J. Michael Collins

A few weeks ago, I spoke about Voice123 and the issues encountered by users of the site. At that time, I approached the re-launch from a glass-half-full perspective, believing that the positive things I was being told behind the scenes by Voice123 leadership would bear out over time.

I will not defend the rollout of the new version. We may not fully grasp the technical challenges faced by the Voice123 team, the complexity of the work being done on things that, to us, seem like they should be simple fixes, or the staffing and manpower issues that this company faces. Nevertheless, as paying customers who represent the site’s sole source of revenue, I think we can all agree that Voice123 talent deserved better, both in terms of functionality and communication.

As of right now, there are still many issues that are in flux and that need to be fixed. I will address those shortly.

For the moment, however, I am pleased that I can report some good news today.

Since the rollout, I have been in constant contact with Voice123 CEO Rolf Veldman and other team members and have been feeding back all of the concerns I have seen posted online and my issues and perspectives. As you can imagine, these conversations have sometimes been heated, though cordial. Ultimately, however, promises made to me are beginning to be kept.

About Voice123 Changes

Platinum talent will be pleased to learn that as of just a few hours ago, the system for inviting Platinum talent to jobs has been restored to its previous form, in that all Platinum talent will now receive all job postings that match their profile the moment they are posted, at the same time, regardless of where Voice123’s algorithm may “rank” a given talent. While this affects only a minority of Voice123’s membership base, it represents a major promise fulfilled by management, restoring the value to a tier that elite talent is paying between five and six thousand dollars a year to be a part of. Note that this will apply only to jobs posted since the change was made today, so if you are a Platinum talent, there may still be a few stray jobs in the queue posted earlier but are only now being approved. Those will still be governed by the sorting algorithm. About 75% of the jobs I’ve been invited to in the past few hours have reflected the change, which should increase to 100% over the next day.

The watermark that Voice123 had added to auditions has been removed as of yesterday. It may be replaced with something optional or less obtrusive at some point.

Right-clicking functionality has been restored as of late last week.

There seem to be far fewer network errors and bugs, though some stray ones are still popping up.

What Still Needs Work

Naturally, these fixes have not resolved all of the issues talent has been experiencing. The biggest outstanding question is how buyers are outlining usage in their posts. I’d love to see them go to a simple and mandatory check box system, but they continue to resist this idea. However, they are planning to adjust things in the coming days and weeks to try to steer clients to give more information, which could take many forms. I’ll report back when I know more, but rest assured that I continue to hammer at this issue in every meeting, along with many other members.

Next up, in my opinion, is removing the mystery surrounding how their algorithm is sorting audition distribution for Premium subscribers. I believe we are getting through to them on this, and hope and expect that a webinar from Voice123 with precise detail of the algorithm’s principles and functionality will be forthcoming. Paying talent have the right to know how the system works. For the moment, the best advice for Premium members continues to revolve around being highly selective in your auditioning choices. Keep an eye on the Invitations tab when you click on a job, where you’ll find your rating (top ten percent, the bottom fifty percent, etc..) This is not visible to the buyers, but it will help you determine whether the way you are using the site is working or not vis-a-vis the algorithm.

The questions surrounding budgets listed as “up to” and the controversial “negotiable” toggle are being addressed. Whether these are removed or more options are added, (such as a TBD button and the ability to add text to the quote box, or even a restoration of the previous budgeting choices,) is not yet certain, but the proactive questions I’m getting suggest that this is an important action item for them based on our feedback.

General functionality issues are very much on their radar. Given the workload, I expect these will be resolved slowly but surely.

What You Can Do

Don’t stop giving them your feedback through whatever methods are available. When you run into bugs, report them. Make your voice heard.

Things are not perfect. They may not be for some time yet. But I am deeply heartened as I look out over the online casting landscape at the moment to see the voices of talent affecting change. Sites are communicating with us about the things we find important. Some of the greatest transgressors are perhaps seeing the error of their ways. New players are popping up with previously unseen frequency and committing to transparency and ethical conduct in unheard-of ways five years ago. This is because of you. Because you refuse to be silent. Because you refuse to allow our industry to be swallowed by the gig-economy maw that has consumed so many others. Because you have the courage to stand up and declare your worth. Because you have recognized that while the march of technology can’t be stopped, it can be mastered and controlled when we stand our ground. Don’t stop now. The future of this industry belongs to all of us.

