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Gravy For The Brain Goes Global

by Paul Strikwerda in Articles, International Leave a comment

Peter Dickson & Hugh Edwards ©paul strikwerda

When Hugh Edwards and Peter Dickson began creating a comprehensive resource for the voice-over community back in 2008, they had no idea that – some ten years later- their brain child would be all grown up, and ready to take on the world. Literally.

Based in the UK, Gravy for the Brain (GFTB) grew quickly, offering a mix of online courses, webinars, forums, live mentoring, voice-over tools, and social events. Based on a membership model, GFTB has helped over 41,000 people since its inception.

Right now you’ll find over 220 hours of content, practice scripts, a talent finder, a career planner, a rate guide, a resource library, and much more. It’s a one-stop shop to learn the ins and outs of the voice-over biz, available online at a monthly fee.

As their business grew and their knowledge base expanded, Hugh and Peter noticed that their customers weren’t only in the UK. Word of mouth spread quickly, and people began signing up in Australia, in the U.S. and in other parts of Europe. This became a bit of a challenge because most of the materials offered were based on British business practices that did not necessarily translate to other regions.

So, when the time came for another website update, the GFTB team gave themselves an ambitious goal: to make it accessible to all languages and cultures around the world by localizing every piece of content. This huge undertaking took a year and a half of planning, and fourteen people worked on it for thirteen months.

On January 8th, Gravy for the Brain V5 was launched, bringing faster website speed, an improved search function, an updated VO Career Planner, a brand new VO for beginners module, unique context specific tutorials, a podcast, and even an escrow service to tackle late payments.

Their latest and coolest tool is called V.O.I.D.  It stands for Voice Over Internet Database. This is a free, searchable global database of companies, service providers, casting agents, recording studios, VO tools, coaches, job sites, VO conferences, and more.

On top of that, Gravy for the Brain is building a network of independent GFTB sites for specific territories. The aim is to cover 25 languages in the next five years. Each site has localized courses, localized rate guides, and a team of local VO experts.

All these sites are linked, and share core functions. Members from any country can view content from any other country at no extra cost. So, if you’re in the States and you’re bidding on a French job, you can go to the French site and look at the rate sheet.

Each country and/or region has a territory controller. J. Michael Collins is the controller for the USA site. Sophia Cruz and Rona Fletcher are covering Latin America. That site will go live on March 18th. On May 29th, the French version is ready, with Stéphane Cornicard as controller. After that Sweden, Italy, Spain, Australia/New Zealand, and India will follow.

So, how much is all of this going to cost you? If you’re already a GFTB-member, this upgrade is free. If you’re thinking of signing up, the fee has stayed the same. For a limited time, GFTB is offering a special discount when you use the code GetGFTBNow. Here’s what you’d pay per month, without and with the discount:

There are no sign up fees or cancellation fees. If you’re a “try it before you buy it” kind of person, there are plenty of freebies on the website such as webinars, quick tips, and a mini VO course. A VO rate guide is also available for free, as well as blog posts, a reading speed calculator, a talent finder, and the Voice Over Internet Database.

When Hugh and Peter first launced their business, they wanted to offer a valuable resource designed to benefit the voiceover community, and raise the standard of the voiceover industry. This hasn’t changed. If anything, they have consistenly raised the bar adding more value every year.

One last thing.

I’m not getting paid to promote Gravy for the Brain. I just think that a GFTB membership is one of the best investments in your career you will ever  make.

You don’t believe me? Well, there’s only one way to find out…

Paul Strikwerda ©nethervoice

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The One Voice Awards: More of the Same, or Setting a New Standard?

by Paul Strikwerda in Articles, Career, International, Promotion 12 Comments
Peter Dickson & Hugh Edwards

Peter Dickson & Hugh Edwards

Oh no, not another voice-over award!

That was my initial reaction when I heard about the British One Voice Awards, coming to you at the end of April, courtesy of the people behind Gravy For The Brain Ltd.

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you know I’m rather ambivalent about artistic contests promising people a chance at winning some shiny object to brag about, and charging them for it. Could this be any different? Besides, I thought there already was a British award for voice-overs.

