Stirring It Up

[Robert Jadah]

Enough already! It's too quiet here.
Handshakes, curtsies and bows for everyone....adverts and sales pitches.
Heck, even JS Gilbert is doing his Marcel Marceau: even quieter than usual.
To cure the general bland niceness of this place, I'll begin.

Have You Noticed:

- that Voices.com's intro page has been headlining - this is paraphrased- 'Join 75,937 (or whatever) clients who found the Perfect Voice here' for over six weeks now? I mean, the number hasn't changed.
That explains a lot, no?

- that there is more hot air at other forums than at a gondola meet? Everybody talks a fair game, but I've heard from three voice seekers in two weeks that they're getting very solid work from extremely low bidders.
And I do mean...extremely.

- that the bigger, bolder 70's style VO is becoming more prevalent on national TV and radio ads?

- that nine out of ten voice coaches have absolutely zero demos and national work examples on their sites?

- that even voicebank.com now has many weak reels (including mine) on its rolls? The apocalypse is upon us.

- that I'm not really meant to be an agitator? But somebody has to do it.

Primingly Yours,

[Jon Morss]

I've been here. Where have you been? )8>O

[Robert Jadah]

Well, Jon...I'm only some 220 posts behind you (219 or so now.) I'll catch up to you by the end of March, and then ask you the same question.
Deal?

Challengingly,
rj

[WayneLHenderson]

Robert, you make a lot of good points in this post. Thanks for sharing the thoughts to ponder.
Wayne

[Jon Morss]

Robert -- Good luck...

-Voices.com- I may be suffering from a bad case of dyslexia, but from what I can see at 9:50 Pacific Voices.com is at 57,993. They must have lost a bunch of voices today, somewhere around 20k?

- Hot air in other forums? I only post on one other (I know, shame on me) and I don't see hot air there. Much fun to be had and plenty of good info. But, certainly not as much fun as this forum.

-Current VO trends- I'm hearing VO commercials sounding more like Promos or Trailers even with "Lush" as Rodney Saulsberry states it. Changes in the industry makes this whole thing interesting to me. I wish I could track it down though.

- VO Coaches without demos? I'm not sure which you speak of, but all of the VO coaches that I know have great demos and are plenty busy in the VO industry.

- voicebank.com - Another quote from Rodney S., "Beauty is in the Ear of the Beholder". What may be bad to you may be good to those who book talent. But, then again I guess you have to consider the source of the bad reels. I would be surprised if the top agencies listed on voicebank.com have bad reels. It could happen though.

- Agitator? I'm glad you did it and not me this time. Thanks for being so agitating.
Just kidding....

[JoeActor]

Good day to you Master Jadah.

How pleasant to find your countenance upon these premesis!

I must say that your promise to "Stir It Up" has been quite stimulating.
I would be happy to engage in some textual fisticuffs or pugilistic prose with you.

Have at you, Sir!

Yours in perpetuity,
Japeth of Antioch (Mrs.)

p.s. my nether regions are all a-tingle...

[Julie Williams]

Thanks for posting your observations!

I don't know of any national coaches who don't have any good stuff under their belt, but as always, you need to be careful who you train with. Get references. Make sure they're working talent with good references.

I haven't noticed a decline in national TV VOs...except on monster truck and car ads, of course... and I mute them.

As for Voices.Com's numbers on their web site, I think they do an incredible job, and if there's one aspect of their site that isn't always as updated as it should be, then I'd say, let's cut them some slack. You can't go by those numbers. They list talent "hired recently" but it's only talent hired through their payment system.

What is a fact is that they get LOTS of clients. I know because I know how much work I get... and I strongly suspect I'm not the only person getting work!

Stephanie is so busy creating some incredible resources for talent... like the new VoiceOver Times, her study on Entertainer's Secret, her Expert Podcasts, donating prizes wen we have a contest (like the New Year's contest) so I'd say, if there are a few numbers on the site that are not exactly updated... nobody's perfect!

I haven't listened to demos on voicebank.net... but I suspect some of my demos on there may be old. I'm sure all of my agents haven't kept that updated, and they're the ones who do that.

[Robert Jadah]

Thank you, Julie. I think.
By the way, I wasn't slagging Voices at all; they are now the most professional and best-run big voice site in the game. I was only joshing about their long-unchanged number of clients figure, and tieing it in with frustrated voicers such as I, who averaged a job per year there.

But since those Stir'em and Shake'em thoughts didn't do either, let's ramp it up a bit.

Have You Noticed:
- that about 85% of your personal web site hits are from other voiceovers?

- that telephony budgets are dropping like me at a beer-tasting tent? (62 individual files; different voices please; $87.)

- that Joe J doesn't say anything controversial?

- that Voice123 charges $295 per year to insult you, belittle you, and question your professionalism on every single lead?


Stirringly Yours,

[JoeActor]

Hey Robert,

Yeah, I've been insulted by V123 ever since Freddie left...

Did you know that 78.25% of all statistics are bogus?

Controversial? You want controversial?

Ok... Intelligent Design is NOT SCIENCE!
(well, maybe not controversial... more like depressing that it even needs to be stated)

Have at you!
Joe "controversial" Thomas
Joe J. Thomas Acting Portfolio

[TheVoiceofBob]

Imagine a world where there is no such thing as hypothetical situations.