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Rates for Voice-Over…?
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From the talent side…
Just for fun I did a year on Voice 123 as a VO talent.
Here’s my experience.
(Background. I’ve been doing pro viocework for a long, long time. I have a dedicated, custom built voice booth with a big Neumann Mic and a pristine recording chain.)
So I signed up. set up a workflow, and started getting scripts about two years ago. In the first week – my very first booked gig covered my Pro membership. So I thought it was going to be a breeze..
So I kept doing auditions.. For MONTHS. And while I got a LOT of top ratings, I didn’t book another gig for quite a while. I wondered why. I got bunches of 5 star top ratings, But I also got other ratings all over the place including 1, 2 and 3 stars. At first it baffled me. I didn’t expect all 5 stars at all, but there seemed to be NO objective relationship between the ratings I was getting and the the quality of the work I was submitting. I finally realized that while there is a rating system for the talent – there is NO rating system for the “Voice Seekers.”
I’m sure some of my results were simple mismatches – (he read this like an announcer and we want the guy next door) Fine. But I felt there were also voice seekers who were marking me one star, just because my sound didn’t fit. Essentially, not because the performance or the recording wasn’t professional, but because it just didn’t match what THEY arbitrarily wanted to hear. It kinda felt like someone rating a quality opera singer as 1 star, not because they weren’t a quality opera singer, but merely because they didn’t like OPERA at all. I resigned myself to it just being how the bulk talent system worked. OK. I can handle that. But then a really weird thing happened.
I very professional sounding client heard my narration reel and asked me to to a quick turnaround read that was kinda huge – like 60 single spaced pages of narration. He had a low, but not STUPID LOW) budget – and I wanted to get things going again with the service – so I said OK based on his sample script. Then I made a bad mistake, I got busy and had NO time to interact with him for about 48 hours. He had sent the huge script on day ONE with a note that unless he heard from me in 24 hours he’d consider the booking solid. When I finally got to the script – It was a NIGHTMARE! Technical gobbledygook peppered with lousy punctuation and incomplete sentences and stuff that simply made NO grammatical or objective sense. But he also was INFLEXIBLE on the deadline and told me he considered it a DONE DEAL and expected the work at the end of the next week “as agreed.” He was a piece of work.
I probably should have dived out, but I’m kinda weird about my reputation for following up on my agreements – and I felt the response delay WAS my fault, not his, so I buckled up and dove in.
It was a miserable week. I keep having to email him to clarify 15-20 things on every page. Half the time he’d say – “read another section and I’ll get back to you – I have to check with the content expert.” Who might have been a whiz at his subject for all I know, but could NOT write a cohesive script to save his life!
So the voice seeker has NO quality standards to meet – while the talent is RELENTLESSLY judged by these same people. Yikes. For you folks booking the gigs thats fine. If you get 50 submissions and 20 or them are CRAP, you just pick from the other 30. But for a talent, no matter HOW good you objectively are – clueless voice seekers can bring down your scores arbitrarily. It’s nuts.
After that was done, I think I got ONE more booking all year. As others have said here, there’s ALWAYS someone who will do the work faster or cheaper.(and to be fair, there is a trend these days for “I don’t want you to sound ANYTHING like a pro announcer!! but still have a great voice, perfect articulation and a great delivery – just – you know – more like an average REAL person!) ; )
At the end of the year, I couldn’t wait to leave.
And at some point, guys like me won’t put up with the hassles. The experience with it has spoiled online “talent services” for me.
Maybe there are other more “quality over quantity” services out there, but that experience sure left a bad taste with me.
If the internet is good at anything is screwing up the supply and demand curve. Because as the supply skyrockets into the “globe of vendors” space, the time and effort it takes to weed out the crap from the quality may rise more slowly, but it rises none the less.
My 2 cents.
Know someone who teaches video editing in elementary school, high school or college? Tell them to check out http://www.StartEditingNow.com – video editing curriculum complete with licensed practice content.
