Saw this on all access

[chucktaylor]

Guys & Gals I saw this on All Access' Jobs board and thought I'd pass it along. I have nothing to do with this so please don't contact me with questions about it. Just trying to help out.

Chuck

A worldwide leader of in-store/point-of-purchase messaging is putting together a team of voices. We need a range of styles; male and female, younger and older. We need people with range; voice actors, not jocks. An ability to do realistic accents or charecter voices a huge plus. Each team member will be expected to turn scripts around the next business day. Must have access to a studio or recording equipment of sufficient quality. This is an ideal side gig where a few minutes each day could net you hundreds each month, but you must be the kind of person we can count on to get the job done.

Send a short MP3 demo (1-2 minutes) to auditionsample@gmail.com. Lead with your best stuff. We expect a huge response so we won't be able to acknowledge each submission, but we will contact you if we think you have what it takes

[JoeActor]

Thanks Chuck - never know where things will lead.

I sent off a short note.
If I hear back, I'll post more info here...
Joe

[jamestdawson]

Thank you Chuck!

[jsgilbert]

hmmm, a few hundred each month for a few minutes each day sounds like the kind of road to financial security that one could find working most any minimum wage job. And not just any old v.o. talent, they are looking to underpay people who have a range of abilties and can do character voices.

No matter how small the job, there is the necessity (and time involvement) of reading e-mails, perhaps auditioning, studying scripts, performing them, editing them, uploading, possibly doing corrections. Even a 30 second store promo isn't in reality an investment of "minutes".

And for the privilege of being an on-call multi-voiced, machina lingua, you get "hundreds" per month. Now let's just say that this is in the higher range of hundreds, perhaps $900. Divide that by 20 wordays and you are getting $45 as your compensation. Okay, for most of the people who are out there lurking with your unemployment checks and $69 USB microphone, this might seem good. Personally, I see the posting of "opportunites" like this and their acceptance a bit incongruous, especially given the amount of chatter on these boards about the lowballing and cheap gigs hurting the profession.

The sad thing is that these types of businesses are popping up and are strictly based on being able to provide a "cheap" service. It often means that some company who was paing people decent wages will be losing out on this work and simply represents increased profits in somebody's pocket.

I have a better idea, if this sort of thing appeals to you, move to Mumbai, whereby you could live quite well on this sum of money and since people already resent work being outsourced, we will no longer have people domestically that we can look down our noses at.

[JoeActor]

Thanks JS! I'm off to Mumbai!

(hello, my name is ... "Joe" - how may I be of service?)

[jsgilbert]

Alright, perhaps I was being a bit melodramatic.

As a producer, who may also be a competitor to a company like the one advertising here for talent, I striive to pay my talent well and to treat them well. When you enable someone like this, you hurt other people in the industry who are your supporters.

Just something to think about. Oddly enough I haven't had too much production work lately. Perhaps if I just started paying the talent @25 per job I might be more competetive. Well actually, there is a greater liklihood of me delivering newspapers before that happens.

I suppose this is what I should have said in the first place. The last couple of production jobs I di, I made considerably less than the talent, becuase i felt it was that important.

[chucktaylor]

J.S.
If I offended you or anybody else on this board by posting this I'm sorry. I know that with this economy, I'm living paycheck to paycheck and any opportunity to enhance that no matter how little looks enticing. I just felt I should pass that along in case anyone was in the same type of economic situation as I. Is this type of job the ideal no, but sometimes it's any port in a storm to feed your family!

[jsgilbert]

Timing, I suppose. I lost a bid with a client I've done quite a bit of production for over the past several years. To make a long story short, my bid wasn't even close. One of the guys there knows I'm a voice actor and thought he would do me a favor by referring me to the guys who won the bid. I didn't knw this and all I knew at first was that I got a call from someone looking at using me as a voice talent, who offered me what seemed to be a tiny amount of money for doing voice for something that seemed rather familiar.

When I pieced it all together, I realized that he was offering me $900 as the fee for one of the roles that I had allocated $3,500 fior the actor. There are about 17 parts total. It's a considerable amount of work and quite honestly I wish I could have budgeted more than $3,500. $900 is an outright insult.

Suckity, suck, suck. I'm not offended, but I do know that the actors I respect will take jobs working at hotels, restaurants, etc. when times get tough as opposed to simply accepting pennies on the dollar for voice acting work.

So, you see Chuck, you are part of a process that means less and less money and opportunity for actors when you devalue yourself. And by taking those low paying jobs, you send a message to guys that pay more which tends to make them less likely to want to suppport or hire you and simply tends to exclude you from the party.

[chucktaylor]

So, you see Chuck, you are part of a process that means less and less money and opportunity for actors when you devalue yourself. And by taking those low paying jobs, you send a message to guys that pay more which tends to make them less likely to want to suppport or hire you and simply tends to exclude you from the party.

Or maybe because I come from radio...and don't live in LA or NY and haven't got an agent....and don't want to get behind on my mortgage or see my eight year old daughter starve....I'll take anything I can to provide for my family...it's not devaluing myself...it's called stepping up and being a man and providing for your family.

I see your point I truly do, and I'm sorry that happened to you and yes it does as you put it suckity, suck, suck. But please don't confuse doing what I can to provide for my family (working a low paying retail job, doing my radio show and what little voice work I can find on my 2 days off a week, and mowing yards or what ever else I can do) with devaluing myself.

[JoeActor]

"Cain't tell what's in the pickle barrel 'till ya git the lid off'n it!"

The stated offer is very vague on the amount of work and the amount of pay involved.
For me, I'd rather roll the dice and wait to see what the real offer is.

After I hear it, if it's not to my liking, I can politely refuse - no harm, no foul.

If it's ok for me, then I've got another source of some income.

Only took 2 minutes to send them a note...

(meh)