Double Dutch

Some voice-over casting sites have an interesting way of dealing with members complaining that they haven’t had much luck. Here’s what these sites say:

“Auditioning is great practice! Even if you didn’t get that 100 dollar job, at least you’re honing your skills.”

Oh, please… Give me a break!

WORDS OF WISDOM
At the end of a two day “voice-over intensive”, the trainer looked at her students one last time. By the expression on her face they could tell she was about to say something significant.

Her velvet voice had sold millions of sheets of the softest bathroom tissue known to mankind. Anything that came out of her mouth was as good as gold. Star-struck, the students all listened like attention-deprived orphans, waiting to get one last bit of tough love.

“People,” she said, as she took stock of her class, “this weekend was just the beginning. Now it’s up to you to go out there and break a leg. Make me proud! Audition as much as possible. It doesn’t matter what for. If you can’t make it, fake it. It’s a numbers game. The more you audition, the greater the chance you’ll eventually get hired. If I can do it, you can do it!

I mean…. never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined that my biggest achievement would come from the smallest room in the house. But didn’t the Romans coin the phrase: ‘Pecunia non olet’? Take it from me: once you’re on a roll, you just keep on rolling… wherever your destiny leads you.

Now, before you go, be sure to check out the table with my products. Only today they’re 15% off. And if you sign up for the next seminar, you are eligible for an early bird discount. All credit cards are welcome.”

TRAINING TALENT
Business was booming. As the economy went down the drain, enrollment for voice-over trainings was up. Kindergarten teachers, homemakers, librarians, retired car salesmen, fired call center assistants…  All of them had a dream: to become the next Don LaFontaine.

Don had it made. Working from home or being chauffeured from studio to studio in a limo: that’s the life! No need to learn lines. A glorious set of vocal chords was all that was required. And a membership to one of those online casting sites of course.

But a few months after the training, things were not going as advertised. Take John, for instance. He used to work for a local radio station, until a fund drive didn’t go so well. “But,” said John, “at least I have a background in broadcasting.”

John sent out about 12 to 15 auditions a day, and hadn’t had one single bite. He’d spent a small fortune on the set-up of his home studio, and it was about time he got some return on his investment. When he called his trainer for some advice, he got an assistant on the line.

John explained that he hadn’t been so lucky lately, and asked her what he should do. “Sir”, she said, “How about I sign you up for our next seminar? It’s called “Winning Auditions” and that will really take you to the next level. But if you can’t make it, you should definitely buy the CD, recorded at a live training in Vegas. It’s powerful stuff!”

IT’S A MYTH
John’s story is not uncommon. He had fallen for a fallacy: the idea that you should audition as much as you can if you want to break into the business. And if things don’t work out, no problem. Doing demos is great practice! Really?

I’m not buying it. It reminds me of the exit of one of the participants in a conducting competition. He was a young guy who already had spent a great deal of time in front of various orchestras. Yet, after the first round of the competition, the jury decided to send him home.

“How is that possible?” the young conductor wanted to know. “I probably have more experience than the majority of the people in this contest.”

“Experience, yes” said the chairman of the jury. “But there’s good experience and bad experience. I’m afraid your experience wasn’t very good. Have a nice day.”

A SLIDING SLOPE
In my mind, you practice to audition; you don’t audition to practice. Take the Olympics. If you’ve been glued to the TV as much as I have been during the last Winter Games, you’ve noticed that competitions usually start off with qualifiers. Some athletes will tell you that these qualifying rounds are actually more stressful and demanding than the real thing. It’s during these qualifiers that you have to prove to the world that you’re worthy of a top spot. That’s not where you learn it. That’s where you earn it!

What would happen if Lindsey Vonn would go into a qualifier with an attitude of

“It doesn’t really matter if I don’t make it. I can at least look back on some great practice rounds.”

It’s a totally different mindset. A very different energy. It will never get you on the podium.

