'Pay 2 Play' - A Very Bad Way to View Auditioning

Although 'Pay 2 Play' is most likely a sarcastic term for 'paying to audition', it is still a very bad way to look at auditioning on the web.

As I am watching software change around me, in all businesses, I am seeing that the Internet is becoming less about 'playing' everyday. Sure, you have media sites that provide videos and news, but what must never be lost when using a site that you have paid to host your profile, and audition for, is the sense of urgency that this is still a 'business'.

It is often said that 'sarcasm' can be described as indirectly showing aggression by hiding the true feelings behind what would make a person vulnerable by revealing themselves. Quite often, I find 'P2P' used as a term by those who have the hardest time auditioning online. Therefore, it becomes a 'gamble'.

Yet...how is this entire business not a 'gamble' to begin with. A person could go to school for years for VO's, acting, singing, dancing etc. and it still does not guarantee they can work in the business, unless their original intention is to teach.

For those that feel that using the web to audition is 'playing', they will always find themselves missing work. The belief that one is 'at play' removes the sense of urgency that is necessary to 'sell something.' When you become too comfortable in your own settings, and feel as if 'it is time to play', you are busy being too comfortable to actually sell someone your voice.

I remember auditioning at MTV for a casting director who just happened to be my friend. We had many college stories in our past, and many private jokes. However, I was so comfortable that I did awful. I was thinking, 'Its no big deal. I know her.', and that lack of urgency is what killed me.

I say this because anyone who steps behind a mic at home and thinks, 'I paid my subscription. There is plenty of work here to play and practice with. I am a shoe-in.', soon finds themselves upset one year later that they never worked. Many then turn to saying 'it is pay to play' because they feel it is a computer, a website, and therefore, does not count as a business and must be a kid's game.

That is hardly the case.

Each audition should be treated as if an agent or casting director is staring at you while you read, and you should never be 'too comfortable' behind the mic. I know that 'nervous energy' is helpful sometimes.

The 'nervous energy' is caused by a fear of failure or looking or sounding foolish is a driving force to succeed, and if one is 'playing', they may not take the process seriously, and thus...as talents....they themselves will not be taken seriously.

Auto Emails & Canned Answers: It is What You Believe in That Matters Most

I started Voice123 in July 2007 right before SmartCast was released, and one of the tasks that was understood I would have to deal with is creating automated emails and canned answers to use for customer service. I decided, as is true of my nature always, to try something different, which usually equates to me trying to break rules before I have fully learned them, then doing twice the work to fix it while learning a valuable lesson that makes me better than before. It is not easy to be me.

I decided, 'No auto or canned emails!'.

Why? Because as someone who has a passion for customer service, and treating people with respect, I figured that each person had to be written to personally, so they did not feel disrespected by our customer service team at Voice123! I vowed, 'I am in this industry too! I would not do the same to anyone else!'. Indeed, it was a noble gesture, but looking back I am not so sure I would be willing to do something like that again, and I do not think I would be disrespecting anyone in doing so.

I learned several key points from conducting such a practice at a time when customer service was needed more than ever.

Starting with the 'Bad News':

• Writing each person directly takes up a great deal of time, even when you know the answer, immediately.
• When you have 1000 people to get back to, there is no time to have a special 'one on one', even though most Americans spew the phrase, 'Let me speak to your supervisor!', before they say, 'I think I can find out for myself'.
• Even when you write the customer an answer, the customer will assume it is 'canned', if they do not like it.
• After answering at least 100 emails, you soon find out that customers say pretty much the same thing over and over again, and when you are at that point, you know what you have to fix. So, no answer in the book will satisfy them unless it is, 'We fixed it!'.
• As is the case with all technology, you may find times where you feel you should be getting paid for giving classes on how to use a computer.
  
• I recall that month, from July to August 2007, a time when I answered emails and calls for 15 hours a day, 6 days a week.
  

Needless to say, I learned a few valuable lessons from the experience, which translates into the 'Good News' of this experiment:

• Writing each person is a great way to know who the bulk of your customers that consistently need help.
  