For the past twenty years, the U.K. has had the VOX Awards, celebrating “the best creative audio talent in the media and broadcast industries across 10 categories.” Circa 2013, the organization behind these awards was VOX National Events. Last November, VNE was acquired by Bubble Communications, a global PR, marketing, and events agency.

MORE OF THE SAME?

So, how do the One Voice Awards (OVA’s) try to set themselves apart from VOX, and other VO award shows, such as the Voice Arts™ Awards? First of all, the OVA’s are the culmination of the One Voice Conference in London that brings together VO artists industry-wide for four days of workshops, talks, networking, and lots of practice. 

Inspired by the setup of voice conferences in the U.S., creators Hugh Edwards and Peter Dickson have said they want to set a new standard for what a U.K. voice acting event should be.

Secondly, these awards are not open to any employees or relatives of the One Voice Conference team, or Gravy For The Brain Ltd. None of them can be nominated, nor win one of their own awards.

The OVA’s team writes:

“The One Voice Awards have integrity. Our doors are not open for corruption as the awards are independently judged by an extensive panel of industry leaders, anonymously.

The One Voice Awards doesn’t take advantage of nor monetise voice artists, therefore, the awards actually mean something. They’re free to enter. We do not believe in triple-charging you (submission fee, attendance fee & award fee) for winning an award that you deserved to win.

We are celebrating excellence wherever it lies across our incredible community. The One Voice Awards isn’t just about giving yet another award to big names, or those who can afford to put themselves in the running to win industry awards.”

BUILDING A BETTER MODEL

Reading these words, I felt gratified, because it seems Edwards and Dickson are addressing some of the very things I have pointed out regarding the Voice Arts™ Awards. When I asked Edwards about it, he had this to say:

“Not only do I subscribe to your blog, but also to your point of view. I think that they are the same viewpoints because we both believe in fairness to people. I also realise that we have an uphill battle to climb with perceptions of awards in general though. Some awards organisations manage it, some do not. My opinion of the whole thing is that integrity is absolutely key. I think that it’s very difficult to dissociate the monetisation and profiteering that happens with other awards that go on, with the benefits that awards can bring to people.”

Over fifteen hundred hopefuls entered the One Voice Awards, and a panel of judges narrowed this down to ninety-six finalists across thirty-one categories. Some VO’s were shortlisted in more than one category.

Hugh Edwards: “There is a reason why in some cases there are only three shortlisted nominations and in some seven in this year’s OVA’s: There were only three in that category that came up to a certain standard (and we are not profiteering to just let people buy table spaces to make up numbers), and in the other case of seven, some were tied in their excellence and there was nothing between them – and in this case we are not going to take away that achievement from someone by arbitrarily selecting one out of three to be removed from the list because it’s important for those voice artists to be recognised for their achievement.”

CHEAPENING THE INDUSTRY?

Some people in the VO business are afraid that because anyone can submit audio samples, and anyone can come to your conference, this opens the floodgates to amateurs who will cheapen the industry. What do you think?

Hugh Edwards: “I completely understand those concerns, and I’ll address them both individually. Firstly to the point of anyone being able to submit themselves to the awards, and even before that, the idea of self-submission which has been raised to me before too. I think many people think that the larger awards bodies, such as BAFTA, the Oscars, the Emmy’s and so on, look to the industry and choose the films/projects that should be submitted themselves, but this is not the case. Even with those huge awards, it’s the production companies who produced the films who submit their films for consideration to the awards, exactly in the same way that the One Voice Awards do – there is no shame in this, and clearly, we do not have some kind of ‘magic eye’ that can see across the talent of anyone who voices in the UK!

Then, with regards who can submit audio clips, it’s quite clear that having the awards open to everyone is the only fair way to do this – and if this were not the case, who would police who is a ‘non-amateur’ voiceover artist? Who would determine the requirements set to determine who is ‘professional’? BAFTA, for example, does not restrict anyone who creates a game from that game being submitted for consideration in the game awards, before proving that they have already developed 5 successful titles – no, the only criteria is that the work is excellent, and that’s the only way it can fairly be run.