It’s been a heckuva year. In addition to a growing voiceover workload, 2018 saw me involved in almost every major VO conference, hosting two EURO VO Retreats and working aggressively to further build the JMC DEMOS production brand. People could easily be forgiven for thinking that I crave big events and moments. You might be surprised to know how often I turn to my very patient wife and voice longing for the days when I was just a fairly anonymous monkey in front of a microphone. I’m supposed to be on vacation at this moment, and I’m writing a blog at 11 PM.

The truth is that what I crave is productive stimulation…..a sense of moving forward, both in my own business and for our industry at large, which faces so many worries on a daily basis. The worries drive me more than anything else, and what they drive me towards is a defiant need to showcase the other side of the VO coin: The greatness and success involved in so much of what we do and its continued attainability for anyone with the requisite talent and business sense. This drive leads me to seek out other industry forces equally committed to demonstrating that the worries, while not without merit, can be overcome.

Working in a business constantly morphed and squeezed by technology and changing client demands, where we are treated like celebrities by one buyer and gig-economy shoe gum by the next, can easily breed a healthy skepticism of anything that links VO to glitz, glamour, and razzle-dazzle. Sometimes this healthy skepticism grows into chronic cynicism, which can lead to taking a jaundiced view of sincere attempts to celebrate our business.

Here’s a news flash: Very few things that happen globally, our industry included, are purely altruistic. People create big events to make money. The best ones focus so much on creating value that the cost is a no-brainer. Galas and celebrations involve major overhead and jockeying for exposure. But they can also bring our community together to take stock of all that we have accomplished and to revel in the success of our friends (and yes, sometimes our own.) Scholarships and grants and “giving back,” whenever done publicly, has an image benefit for the organizers and contributors, to be sure……but someone still receives a life-changing opportunity. Big personalities sometimes enjoy the limelight a little too much…..but they may choose to use that platform to make things better for everyone whenever possible.

Over the past decade, our industry has been attacked by entities genuinely interested in subsidizing their own profit by abusing our good nature. There remain far too many companies and service providers out there offering mediocre products to unsuspecting new aspirants hoping to make it big. The VO sea is replete with real predators. However, the hype is sometimes justified, even if it’s a little over the top. I believe our business needs a little bit of fireworks to remind us just how lucky we are to get to do this every day. I’m proud to walk with those who put on some of the greatest shows in VO, and I hope they will continue to strut their stuff while lifting us all up. And if we pop up in your newsfeed a little more than you’d like, I beg your continued indulgence.

Recent events in the voiceover industry are making transparency” a hot topic again. This term was the watchword over the great controversies that began enveloping Voices.com a few years ago. Voices’ greatest sin wasn’t dipping their hands deep into the kitty on managed jobs, (which is not to excuse the practice, but various forms of such activity have existed in the industry for years,) but rather their utter unwillingness to plainly state what they were doing, why, and how. Like in politics, it’s usually the coverup that does the most damage, and Voices’ loss of prestige and community buy-in was largely rooted in their rapid shift from a friendly, customer-oriented, responsive little company into a wannabe behemoth that only spoke in cold corporate platitudes while appearing to be hiding things from inquiring members. This should be a lesson to anyone selling services to talent, whether they are a casting site, a management company, a coach, a demo producer, or service provider.

When talent puts money on the table, we demand absolute transparency. If you are a casting site, we expect to know precisely how your system operates, down to the finest details. You don’t have to give us the coding to your algorithms, but if your site uses algorithms to determine how auditions are distributed (and for those paying attention, the reason bodalgo.com and VO Planet are so highly regarded is that they don’t go in for such things, in addition to their general attitude,) we expect you to share precisely how those algorithms are weighted, the principle behind using such algorithms, and exactly what talent should or should not do to place themselves in the most advantageous position. We expect you to be able to give a reasonable estimate of how many auditions talent at various membership levels will receive each day, and whether there are any limitations or considerations when it comes to how many can be replied to.

Suppose you are in the business of taking commissions. In that case, whether you are a casting site, talent manager, agent, or another animal, we expect to know how much you are taking, how that process works, and whether it varies from one job to the next. If the reality varies from what we have been told we expect an explanation, and where appropriate we may demand a full or partial refund if we feel like the product we received differed from what we were sold.

Coaches should be fully transparent about their schedules and their areas of expertise. If you know you can only offer one session a month, don’t set an expectation of one per week. If a talent is excited to learn character voices for video games and your area of expertise is E-Learning, pass the business on to a qualified colleague, and tell the talent why. Do your due diligence when evaluating a new coaching client and be prepared to offer a reasonable professional estimate of how much coaching they should need to be ready to compete.