• Writing to each person is a great way to pick up on an overall 'vibe' as to how the people who contact you either enjoy or dislike your service.
• You have the opportunity to speak with your customer, which in the days of 'outsourcing to India', seems so rare an occurrence.
• In no way, do I see what I did during such a busy time to be a 'failure' because I never would have learned as much as I had by sending out a canned response.
• The biggest lesson that I learned could be that you cannot send a canned response until you know what you are talking about i.e. 'To break the rules, you must first learn the rules.'
  

Lesson learned...in just one month. However, no matter what you try it all comes down to what the customer believes, and you can never change that in a person. You can only do your best, and see who gravitates to your service to shape your community.

I say this because I personally write, and spend a great deal of time on emails that go out automatically, based on actions customers perform while using Voice123.com. Yet, I will get responses such as:

• "I dont know why you hide behind that picture. Nice fake name! You are obviously in India."
• "How clever of you...but I know this is an auto email. That is disrespectful of you."

Sometimes, I even reply BACK:

• 'Didn't you get MY email?.'
  

I have feelings to you know! :)

Those that understand me a little bit more or working online, especially after July 2007, reply to me with:

• "Thank you for writing me personally.
  

Go figure. You see, even though the email was automatically sent, it was done so because of an action I knew could help or harm the enjoyment of Voice123, and me recognizing this in the past, I constructed a 'personal email' for all those who may do the same thing.

Does that make it any less personal, canned, or auto-mated? I wrote it personally. No?

Like I said, it is all about what you believe, or in many cases, how experienced you are with working online.


ps- I have never been to India.


Comment below or you can find me directly on the Voice123 Premium Forums!

Arrogance: Charming Offline...Dangerous Online!

The most difficult aspect of the entertainment industry is that, in the face of all that is undecided, you still have to remain confident and arrogant, while dealing with mounds and mounds of rejection. Working offline, this may be indeed charming, but online, it can become extremely dangerous to one's career.

Working in an offline world, peer to peer interactions are just as much about ' having talent' as it is about 'how you learn to work with someone', yet when you have the ability to see someone face to face, you have the ability to 'win them over' by your visible attitude and work ethic. A person who is 'arrogant', you let him/her get away with it because you know what he/she does, and having met, you may just find it charming.

Working online, 'arrogance' can cost you jobs faster than you have time to explain yourself. Unlike meeting a person face to face, the employer has a 'delete' button when you do not want to deal with someone.

The biggest reason is this...Written word is more powerful than spoken word.

Combine this with the over-abundance of confidence that comes from the monster created by someone using a computer anonymously, without fear of consequence, 'arrogance' will leave an employer wondering, 'Who the heck does this person really think he/she is, and why do they feel they can write to me this way if I have never met them?'.

Arrogance awakens the 'always trying to save time-monster' behind a computer and fills it with a terrible resolve.

I give you two direct, yet very serious examples from inside Voice123.

• Example #1: The Arrogant Behavior After the Passing of a Legend

When Don Lafontaine passed away this summer, Voice123 was flooded with emails from very 'green talents' who told us arrogantly, 'I am your next Don Lafontaine! Please listen to my demo!'.

The monster that awoke in our staff from seeing these emails believed that this was the most disgusting display of behavior, and the very voice talents who said this were either deleted, not acknowledged, or were told, 'If you thought this was a good idea, you need more experience for working online.' As much as we like to help talents, we do not wish to do business with someone who thinks an email like this was a good idea.

I sat back and thought about it, to be fair, 'How would an open-minded youth, who obviously feels effected by what he/she is seeing behave in this situation?' I thought, 'Maybe they were trying to do some sort of tribute?'. Regardless, it was a bad idea. Why? The very arrogance that someone, who has no experience whatsoever, can 'pick up the torch(as they put it)', was disgusting. Now, if we saw who wrote this, we could gauge that the person was maybe just making a kid's mistake, but we cannot make that justification through a written email.