NUMBERS DON’T ADD UP
The secret to winning auditions doesn’t lie in how many you can crank out. Anybody can do ten a day, even my talking parrot. Ultimately, it’s a matter of quality, not quantity. And in order to deliver quality, you need to be qualified and that’s where practice comes into play. Practice and training.

No one would dare to audition for a Broadway show after a two day tap dancing seminar, no matter how famous the teacher might have been in his day and age. It’s simply ludicrous. They’d never let you back in.

And that’s what could happen if you start sending demos to every producer who’s posting a job that vaguely meets your criteria, when you’re not ready and when you’re not really going for it.

If you can’t nail it, you will fail it.

That’s not something they teach you at that 2-day voice-over class, is it? It gets even worse. In a weird way, it’s often easier for us to remember the bizarre and outrageous. One stupid mistake in one race can haunt an athlete for years (think of Dutch skater Sven Kramer).

One dumb demo can ruin your chances for a long time. That’s why it’s so important to be selective; to be prepared and to give it all you got… and then some.

THE NEXT CHAPTER
Radio Station-John didn’t buy that voice-over seminar CD recorded in Vegas. He didn’t sign up for the next training either. Instead, he had a professional critique his demos and he worked one on one with a coach to get rid of his “announcer voice”.

He no longer auditions for every job on the voice-over planet. In fact, something strange happened. The pickier he became, the more success he had. And instead of spending most of the day recording demos, he actually had time to develop a solid business plan.

John’s a smart guy.

He gave himself a second chance to make a first impression.

How about you?

Paul Strikwerda © 2010

PS Text-to-speech software is a blessing for some, but will it put voice-overs out of work? Find out in my next blog.

Back to www.nethervoice.com

Which orchestra was voted the best symphony orchestra in the world?

Eminent music critics asked themselves that same question at the end of  2008. They narrowed the list down to twenty. Last year, the renowned British music magazine “the Gramophone” published the results.

The famous Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra ended up in second place. But who came first? The New York Philharmonic? The “Wiener Philharmoniker”? The Chicago Symphony?

AN EARFUL
I just spent a few hours on-line listening to YOU… my colleagues, my competition, my inspiration. It was both frightening and enlightening. As I was clicking away part of my day, I was amazed by a number of things, going from Pay-to-Play to Pay-to-Play. This is what I found:

1. Anyone can sign up for a voice-over site these days, on three conditions:

a. you have to have a voice
b. you have to have a credit card
c. you have to have a computer and a mic

2. Fifty percent of the advertised ‘talent’ can’t interpret a simple script;

3. The same people don’t seem to know the first thing about recording either;

4. Amateurs who put themselves out there as voice-over pros, have a lot of guts, coupled with a deadly mix of unrealistic expectations, a lack of experience and the funds to invest in a pipe dream;

5. As I wrote in another article, foreign voices are often not as advertised. We still have Flemish speakers posing as Dutch talents, German speakers who are really from Austria, and Australians pretending to be Americans. Whatever happened to quality control?

6. Don LaFontaine is still very much alive, but he goes by many different names these days. Or is just every other American male voice-over talent riding on his coattails as they are trying to emulate the master?

PAYING THE PRICE
I must say that I don’t envy the voice-seekers who have to sift through over one hundred auditions to find the perfect voice for their low- or no-budget project.

Then again: they asked for it, so we shouldn’t feel too sorry for them. It’s the price you pay when you’re asking every Tom, Dick or Harry to tape a custom demo for that cheap frying pan you’re trying to sell on late-night cable television. You often get what you pay for… frying pan, voice-over talent, it doesn’t make a difference.

What do I make of all this, you may ask? Well, here’s what I think (and feel free to disagree)…

Having a microphone, a MasterCard, a laptop and a fantasy doesn’t mean one should be allowed to join a professional site, no questions asked. We have websites for amateur dog breeders, amateur sports people, amateur musicians… why not design a site dedicated to amateur voice-over artists? I bet you’ll make a lot of money in the Odesk-market segment. It could be a kind of Bargain-Bodalgo.

