What I’m asking for is not unreasonable: a separation of professionals and hobbyists. It’s standard in sports. It happens in the arts. In fact, it is the norm. This separation is based on training and hard-earned credentials, and not on the spending limit of a credit card or even raw talent.

Some might say: Vincent van Gogh did very well and he never joined a professional guild. Most people forget that he became a multi-millionaire long after he was…. dead.

So, let’s talk about standards and ways to uphold these standards.

Any evaluation has an element of subjectivity because it’s hard for humans to get themselves out of the way and be ‘objective’. However, based on the voice-over demos I listened to on some of these on-line casting sites, the selection becomes surprisingly easy. But as long as quantity trumps quality, there’s no incentive to change and implement professional standards.

Now, I could just pretend that I don’t care and be happy that voice-seekers get what they deserve when they choose to use these casting services and have too weed through 100+ auditions. But that’s the easy way out.

At the end of the day, I feel that it’s not right that amateurs and pros are allowed to audition on a level playing field. Why would that be okay for voice-overs, but not for plumbers, roofers and teachers?

Secondly, if P2P’s would pick quality over quantity, and if they would get paid based on my performance, that would give them a powerful incentive to kick up the rates and step up their efforts to promote their more limited roster of talent.

As a result, voice-seekers would save time and money because they had true professionals to choose from. Voice talent would be able to set a reasonable rate. Everybody wins.

Is arguing in favor of this business model “banging my head against the wall”? In that case, I want more bang for my buck!

History is populated by individuals who kept on banging against the walls of what was considered to be the norm. They were ridiculed. They were ignored. They were called ‘dreamers’. I wouldn’t dare to compare myself in any way to the great irrational thinkers that ultimately have shaped society for the better. But they do inspire me and give me hope that things don’t have to be, just because they are.

It is very much top down. Let’s blame the U.S. acting unions SAG and AFTRA, who not only can’t get along with one another, but have also made enemies of most of the major ad agencies (4 A’s), as well as the ATA (Talent Agents). Let’s also blame top tier actors and athletes, who aren’t happy making 10 million per season or per picture, but now feel they can and should be voicing commercials. Let’s blame the agency folks themselves, who hire employees of the agency to do v.o. as a form of paying out “bonuses”. Or we can blame the copywriters that hire one another, because they can make more doing the v.o. than they can writing the spots.

Let’s blame every single person who ever worked for a radio station for now deciding they are bot only voice talent, but also professional ad agencies and production companies.

Let’s blame the company owners, corporate v.p.’s, politicians, 15 minute of famers, pseudo celebs, reality tv drop outs.

Let’s blame all the teachers, some of whom barely know what a microphone is. Let’s blame the coaches and gurus and everyone who ropes in a student with a $25 introductory class that begins by telling a story fo a former student who bought a house with the money they earned from their first job.

Let’s blame the press, who have never written an article about the thousands of voice actors who make nothing, but instead want to focus on the one-in-a-million person whose first audition led to a recurring v.o. role on the carton network.

Having been in this business for well over 20 years, I can tell you that the discrepancies between top tier pay and bottom feeding scum have always been here. When I first started casting and directing talent for video games over 15 years ago, my home number wound up in a directory and I received calls every day from untrained, unwashed and unknowing individuals who were more than eager to do character voices in a game for free. As a talent, nary a week has gone by over the past 20 years where I am contacted and asked to do a 5 minute narration for $50 or to do some character voices for a company that sadly has no budget for talent, but assures me that I would get first crack at their next paying gig as compensation.

I also remember a time when I might have someone ask me what I did for a living and when I responded voice actor or voice-over received a response of “what’s that”. Nowadays when I identify myself as a voice talent, I am more likely to receive the response of “me too”.

The value of being a voice talent is being diminished. W@e are becoming a dime a dozen. We are a means to an ends. We are mass produced, knock offs of a bygone era. We are 10,000 shipwrecked fools floating in a vast sea, all crying out to be scooped up and brought to salvation.

And as far as “amateurs” go. I hate to tell you Paul, but I know somebody who has almost no training, new to the business and probably will make over $150,000 this year. One might think that with over 400 video game titles to my name and currently having 3 national SAG spots running that I am a known or cared about commodity. The answer is pretty much a resounding NO. I get my work by auditioning and few care whether I or anybody else has been at this for a month or 10 years, or longer. Can they do it and are they available are the 2 main things most hirers of talent need to be concerned with.

This is a subjective business. Trying to assign any level of proficiency or skills assessment to a voice actor is a lesson in futility. You and many other voice actors have identified individuals and Savoa has accredited some people that I (and others) think are talentless at best.

Individuals who have demonstrated great skill at blogging, web design, marketing and site building seem to do quite well, despite the fact that most of them can only book work via strong arm marketing and not through auditioning.

If it’s not working for you, maybe you need to look at hiring some P.R. person or marketing guru. Things are the way they are. We can to some extent have control over our personal thoughts and actions.