Needless to say, a person who made this mistake on many websites may have set themselves back a few months of progress.

• Example #2: The Political Impersonation Contest & "Those Who Should Have Won"

I am no stranger to how the industry works. You want to always show them you are the 'best', and you want to fight to prove it. Maybe this type of aggressive behavior works somewhere in the world, but working online, it damages your reputation quicker than you can spread your good name.

Unfortunately, when that contest ended, I received a couple of emails questioning whether or not Voice123 was being 'fair' with the voting process because certain people told me, 'My friends who have been in the business for years, told me I was the best.' I was told 'it was in my best interests to compensate them for this unfair action'.

The mere arrogance that one person, who was told by his friends he was the best, now believes that everyone else was not as good, which then, entitled him to something for free was enough to make any decent person vomit.

Now, I know that this person is most likely trying to get something for free, but to accuse someone who has put effort into something that will benefit everyone, and then to market that person to 40,000 perspective employers, only to turn around, and say, 'You owe me more' is a display of arrogance that awakens the terrible monster who arrogantly fights, as one person needs to be reminded that how you work online results in consequences.

I have always viewed 'arrogance' as the belief that someone feels they are above everyone else, and usually needs to come down to earth. Yet, working online, if you upset the wrong people, you will find yourself crashing to earth with sometimes unrepairable damage, and in an anonymous computer age, you will find plenty of people smart enough to create software to do so. It is almost like 'Revenge of the Nerds', so in turn, arrogance went out with the 80's.

As pretty much the entire world turns to computers to solve problems, the last thing to do is to approach a problem or disagreement with 'arrogance'. If you think the online world is lonely now, just wait to email lots of people about how great you are, and never hear back from any of them.

• In conclusion...here are the biggest 'no-no's' in writing an email to someone online:

1. Use of profanity. To see it written, shows you lack the ability to express yourself in a professional manner.
2. Capital letters to emphasize a statement. It comes off as yelling, and shows inexperience.
   
3. Sarcasm. It cannot be written. If you make a joke, you have to acknowledge it is a joke. Otherwise, leave it out if you have problems using: "LOL, :), or hahaha"
4. Declaritive statements that tell others to do something for you, instead of applying to reason and solution, as to how something should be worked out.
5. Empty threats with no foundation or truth, be it legal or physical, are the sure way to either get your email deleted or even arrested (in worst-case scenarios), if you are not applying a reason or solution to the problem in a professional manner.

You simply never know who you are talking to, and if you do not check your ego at the door when writing an email, someone will surely do his/her best to remind you it should be, and they wont always tell you. They may just show you in their actions.

A Return to Normalcy: Old School is Coming Back...Online!

Do you remember what it was like 20 years ago?

It seemed like there was a lot of voice over work out there, but only the best paying jobs, union or not, went to the most experienced voice over talents. No one exactly knew who these people were at that time. Newcomers to the industry had to work very hard to be competitive, yet along the way, they were able to find some sort of work to stay in practice if they were working hard enough.

I believe there are significant events that changed the voice over industry, which used to be somewhat of a smaller click of people doing most of the work. At least since I have been watching, I have watched the voice over industry expand, but now....I see a 'return to normalcy' just around the corner, at least from a Voice123 perspective.

• The SAG/AFTRA strike of 2000:

Call it a collision of destiny, but at the same time when VO artists were becoming mainstream, and you actually knew the people behind the voice, there was a little thing called 'file sharing' that appeared on Napster. I firmly believe that this gave birth to the demon that 'quantity is more important than quality', and that 'it does not matter what it sounds like as long as it is cheap'. Meanwhile, you had many actors out of work, and even if non-union, the pressure was placed on all actors that if you were seen doing struck work, you would have problems with SAG.

The problem: People still needed to work because if you were doing well, and had a great yearly income, it is hard to just 'stop what you are doing'. Factor in that managers had plenty of non-union talents at their disposal, and experienced talents, while many knew it was wrong, even went so far as to change their names and do voice over work.

