Male African American Voice Talent

[Todd Terry]

Unless there is a very specific talent that we want to hire (i.e. Peter Thomas, Tim Russell), we get all of our voice talent from Voice123.com.

It’s awesome… and we’ve had a number of good auditions in the past from African American males.

You post your project, auditions come in, you pick the talent.

I can’t say enough good things about how well it works. If I have a mediumish-or-higher budget I’ll get tons of auditions within a day or two.

Once I had an almost no-budget project (a favor for a client, a phone message on hold). I posted the project at noon and by closing time at 5pm I had almost 50 auditions.

You will have to sign up, but it costs you nothing (the talent pays a fee to Voice123). You’ll put in your posting what type of voice you are looking for, budget, sample script and all that jazz. When the gig is finished you pay the talent directly.

It’s stunning how well it works.

T2

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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Mark Suszko]

Can you give a ballpark rate using this service, for a 30 commercial, or do they get paid scale, or what?

[Todd Terry]

Well Mark that’s one of the great things about Voice123… you pay whatever you want.

You decide (and post in the details) what your project’s budget is, and if any of the voice talents are interested, they’ll audition.

Obviously you will get better results (more auditions from the quality talent) with higher budgets, but you can even post no-pay pro bono jobs and people can respond if they choose. If there is a PSA for a cause that an actor has a particular connection with, they might do it for free.

I mentioned that no-budget project before… I think I literally only had $50 to spend and I got a number of quality auditions in.

Generally though we typically offer somewhere in the $300-400 range for a local :30 and get lots of auditions at that level (generally about 100 responses).

You can choose union or non-union talent (or no preference). If you choose union, obviously that will start at scale… but we always go the non-union route. Don’t get me started on how much I hate the unions…. even though I’m a card-carrying AFTRA-SAG member myself.

T2

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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Greg Ball]

Thanks! I tried Voice123. It seems like they have lots of choices!

[Todd Terry]

Yes Greg… you can go through their “stable” of talent and pick someone you like… but personally I always put out a casting call with them (they call it “Smart Cast” or something like that).

That way you only get responses from talent that fit your criteria, and who are willing to work for whatever budget you already have set.

It saves a ton of work, and I’ve never gotten anything less than excellent results.

You still have to weed a bit. If I get 80 auditions in for something, at least 20 of them will have me saying “Really? REALLY?? This is supposed to be a professional voice person?” Some of your results will indeed be terrible. But we’ve never not gotten a few great ones to pick from.

T2

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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Elton Jones]

Greetings, Greg!

I just joined the site at the suggestion of a friend. I am an African American VO talent. Please check out my site at https://www.burgunduvoice.com. I have done a number of PSAs that you can find as demos on my site. Please feel free to contact me at elton.jonesvo@gmail.com where we can correspond further.

I hope to hear from you. take care!

Eton E Jones
The Burgundy Voice, LLC
https://www.burgundyvoice.com
727-637-6698