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[Bill Davis] ” I got bunches of 5 star top ratings, But I also got other ratings all over the place including 1, 2 and 3 stars. At first it baffled me. I didn’t expect all 5 stars at all, but there seemed to be NO objective relationship between the ratings I was getting and the the quality of the work I was submitting.”
Eh… yeah, that’s not surprising, Bill. You have to remember that a producer will rank with their “stars” system not at how good or bad a talent sounds, or how much potential they have, but how appropriate or likely they are to cast someone for this job. Nothing else. So don’t let that reflect on you. I’ve done exactly that… I tend to NOT hire “announcery” types because almost always I prefer a natural “guy next door” type. BUT, I still get lots of auditions from Voice of God type guys. In that instance they’d all get one star (if I bothered to rank them at all), even though some of them are terrific VoG type voices. It’s just in that case I’m looking for Don Cheadle or even a Don Knotts, not a Don Lafontaine. No reflection on their talent. The only mistake they made was not reading my project details closely enough where I likely specified “NO announcer-types.”
Here’s where it gets even crazier. For a looooong time I used the stars system for completely something else, not for ranking. I’d click two stars if I’d heard them already and wanted to listen again, three if my producer partner had already heard them, four if I had sent them to the client, etc… I was just using them sort of as check-box organizers because (and here’s the dumb-on-my part part) I had NO IDEA THAT TALENT COULD SEE THE RANKINGS. I thought those were just for producers’ use. It wasn’t until a talent (that I didn’t cast) contacted me and said “I know I wasn’t chosen but I saw you gave me four stars and was wondering in the future….” I was like “Whhhhhhhhhaaa?” They can SEE that? I had no idea. And some people were getting rankings that were in no way reflective of what I thought their talent was, or their cast-ability for a project. I felt like a complete horse’s rear… and we don’t do that anymore.
[Bill Davis] “If the internet is good at anything is screwing up the supply and demand curve.”
That is very true. It is not unusual at all for me to get 200+ auditions for a single job… and there will be plenty of bad ones but also plenty of great ones. There’s one guy who I LOVE (and have since used several times) and I asked him why he’d never auditioned for me before. He said “I never bother with projects where there are already 50 auditions or more.” In that case, he took a chance and did audition, and he got the gig over about 150 other guys… and we’ve since used him lots.
If I were a voice talent I’d hate the system with a passion… but as a producer it’s absolutely fantastic.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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[Todd Terry] “If I were a voice talent I’d hate the system with a passion… but as a producer it’s absolutely fantastic.
“There’s the rub.
The other funny thing is that like all experienced pros, I can do “non-announcer” at the drop of a hat as well. But you only have ONE chance at a submission in this system. So auditions likely listen to the first 10 seconds and move on if you guess wrong. Oh well.
(Also, I always kinda suspected that there were folks out there ranking talent on something OTHER than what we talent “thought” they were ranking us on. I’m Laughing in hindsight at how hard I often worked to do outstanding submissions, knowing now that there was probably someone like the “early you” on the other end rating me a 1 – for – He’s maybe “Voice 1” Rating someone else 2 for “She’s Maybe Voice 2” and 3 for “Maybe for the Tag.” And again from the talent perspective, it was almost worse when I’d spend 20 minutes every day dialing in 3 or 4 submissions, only to have one “seeker” a week give me any kind of rating at all.
Essentially, the issue is will this type of system attract and nourish the next generation of top talent the way it works? I’d say not. And the really sad thing is if it continues this blind and broken system, how will new talent thats potentially REALLY good – ever be able so work enough to develop into being great? I had plenty of years when I was starting out when I was able to go from “decent” to “dependable” to “professional” by virtue of working all the time in a relatively small local talent pool. Nowadays I suspect that the talent landing 3 spots a year because they are constantly competing with 1000 other voices for every gig – will just give up. And if so, the talent pool may get pretty shallow for the producers of the future.
And so it goes.
Know someone who teaches video editing in elementary school, high school or college? Tell them to check out http://www.StartEditingNow.com – video editing curriculum complete with licensed practice content.
