we don’t, no one else will and we’ll forever be known as a bunch of bickering amateuristic blabbermouths.
We need and deserve this professional organization for ourselves, and to help the outside world separate the wheat from the chaff.
Now, to make sure that good people with good intentions will fail, you and I will only have to do one thing:
NOTHING
It’s very easy to stand on the sidelines and ridicule, criticize and discourage the efforts of a few. It takes no commitment whatsoever. It’s safe, it’s lame and it’s lazy.
I’d like you to consider this.
SaVoA did not fail to grow because the founder had no vision. The fact that SaVoA wasn’t thriving cannot be blamed on directors supposedly sitting on their behinds. Most of them worked their butts off!
The way I see it, SaVoA failed because part of the voice-over community paid lip service to the organization (VO’s are good at that), but never invested in it. The other part looked at it from a distance and said:
“Whatever”
Existing members did not succeed in making the organization relevant. Some of them adopted a wait-and-see attitude and vented their frustration that nothing was happening.
THE FUTURE
Many will look at World-Voices and ask themselves this question:
“What will I get out of it?”
Those who are primarily focused on themselves ask that question all the time. If that is going to be your approach, I predict that this new association of voice over professionals will die a quick death.
This is not going to be a ME-ME-ME organization. This is a WE-organization, working to benefit our entire community and beyond.
I challenge you to ask this question instead:
“What can I do to make World-Voices relevant, strong and successful?”
If you want to make it matter, you have to be involved.
Otherwise, another tree will soon fall in the forest without a sound.
Paul Strikwerda ©nethervoice
We have a new internet sensation: a 14 year-old kid who sounds like a movie trailer man. Could your ability to sound like someone else help or hurt your career? That’s the topic of my next blog post.
About the author
We all have different experiences and perspectives, and that’s one of the things which I love about all this. I’m very aware that although I’m a British ex-pat, I have no experience of being immersed in the British market, since I started my voicing here in Turkey – I have UK clients, but that’s different.
”
It is certainly true that there are huge cultural differences in approach to work around the world, and hopefully we’ll be learning about some of these in my “International VoiceOvers” panel at VOICE 2012.
I’d suggest that the practicality of forming the World Voice Organisation in the way that it has happened naturally caused the existing group to support each other as the initial board. The fact that they clearly (and I believe honestly) have stated in many places that they are open to contributions suggests that when appropriate there is every probability that will develop into a more international group. Indeed the home page states:
“Yes, the founding members took it upon themselves to elect
each other as the first officers.
We had to start somewhere.
(You can vote us out later.
There is open documentation about every aspect of the organisation on the WoVo website, with the equally open invitation to constructively criticise this.
I 100% agree with your statement:
“In our case, advertising, promotion, word of mouth and repeat business have got us where we are, not ‘belonging.’”
Unless I’ve missed out on the conspiracy theory this will continue to be true. We as individuals will continue to be the individuals selected (or not) for particular jobs.
I’m pleased that you state:
“I am not against formation of a kind of guild.”
That’s the conversation this blog article asking you to join.
As for:
“I’m dead set against the formation of an organisation which has, at its very heart, the determination to impose a standard set of requirements”
So in the conversation what should a guild be about. WoVo NEEDS YOUR experience and perspective. Your input from a UK based perspective. How else will it be truly relevant to the UK – here’s my challenge to you: If you don’t contribute now, how can you later claim the right to criticise the organisation for being to America-centric?
Final word: check out http://world-voices.org/structure.html which is openly asking for your response to the question (Quote)
“In the meantime, we struggle with
whether WOVO should even consider a subjective,
qualitative assessment of someone’s
TALENT.”
Please take the risk, and suggest what your dream guild would be like … just imagine
all the best
andy
My take on the debate from the UK POV. I am UK based and almost all of my work comes from UK based clients.
The whole VO industry here is so vastly different from that in the US – Almost all of the top notch work is cast via agents and the celebrity culture is alive and thriving. As I see it, there is a small clique of voice artists getting almost all of the work (aside from that cast via the P2P sites) but things are changing! (Though not always for the better I fear). The proliferation of cheap rate jobs on the P2P sites and the apparent ease with which anyone can sign up for a ten bob training course, buy a microphone and call themselves a ‘professional VO’ is disheartening and depresssing. But that is what is happening – and increasingly here in the UK as well, and at the moment, I feel very little sense that the ‘VO community’ is in charge of its own destiny. You can market all you like, and continue to offer the best quality work and all of that but it is, and will continue to be, tough to make a living in this industry.
As someone who has been around for many years, and who has spent more than 30 years as a full time freelance I believe that I have a lot to bring to WOVO as a business woman, as an actor and narrator, as a sometime voice teacher and as a person with life experience and knowledge. However, I am the first to admit that I am a comparative beginner at this ‘home studio’ lark – and although my editing skills are good, thanks to my TV production background – my audio engineering knowledge and basic knowledge of audio and how it works in the home studio setting, could certainly do with some improvement.
I therefore welcome the opportunity to share my knowledge and glean knowledge from others. I think that only by being involved in something do you have the opportunity to influence it and the choices that are made.
I think that often we Brits are very good at sitting on the fence and then moaning when we don’t like what is happening all around us. Count me in – and I hope that I can help bring a UK perspective to what is, hopefully, going to be an inclusive organisation.
Helen, welcome. It will be a pleasure to know you.