Demo producers should be able to offer a clear timeline for delivery and a detailed explanation of their process. They should also, in my opinion, be willing to offer a money-back guarantee on their work if the talent isn’t satisfied with the final product.

Transparency doesn’t come with terms and conditions. Corporate speak isn’t transparent. If you take money from talent, you have an obligation to be completely open about what they are and are not getting for their money.

The number of competent professional-grade talent is far smaller than most people think. Service providers would do well to remember that when they choose how to approach and communicate with us.

I had the opportunity for an extensive chat with Voice123 leadership this morning. As you can imagine, they are busy working multiple shifts, including overnight, to stabilize the platform and reply to talent and buyer concerns. Here are a few of the highlights on updates from Voice123:

1.) The Accept/Decline feature does not impact your ranking, regardless of your membership level. The ability to delete jobs without “declining” each one is something they are working on. They reiterated that accepting jobs that are a poor fit could lead to less favorable feedback from buyers, which may impact future invitation numbers for Premium members.

2.) Regarding usage details within a project, they indicated that Voice123 did testing on client behavior that indicated clients were more likely to post detailed information about usage in the project description field if they weren’t given tons of checkboxes and drop-down options when posting the jobs. They monitor this and include language in the project description field, encouraging clients to be as detailed as possible about usage.

3.) It was acknowledged that the purpose of the “negotiable” toggle might be confusing. It has been suggested that this could lead to more bidding wars and a race-to-the-bottom mentality. They indicated that the purpose was that, by leaving it off, talent would have the ability to present their bid as non-negotiable to the buyer (that is the language the buyer sees.) They indicated that they will be adding a TBD box as another option.

4.) Right-clicking will be coming back at some point once higher-priority items are resolved.

5.) They are working to improve filtering and managing the inbox.

6.) The ability to search by project ID is being looked into.

7.) Platform loading times/glitches/errors are a top priority and are being worked on around the clock.

8.) Budgets will be added to email notifications.

9.) Some jobs currently accept more submissions than requested (25/10, etc.) They are working on this bug, but they assured me that for the time being, clients will see ALL of these submissions, even if it is more than requested.

10.) The watermark is being reviewed.

11.) The project description and client notes will be moving to the top of the page.

12.) Auto-fill and templates for submissions are under consideration.

I was assured that Voice123 is listening and paying attention to the various threads on social media. Team members are working overnight to get things right. Our conversation was frank and candid, and I’m grateful they were willing to share all of this on the record. I’m looking forward to continuing to liaise with Voice123 leaders and the Voice123 team, and at this time remain very confident that they will have the platform functioning nicely over the next few weeks. Stay tuned for more updates!

A few weeks ago, Red Dead Redemption 2 was released to the world, featuring the voices of roughly half of our friends and colleagues, (and much congratulations to them for their amazing work.) This Old West-themed video game takes place across a stunning landscape where law and order is more theory than fact, and where those who don’t keep their wits about them often find themselves in a pine box. The VO industry is a bit less cutthroat, thank goodness. We tend to support each other rather than fire our Smith and Wessons into our competitor’s backs, and identifying the guys with the black hats isn’t all that tough. The evolution of voiceover, however, bears a lot of resemblance to a world with few maps, fewer rules, and a lot of fool’s gold.

We’ve been waiting for the better part of a decade for some order to emerge from the chaos. The union took a firm guiding hand and imposed structure on the industry. A major Internet-age player consolidating the online space to create a dominant clearinghouse, hopefully operating on a meritocratic and transparent basis. Someone to lead us out of the wilderness and establish order.

Those things aren’t coming.

The union remains too focused elsewhere and too sclerotic in its processes, despite the best efforts of some of the leading lights in our industry. It’s been demonstrated that even with millions of dollars, consolidating the online space is too much for any industry company to bite off. And the business is saturated with gurus and messiahs ranging from the truly career-shaping to purveyors of the foulest snake oil, but none of whom have a one-size-fits-all answer for everyone.

The Wild West is Getting Wilder

One gun won’t keep your career safe in the new VO landscape. If all your eggs are in online casting, with a single agent or three, relying on SEO or strictly your own self-marketing, you’re at a disadvantage.

Agents are under pressure due to declining broadcast rates and an over-saturation of talent in the LA & NYC markets in particular. They are still the gatekeepers of the best work, but competition is fierce.