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[Bill Davis] “And if so, the talent pool may get pretty shallow for the producers of the future.”
Quite the opposite. I think that the talent pool will grow deeper, and its talent will vastly exceed anything you imagined possible. I think its happening right now.
And hardly any of them are finding jobs.
THAT’s the thing. Youngsters today are growing up with astounding tools, and while they may not have the same degree of experience, things like After Effects and video editing are their native languages. They don’t need to overcome the pre-digital transition bullshit that you and I (and the rest of you geezers) had to overcome.
I mean, we harass the kids (and their NLEs of choice) with “sk8tr boi” tags, but I look at kids that got their start at Creative COW like Andrew Kramer, who turned the industry on an entirely new axis by 22. At 23, he was doing titles for JJ Abrams Star Trek.
I look at (then) kids like John Daro, who taught himself After Effects from COW tutorials, and worked his way up to Senior DI Colorist at FotoKem running Pablo before he was 30.
I look at Kylee Peña Wall, who came out of school doing corporate videos for a tiny gypsy trucking recruiter, made her pilgrimmage to Biscardia and is now in Hollywood as the Workflow Supervisor for BOTH the highest-rated 18-49 drama on the nation’s most-watched network AND a Peabody Award-winning, Emmy-nominated, groundbreaking show on the CW.
DUDES, she’s managing TWO 22 EPISODE NETWORK TV SHOWS. Not as an editor. Dudes, she manages post supervisors AND production supervisors and she builds set to distribution workflows.
She’s not 29 yet.
I don’t think u ppl have any idea how much better these kids are today than any of us will EVER be before we go down to dust. They’re smarter, they’re more skilled, they’re more driven, and they are HOT.
And they’re underemployed.
That’s a problem for them. It’s not a problem for the talent pool. I don’t have any platitudes about “the best of them will find a way,” because it’s a lie we should be ashamed for still telling. But it’s true that some of them DO find a way, even if just as Capital District tokens plucked for the palace by President Snow .
But for the talent pool, no.
On the flip-side, a whole nother rant, the idea that are no jobs in this field is preposterous. The owner-operator-everything shops that many of us came up in, or are still in, those are inarguably going away. There may be 500 of us left.
But there’s so much new TV being produced that entire new channels are being created solely because there are too many new shows to fit on the original channel. Not that they’re as great as the shows that Kylee is running, but they’re real live TV. We’re just NOW starting to fulfill the promise of cable TV in the 90s, to have thousands of editors working on an exploding number of new channels and platforms (Amazon, Netflix, and beyond).
Sorry for the rant, but I don’t wanna hear NUTHIN about no dark future for anybody but ourselves, we dinosaurs, because the small mammals are already running us over, and their future is bursting with potential.
We just gotta figure out how to unburden them from college debt that’s 30 times what any of us had to deal with, and how to pay them enough that they can afford to rent someplace besides their old bedroom that their mom had already turned into a sewing room.
But again, that has nothing to do with any shallowness in the talent pool.
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With technological advancements allowing anyone to record great audio in their master bedroom closet (quietest room in a McMansion) all they need is a music stand, bar stool and popper stopper, it’s opened up the market for anyone with pipes to throw their hat in the ring, as you unfortunately know. This creates a flood of oversupply and I for one find it daunting to wade through. Whenever I have done online auditions I usually cut it off at ten and they have had to be in the biz for a longtime, I can’t fathom 50 responses.
For my longest running client we had a female VO narrator and she recorded in the editor’s spare bedroom usually. Sometimes a PITA to schedule. So for perhaps 13 years she was “the voice” of the client. She was (is) a tech phobe so she did not want to buy her own closet rig for her McMansion. Well, one time the client needed a revision, just a couple of words changed in mid sentence, but this soon became a full on re-record charge. That was what made me look around and I discovered Voice 123 and it’s closely named competitor. Although the New Gal has sibillance that drives my editor nuts, the client claims not to notice and so now I have someone who can drop in a few words No Problem. I tell her to save her settings. She’s not cheap but if it wasn’t for that site how would I have found her? I do get several VO artist spams a month and I drag them to a folder “in case” I need new VO but wow, these sites make it easy.