Phil, your last comments to Andy were enlightening. There can’t be a community because we all compete against one another? Phil, you gotta get out more. In a discussion with a rather well known pitcher for the Baltimore Orioles I was told that everyone in the majors knows each other and is friends with each other because they have played together since high school. Yet, they still compete against each other every day, and for stakes that are much higher. There is a sense of community in the major leagues. You obviously don’t feel a part of anything when it comes to other VOs. Sorry to hear that.
I am enjoying this lively debate!
It actually takes me back to one of the articles I wrote at the end of last year: Finding your value in voice-overs.
In it, I talk about the meaning of the word competition:
Thank god you showed up, Paul. I thought we were going to have to shoot it out at high noon on a dusty street. The voice of reason has arrived.
I have several friends who are voice overs. (And many who are not.) I have helped many people over the years, with a number of different issues. I don’t have to be “accredited” or join any organisation, or call myself part of a “community” to do those things.
I can see why you relish the prospect of WoVO, and joining it.
The sadness is that you can’t see why I don’t.
So which of us has the narrower view?
I get out quite a lot… and here in Merrie England, footballers from opposing teams are often friends, and they are usually members of the PFA (Professional Footballers’ Association.) This exists to promote their interests, to mediate in disputes, and to offer protection against unfair treatment by club owners.
The PFA doesn’t stipulate how far they need to be able to kick a ball, what height they have to be, or what boots they should wear.
Fascinating,
As anyone who knows me will attest, I’m about as Conservative and rugged individualist as it comes. And, as my hero, Groucho Marx would say, “I’d never join a club that would have me as a member.” Why then would I believe so strongly in this concept of industry association, a “community,” a group of like minded individuals who think there should be some order to this chaos? Because, as I’ve stated before, this isn’t just “any” community. The obvious enthusiastic response we’ve gotten shows us we have struck a cord with a large majority of like minded people. And people not just from the US, but Australia, Japan, Turkey, Israel, Egypt, The Philippines and The Canary Islands, to name a few. Its been overwhelming. Are there detractors? Of course.
Phil, your points are well taken. No one has appointed themselves anything except enthusiastic supporters of a movement. A movement to, as I said, bring some order to the chaos. If people didn’t step up and do what they believe is right, this world would indeed be more unlivable than it is.
We could state over and over again what our motivations were to risk our reputations on this venture, and the tiny minority will continue to misunderstand, criticize, badger and put down this movement that, from the critiques I’ve read, show a total misreading of what we are proposing. Not a central authority, not the high and mighty, not a governing body, but a community that believes in central ideas that are the core of our business, has a common interest and can benefit from cooperative activity to advance these core ideas.
If you think of our business as a competitive one, you lose. I don’t look at my fellow voice artists as competitors. We are all snowflakes, individuals and unique. We all bring something to the table, a choice for a talent seeker. Most of the time its a matter of simply sounding like what they heard in their head when they created whatever it is they want us to vocalize. If it were a competition, we would know what our competitors sounded like. How many times to we hear the auditions of others? There’s no face to face. What makes us different is our uniqueness. Do I like that anyone can do this? Its irrelevant. The staggering amount of good WORK available makes it so.
I know my competitive advantage is my ability to provide more services to my clients. I audition, I get work, I create a relationship with a client who comes back to the well. If you’re having trouble getting work, its not because there’s too many people doing this. In fact the sheer number of incompetents makes long time professionals sound even better. Is it driving down rates? I see cheap stuff, but I don’t audition for cheap stuff. And if anything, I’m seeing rates going up for what was lower paying work a few years ago. Why? because there are competent people who showed the value of professionalism. Thats what we’re trying to achieve and promote with the formation of World Voices Organization. To show what those professional standards are, who’s achieving them, and creating the institutions to allow newcomers the chance to learn and achieve them.
I understand long time professionals lamenting over what used to be. That was before the Internet. It changed the paradigm. You can’t go back. So you might as well go forward. The new times call for new ideas and new institutions to benefit those sailing the boisterous seas of this new reality.
Yeah, what he said. ; )
One of my favorite quotes is:
“The world we see is a mirror of who we are.”
If a sense of community and comradery is important to us, that’s what we will see, experience and strive for. If it doesn’t mean much to us, we won’t recognize it or seek it out.
Are we colleagues or competitors? Are we isolated or connected? Will a select few impose regulations upon a group, or does the group determine what those guidelines are going to be? Is a voice-over guild relevant or ridiculous?
This Sunday I took part in the annual Walk MS Event. Prior to that, I had raised money for my team, and in the beginning I did it in relative isolation. But as my campaign warmed up, more and more people connected with me on a different level.
This time we were not talking about microphones and voice-over jobs. We were talking about family members and dear friends that had passed away as the result of Multiple Sclerosis. What had started as a one-man fundraiser, became a group of caring individuals with a common cause.
As I was mobilizing my readers to donate, thousands of others in the country were doing the same thing. From time to time, all of us felt like we were on a small island, reaching out to the rest of the world.
On Sunday, everything and everyone came together to walk side by side. All of a sudden we noticed that we were not alone. The sea between the islands turned out to be a sea of people. Young and old, Republican or Democrat, Able bodied or not as able bodied.
What does it take for people to come together like that? They have to care. They have to give a damn. They have to believe in something.
Together we raised millions of dollars to fight a mysterious disease and to create a better life for those suffering from that disease.
And all of that because people who cared, connected.
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I apologize for the lateness of this post.
SaVoa is not DEAD NOR GONE
A new valued added service has been launched for SaVoa Artist.
Check it out http://SaVoaVoices.com
Read the FAQ section.
SaVoa “the original and first name in accreditation” pulling ahead.
Thank you for the update, Ed.