If you take that one step further, with over fifteen hundred submissions, yes we did receive some work that was not up to current professional standards expected in the industry today, but this work quickly fell to the bottom of the pile, and the cream of the crop rose to the top, as you would expect it should.

So, the only negative consequence to opening the submission doors to everyone, is that it means more work for us to listen and judge everything, but it means only positives for the voice community, as the final shortlisted nominations are genuinely the best of the best, and far from being ‘amateur’. Remember: we believe in being fair to everyone involved, and no one should be restricted from entering.”

THE EVALUATION PROCESS

There’s no information online about selection criteria or judges, so I asked Edwards about the judging process.

Edwards: “To have belief in the validity of the judging process, you need to be able to see inside that process. We have started the dissemination of this to the public and will be unveiling it fully at the awards. However, we have built our system from the ground up (actually based on how I cast voice talent, interestingly!) and it has the following criteria:

– All submissions are listened to;
– All submissions are anonymised (so that judges are not swayed by ‘friendship’ voting);
– The identity of the judges is secret (to protect any ‘corruption’ attempts);
– None of the judges are aware of who any of the other judges are (to protect ‘collusion’ voting);
– None of the judges can see any of the other judges scores (to prevent any ‘historical’ voting).

The idea is to protect the integrity of the awards so that it is uncorruptable.”

Hugh Edwards

Hugh Edwards

CONFLICT OF INTEREST

What has been done to prevent potential conflict of interest?

Edwards: “Our system is a software-based one, and we can see exactly who has voted for what, and when. There is one judge who is a voice artist, who entered into, and was shortlisted for one category, and through mutual agreement she abstained from voting in that category, and we have proof of that. All other judges were entirely independent.”

When judging artistic contests, there are objective and subjective criteria. Sound quality for instance can be objectively established, but script interpretation can be a matter of individual taste. How do the OVA’s deal with subjective judging?

Edwards: “The way to fix this (as we have) is to provide a top-level spread of senior judges from across a broad range of industry, as well as including some senior level voice artists – the hirers and the do’ers. Our judges are experts in their field, made up of: five senior-level Voice Artists, a senior-level Voice Director, a senior ADR Director/Mixer for film and TV, the CEO of a Voiceover Agency, a Head of a Network Radio company, two Heads of Creative from advertising agencies, two senior Studio Engineers and two Heads of Creative from television companies.”

A PRIZE FOR BLOOPERS?

Some of the OVA’s categories are pretty straightforward: male and female voice-over artist of the year, best character performance in animation, best audio books performance in fiction and non-fiction. There’s also an award for best demo reel performance, and for best outtake of the year. I think that awarding a prize to the best demo reel is like having an award for the best headshot, or demo tape of an aspiring rock band. And do the best bloopers really deserve a prize?

Hugh Edwards: “The demo reel category is actually as much for the demo creators as it is the voice artists. They deserve that recognition as well. There are some great demo producers out there, but there are also so many sharks doing shit work in the demo industry that we wanted to show excellence in this area. I think that category is valid to be honest – it’s an area of the industry that is widely seen, widely charged-for and widely used so it shouldn’t be restricted. The bloopers one you may have a point on, but it is there to provide comic relief throughout the awards ceremony and lighten the proceedings to help make it an enjoyable experience. I will re-evaluate it once this year’s OVA’s are done.”

THE CYNICS AND THE SKEPTICS

I’ve been in touch with a number of UK colleagues, and I got the impression that not every talent is going crazy over these awards. Some have suggested that you’re taking advantage of newbies. Some of the more experienced voice actors don’t want to come to the conference because they fear they’ll be perceived as amateurs. 

Edwards: “I’m pretty shocked by this suggestion, as it is in our company ethos to do the exact opposite. I can only presume that whoever asked this has not actually seen inside (I’m presuming they mean) Gravy For The Brain (GFTB). Look at other training companies in the UK and the USA and you will see average prices for day-training courses between £200-£300 – that’s for one topic, one subject, one coach. Multiply that up by the number of courses you would need to get up to a professional level (e.g., a beginners course, an advanced course, some professional mentoring sessions, for example then, an audiobook course, a course on how to setup and run a studio and edit, a course on voicing commercials, a course on getting your business, marketing and branding right etc), and you’re well into the thousands of pounds.