The Old Gal is also an on-camera talent, actress, model, singer, etc. so her VO work is pin money. I don’t see how someone could make a real living at it unless they were union and got picked up by a major brand as their voice? Residuals, etc.?
I just shot a series of 20 two minute training and installation videos on how to service and install complicated robotic (God forbid anyone hires a human) machines that pack prescriptions. The client actually used someone from their factory: Monotone, blue collar sounding, raspy. But hey, it fit the bill right? And saved them what, $1000-$2000?
I’ve produced some industrials where the client company actually posts an intra-company contest to see who wants to narrate the new video.They make it a fun thing. Hopefully find some theatre majors. Then I cut a hour out of the shoot day, find the quietest room at their facility and with my furnie pads and popper stopper and record an amateur’s VO. Even if it sounds less than par acoustically by our standards these clients can’t tell once a music bed is underneath. I’m trying to remember the last time we used a booth? When I think of styles coming and going in my end of the biz (camera work) if I was to put my finger on what today’s style of VO is I’d have to say Authenticity. Real authenticity, as in real people, our people. My clients don’t want a pro narrator to play down his VOG persona but rather to get Real People. Perhaps it is masking that they can’t pop for $600 for a talent and record session? But when I do a bid I ask if they’d like a professional narrator and the response is usually, “No, we’re good.” Just like when I ask if we should get a writer involved. “Of course not! We can write. Geeeeze…”
So maybe Tim’s right and we’re dinosaurs but wow, did we make great money before this interwebby thing was invented by Al Gore. Not only do I know biz was better but I think life was better too. I just got back from flying to many cities and it’s so depressing, everyone in the gate area waiting is looking at their screen. We used to talk to each other! Even to our airplane seat mates. Or in the barber shop. Or in the bleachers at Little League. Oversupply of vendors is a horrible thing when you’re trying to make a profit, ain’t it?
Lastly, for those proponents of “anything that makes searching, creating competition and driving down costs with the internet is a Good Thing”, or what I call Darwinian Capitalism, if you want to see how online crowdsourcing has messed up the birds and the bees, read this fascinating Vanity Fair article about why twenty-something guys don’t need a girlfriend anymore:
https://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2015/08/tinder-hook-up-culture-end-of-dating
And explain to me how all is has changed life for the better?
It’s destroyed rates for shooting, editing and VO work so I’ll gladly take it back to 1985!
Ned Miller
Chicago Videographer
http://www.nedmiller.com
www,bizvideo.com -
Yeah I get it.
Everyone lives on crumbs except the lucky few who accidentally arrive at the nexus of some viral whatever and have a million lemmings throw a multimillion bitcoins at them for 24 hours.
Then they waste all those bitcoins thinking they have a “sustainable” business if only they can build a fancy edifice and give all their buddies jobs, After all, they heard that’s how you get mega rich right? Doing what was successful over and over again?
But most of them can’t. So the bitcoin pile shrinks in a few years. And they’re back to hustling like the rest of us.
It was stupid and silly the old way – where you followed one of the older shop guys around – learned the shortcut lessons that the guys who came before you figured out – and therefore got to add your burgeoning wisdom to theirs and grow.
Now it’s just look it up on google before you go out and try sell it to someone else.
Progress, right?
Live dirt cheap and keep as MUCH money as you can while they’re riding you hard, youngsters.
Cuz the game isn’t to help you get ahead. It’s to run you til you drop so that that somebody on top gets a stupid big pile of shekels so that they can show up at the fundraiser with a super impressive car that costs more than every single one of your ancestors made during their entire lives.They want you to believe that someday it can be you!
Yep. We’re in the storytelling business.
Welcome to the 2000’s! Now get back to work!
Know someone who teaches video editing in elementary school, high school or college? Tell them to check out http://www.StartEditingNow.com – video editing curriculum complete with licensed practice content.
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