Don’t get me wrong. Hobbies are wonderful things. My neighbor takes great pictures, but he wouldn’t dare to advertise himself as a professional photographer, nor should he. National Geographic would immediately show him the door.

A friend of mine is not a bad trumpet player, but if he were to audition for a real job in the music industry, he would never make the first cut (and he knows it). Apparently, those stringent standards don’t seem to be in place in certain segments of the voice-over industry. Why not?

THE PROBLEM BEHIND THE PROBLEM
As long as some sites make most of their money through subscriptions, more members means more money. It’s a business model, not a charity. It’s a model that essentially values quantity over quality. The only way to go, is to grow.

Let’s be honest. The voice-over market is pretty much saturated at this moment. You don’t need a degree in economics to realize that a greater supply in a weakened market can only mean one thing: tumbling prices.

The best way to speed this process up, is to have suppliers engage in a furious bidding war. Darwin would have named it: “Survival of the Cheapest”. Isn’t that exactly what is happening? And if you don’t believe me, why is it so hard to buy products that are not “made in China”? Before we know it, all of us will be replaced by IVONA speech synthesis technology. It’s almost as good as the real thing and I bet it’s a lot cheaper.

NO CURE NO PAY
If it were up to me, I’d rather have a performance-based No Cure No Pay-system in place. Out with the premium, platinum and titanium memberships. From now on, voice-over sites should get paid when I get paid. And the only way I get paid, is when voice-over sites do their job and connect me to reputable voice-seekers that are ready to pay reasonable rates.

Perhaps that will make the Pay-to-Play’s more accountable and selective in terms of whom they’re willing to represent. Perhaps that’s the way to separate the wheat from the chaff. Let the dabblers do their thing. As long as they stay in their own league and stop messing with my market.

PROFESSIONAL STANDARDS
Secondly, I’d like to see these websites publish and uphold certain professional standards, very much like SaVoa’s accreditation criteria. Accreditation comes from the word ‘credo’, which means “I believe“. Although related, ‘credo’ is not the same as ‘credit’.

Our belief in someone’s talent should be based on professional principles, instead of on the spending limit on their credit card. So, let me ask you this:

1. In your experience, are you aware of any professional standards that are promoted and actively upheld by Pay-to-Play sites?

2. If the answer is “yes”, are you happy with these standards, and are they well-advertised and implemented?

3. If the answer to the 1st question is “no”, do you think that voice-over sites should adopt, publish, promote and maintain certain standards?

4. Should talents be denied membership, if they don’t meet certain basic criteria of professionalism?

5. Would it make sense to create a special category for amateur voice actors, or even a dedicated website? Or do dilettantes have no business being in our business?

6. What’s the best and most fair way to compensate P2P’s for their services? A subscription fee? A percentage of  what you’re making for a particular job?  A combination of both?

AND THE WINNER IS…
One question remains.  For that, we return to the quest for the best symphony orchestra in the world. The votes have been counted. The sealed envelope is opened as the audience collectively holds their breath. And the winner is….

the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra from Amsterdam

Why? Because their standards are higher. After a grueling audition process, the Concertgebouw only hires the cream of the crop; well-trained people playing the very best instruments. No amateur fiddlers. The Gramophone’s editor James Inverne, put it this way:

“It is hardly possible any more to recognize particular orchestras by their individual sound. I think that with some orchestras, and the Berlin Philharmonic amongst them, that’s a bit of a worry. Whereas with the Concertgebouw you always know it’s the Concertgebouw. And I think that’s what has given them the edge amongst our critics.

Maybe it’s occasionally very slightly rougher than what the Berliner Philharmonic can produce, but it doesn’t matter, because they’re like a great actor bringing their own charisma and their own personality to every work, and always giving you the sense of the spirit of the work.”

Now, that’s what I call music to my ears! I’ll gladly pay to hear them play any day!

Paul Strikwerda © 2009

www.nethervoice.com

My next blog is a little more lighthearted, and I’ve invited Steve Martin, Peter Cook and Cyril Ritchard to add some  fun to the pirate party!