At GFTB we charge £39 a month (often discounted to £29) for literally everything you will ever need, with no signup fee, no cancellation fee, and no minimum term. So if you’re a ‘newbie’ and you want to be with GFTB for 3 months, at which point you could have taken 16 courses, watched 35 hour-long webinars, received the 12 live mentoring sessions we would have run in that time, used our CRM, had your home studio checked out, and much more….that would have cost you £117 – which is less than half the price of most single-day-long courses out there. 

I would go as far as to say we are one of the only voiceover training institutions in the world that is not taking advantage of the new talent in the industry.”

Thanks for that mini-commercial. Now, what about the second point?

Edwards: “With regards to the questioner’s concern that “experienced talent may not want to come to the One Voice Conference because of a fear they will be perceived as amateurs“, we should take a look at the biggest voiceover conference in the world: VO Atlanta. I was at the (excellent) conference this year and last year, and was in the room when the organiser asked the delegates to hold up their hands if they were a beginner; it was about a quarter of the room in each case. I’ve seen our attendee list for One Voice (where we’re just under 2/3rds of the tickets sold, with 5 weeks to go), and based on the attendees I know personally, I would estimate that this ratio is about the same. About a quarter of the attendees are beginners, and the rest are not.

One of the things I love so much about the US conferences, big or small, is that there is a feeling that everyone in the voiceover community is in the community together. Just look at WoVO (World Voices Organization) in the States: What they are not doing is complaining about all the ‘newbies flooding the industry’, instead, they are using their experience and knowledge about the industry to help the industry as a whole, including the beginners. 

What’s frustrating about this comment is that in a few small pockets of the UK community, there is a feeling from some of the more senior artists of negativity against the newcomers to the industry. I find it frustrating because they were newcomers too once, and someone helped and trained them at some point. They have had their careers, and they are probably still doing well from it. I’m not sure if it’s fear of change on their behalf, a fear that the industry is being too far diluted, a fear that their incomes will be taken from them. But change to the industry has already happened, and will always happen. It’s going to change further, and surely the best way to deal with this is to embrace that change and move with it.

The newcomers to the industry are the voices of tomorrow’s industry, and we all co-exist together. We will always support the newcomers as much as we support the intermediates and the advanced VO professionals, but you most definitely should not be perceived as being an amateur for attending a voice conference that celebrates everything about excellence in the industry. 

I mean, we have the woman who voices the Oscars and the Superbowl there for goodness sakes – the two biggest VO gigs in the world – does that sound like amateur hour to anyone!!!?? It certainly doesn’t to me!”

One Voice AwardsTHE VALUE OF THE PRIZE

And finally, is winning a One Voice Award really a credit worth having?

Edwards: “Let’s take the Oscars as an example. Obviously, the winner of Best Picture at the Oscars has huge benefits to the sales and marketing of that particular film, and also to the studio as a whole, and it also benefits the other people who have worked on that picture. Importantly though, being shortlisted for the nominations is also incredibly important to those productions/studios/staff, and you will often see them use the fact that they are nominated (but didn’t win) in their marketing and PR. The same is true for voice artists.

Yes, the winners of the awards will be able to put that on their marketing and PR, but the nominees can as well. It’s not just about people liking shiny things, it’s a line drawn in the sand to say that this voice artist stands out above their peers for excellence in their category, and that reflects then throughout their career.

In the end it’s all about integrity. Once the industry becomes aware of how we are doing things to protect the integrity and why we are doing it, I suspect that its value will grow and grow. Our plans for the OVA’s and actually the entire conference extend beyond three years even as of now, so we are committed to this for the long term.”

The One Voice Conference is held between 26 and 29 April, and the Awards gala is on the 28th, hosted by Peter Dickson (click here for a full schedule). Joe Cipriano is the keynote speaker. Randy Thomas, J. Michael Collins, Peter Bishop, Marc Graue, Graeme Spicer, Jon Briggs, Trish Bertram, Anne Ganguzza, Armin Hierstetter, and Brian Bowles are among the presenters.

Are you going?

Paul Strikwerda ©nethervoice

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