A few years ago, I knew someone who was a big wig in the travel agency industry. He flew all over the world and stayed in the best hotels and ate the best food. He didn’t respond appropriately to the changes in the marketplace, thinking things might get better or expecting somehow things would indeed change for the better. This individual is now about one step from being homeless.

Keep yourself firmly planted in the present, with one eye on the future and remember the best part about banging your head against the wall is stopping.

–j.s. gilbert

I highly recommend it!

http://www.edgestudio.com/Voice-Over-Rate-Card.htm

http://www.voices.com/voice-over-rates.html

http://support.voice123.com/article/How_Much_Are_Talents_and_Voice_Producers_Charging_for_Non-Union_Voice_Over_Work_Delivered_Online.html

http://www.aftra.com/contract/documents/2009_05_22_commericals_sched_min_fees.pdf

http://www.voiceoverresourceguide.com/index.html

Personally, I like the “you’ve got my attention” approach to pricing. If you’re writing me a $5k check for an hour in the studio, you’ve got my attention; only absurd terms would deter my acceptance.

Issues I focus on if the session fee is in the ballpark or better: duration of use and medium used. I also fret over copy that offers too much potential for lifts.

Most, if not all, of this fades away when a business relationship is developed.

When people are in shock about the prices of VO-work, I always ask them how much time they want to spend in the studio. How much salary they get in one day, + the cost of the studio is what they gain if they hire me. One 50 dollar VO will teach them I think…

Greetings, Christel Schimmel
Very Dutch VO-talent

I’d like to weigh in with a couple of thoughts here… First, a few months ago I was kind of shocked to find several free voiceover portals – the perfect place for amateurs to hone their craft, as you suggest. One large site is http://www.radiodaddy.com/ ; users requesting VO services are allowed (and in some questions required) to make a “donation.” I think it’s a logical way to approach the entry-level issue, although there’s a part of me that felt a slight revulsion at the idea, nontheless.

I’ve heard many recovering bottom-feeder voice seekers talk about lessons learned, promises unmet, deadlines missed and revenues lost fron trying to go the cheap route. At the same time, I’ve spent enough years in radio to have seen that economy change for talent until it is unrecognizable. And in this recession, I think if you were to imprison every single one of the “amateurs,” there would still be more than enough pros hungry enough to say “yes” to any rate. Frustrating as hell, but, I think, true.

“Pay-to-play” voiceover sites are, ultimately, exactly like open casting calls in theater or TV (just see how many “low-pay” or “no-pay” acting calls there are on Craigslist and everywhere else;) they are exactly like American Idol. The “anyone can do it” mentality has solidly collided with the egalitarian nature of the internet and a global economy. And a “voice talents unite!” rallying cry, I’m afraid, will be about as effective as an AFTRA card in radio contract negotiations.

So, OK Mr. Doom-and-gloom, what’s the solution, you ask? There’s no easy one, that’s for sure. But I’ve spent a lot more time this past year on marketing and sales websites than voiceover sites. I’ve worked to learn to think of myself more as a business and less as an “artist.” At times that’s been painful. But pay-to-play sites are a shrinking part of my arsenal. Networking and referrals are a growing component. I don’t want to compete with the made-in-china toys with lead paint on them. I want to compete with the quality products, i.e., talents. I don’t want to sell my stuff at Wal-Mart. And I believe when it all shakes out, the voice seekers I want to work for won’t be shopping at Wal-Mart, either! That’s the niche: between union agents and anything-goes p2p sites. When the Restoration Hardware of VO sites is born, sign me up!

I’ve repeatedly heard the statistics that, on average, about 2% of jobs are filled from the job websites – Monster.com, etc. TWO PERCENT! This was true pre-recession, it’s true now. I can’t help but think that some version of this statistic translates into our space. Which would mean there’s a lot of room to grow the in-between niche. Meaning, ALL activity on p2p sites represents a minute portion of available voice work.

Sorry for the lengthy response, but I’ve spent a ton of time thinking about these issues recently and you provided a splendid catharsis. You’ve said before I should start a blog – I promise I will soon!

Here’s my nickel’s worth…No matter how we complain about the so called less talented or about projects going by way of the cheapest fee the reality is we are in control of our own destiny. There is more than enough work out there for everybody and the difference today is we have to market ourselves more more more and in different ways than ever before. The old cliché of word of mouth and referrals being the best form of advertising have never been more true than today. If we are all blessed enough to find a niche’ to promote and market that niche’ consistently and passionately and then make incremental dollars off ‘the other stuff’ then that’s a pretty cool way to go. Learning ways to do that through Susan Berkley and The Great Voice Company as well as my own hard knock efforts have proven to be been invaluable.

I lost my corporate marketing job 15 months ago and took a leap of faith in to my dream job of voiceover and have never looked back.

With that said…a dry martini does sound good about now!