Online casting is morphing into an ever-more-diverse space featuring everything from honest matchmaking-only sites with numerous great jobs to corporate profit centers to start-ups, fly-by-nights, and gig-economy soul traps where you trade your voice for beer money. Figuring which is no easy task, especially if you don’t follow the constant buzz churn on social media. To effectively gain traction through online casting, mastering at least 2-3 sites is essential. No single site will sustain a career. The risk of having your income heavily weighted in a marketplace that may fail, run into reputational/ethical issues, or experience other shocks is to be avoided.

Self-marketing and cold-calling are the answer for many. Still, cold leads, by definition, pan out less frequently than hot leads, and not everyone has the personality or constitution to pick up the phone and sell themselves while experiencing mostly rejection. Cold-call clients can be loyal and lucrative, but it can take dozens of approaches before landing one, and discipline is critical.

The growing number of curatorial-minded buyers forsaking both traditional hiring avenues and online casting is a great source of walk-in work through your website, but SEO is a fine art that usually requires hiring a pro and an investment of time and money.

It’s enough to give a gunslinger fits.

Things aren’t going to change, folks, at least not for the time being. Unless and until the union or a much bigger online beast (think Google, Facebook, Amazon, etc…,) invests the dozens or even hundreds of millions necessary in structuring and dominating the voiceover industry, the West will continue to grow wilder. We’re a friendly lot, but we are playing at survival of the fittest and savviest, and if you want your career to be as strong or stronger five years from now as it is today, it’s time to saddle up and make sure you keep your wits about you. The VO world will only continue to change. Stay diversified. Keep your eyes on 3-5 years down the road. Anticipate what’s next. If you see the whole industry moving one way, see what might be down the opposite road or at least off a side path. Change is the only constant.

Are you ready?

It was the third week of a nearly month-long trip when my lovely wife Anna and I arrived in Los Angeles for the 2018 installment of the Society of Voice Arts and Sciences signature weekend featuring the That’s Voiceover expo and the Voice Arts Awards gala. We were joined by a gaggle of friends and colleagues who help make our various industry business ventures run smoothly, including JMC Demos Lead Audio Engineer AJ McKay, brilliant media manager Brigid Reale, and the multi-talented Jenn Henry who supports us in so many ways.

This weekend has become our annual pilgrimage and is always the highlight of our November. Over the past few years, we have witnessed both the That’s Voiceover expo and the Voice Arts Awards emerge as industry-defining forces, where careers are advanced and talent dreams come true as they are recognized for their hard and often lonely work. The glitz and glamor isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but I have come to see it as a much-needed boost for voice actors who are too often isolated in their booths, toiling day after day without recognition beyond that of appreciative clients. Our industry is packed with talent who deserves a moment in the sun, and the SOVAS weekend offers them just that.

That’s Voiceover, held this year at the Sheraton Universal hotel for the first time, was a tremendous start to the weekend. Easily the best iteration to date of this event, a well-laid-out space made for great networking opportunities throughout the day, and created a buzz and social dynamic that was a match for any event in the industry. Packed from start to finish with quality content, including the voice of Bart Simpson, Nancy Cartwright, and dozens of other industry leaders, the sense of enrichment gained by the attendees was clear. For the fourth year in a row, it was my honor to present the SOVAS Academic Scholarship, awarded to Paul Cartwright this year.

The festivities didn’t end there, though. Sunday brought possibly record sales for local makeup artists and hairdressers as voice actors from around the world made themselves red-carpet-ready. And the red carpet didn’t disappoint. Featuring celebrity power in the form of Sigourney Weaver, Rosario Dawson, Van Jones, and others, the who’s who of voiceover made themselves at home as they celebrated their various nominations and those of their friends. Joan Baker was stunned as always in a dress for the ages, and scores of dapper attendees made their way into the Warner Brothers Theater to witness an evening celebrating the best of our business.

It was a personal honor to see almost a dozen coaching clients nominated this year, and to watch Kabir Singh & Tara Langella, among others, walk away with hardware for their performances. The JMC Demos family was rewarded for another year of hard work as three of our clients, Dave Fennoy, Rosi Amador, and Jodi Krangle were recognized for Outstanding Promo Demo, Outstanding Commercial Demo, and Outstanding Narration Demo, respectively.

With another year in the books, the glamorous crowd took to the Warner Brothers lot for an epic after-party, where the vibe was unmistakably one of camaraderie and solidarity.

In an industry that is undergoing seismic shifts in the way we do business, and where interests not always aligned with what is best for talent are constantly encroaching at the margins, it is a privilege to have a weekend dedicated to raising a glass to those who make our business great, and to watching friends and colleagues bask in the limelight that their talent deserves. We can’t wait for 2019!