The result: The small click of voice over artists had to contend with a new, saturated batch of non-union talents, and now, actors who had previously only done modeling, tv, film, theatre, were now in the game too. That was a great deal of quantity, and not too much quality. When the strike ended, things did not go back to normal. There was now a saturated market of voice over talents. Needless to say, in a saturated market the phone rings less and less, unless you are heavily dug in to the industry on both a talent and producer level. The good one's had to find more opportunity, and the online age was just around the corner.

• Voice123 Enters The Picture: When All Can Pay To Audition
  

Along comes a website, carefully put together by a voice over talent and an Internet entrepeneur. You can even see by the Project Directory on Voice123 how things quickly grew. Voice123 now opened the voice over industry to the entire world, so now there were more choices more than ever before.

However, there was a catch. Those posting jobs on Voice123 quickly found out that there were a great deal of people who claimed they could do voice over work, but were not sure of what it was like to work or market online on an international stage. The experienced talents that could work as producers took in a majority of the work, while the majority of inexperienced talents who expected a carbon copy of the old industry, were left feeling that the site was a scam, or if they were smart, feeling like they have to learn something new to work online. It was almost like starting over for so many who, in the past, relied on the agent/talent relationship to get work. Now the talent was on his/her own.

After a couple of years of everyone auditioning, voice seekers who posted jobs found that working online should no longer be about 'quantity', but more about 'quality and saving time'. Voice123 experienced talents complained that there were too many 'hacks' on the site, and that they wanted more opportunities to get work because of their experience.

This completely made sense, for both the voice seeker and the voice talent, and so began the process of returning to 'normalcy'.

• SmartCast is Released by Voice123 in 2007

SmartCast achieved what many wanted in the faces of many talents not realizing it. This system, through its technology, focused on the talents who knew what they were, how good they were, and exactly how to get work. The focus of the system was to achieve return of investment, and get the right talents to the right voice seekers, therefore making for a better Voice123 community.

• What took place next though was that many experienced talents were not ready for the change

It is often said, 'Be careful what you wish for because you just may get it'. When a group of talents get together and say, 'We should be the only one's allowed to audition.', what they fail to realize is that they are now competing against each other, thereby limiting their own opportunities. It is like the saying, 'When you get to the big leagues, you find out you were only a big fish in a small pond.'

Sadly, not getting work leaves many to try some tactics that damage the entire industry, maybe the most damaging is 'underquoting'. When one does not work in an ego-centric business, the first reaction is to blame someone else, and some become fixated on these ideas and pass them along as 'truths taught by experienced talents'. So, in turn, those who have underquoted once or twice themselves, and not gotten work then believe that someone else must have gone underquoted even more, when the budget quote had next to nothing to do with it.

Experienced talents have created the belief in their minds that underquoting gets work because they do not realize that the true issue at hand is that experienced talents are now competing against each other for higher paying gigs, which have been made so rare because experienced talents taught voice seekers that it is ok to underquote. This will lead them to offering less the second time around, and over time will drive budgets into the basement.

What happens next? All the talents with lesser experience audition for these jobs because they paid to audition on Voice123, while experienced talents sit and wait for the higher paying jobs only to find they get less and less work now.

• The result, and how 'normalcy' is making a return

Literally, seekers can only deal with so much frustration for so long before they decide 'enough is enough' or 'this just is not worth it.' This comes when you find that the 'quantity' cuts into the quality, return of investment, and time saved. Given the 'pay to audition' format is getting really old, really quick, almost because Voice123 was so successful...it seems like the next step is to work towards making a return to 'normalcy' as many knew it years ago. Only now, it is online at Voice123.

When this happens, the experienced talents are going to want Voice123 on their side because we have been working towards getting people work for over five years now, and this team has the experience to both, run a website and prove itself knowledgable about the industry for healthy decision making.

In the end, it is almost like the world grows, then shrinks, then feels too crowded, and then goes somewhere else to grow again.

The best websites will recognize this, and keep up with the changes, or else find themselves obsolete in a few years.

Where is the return to 'normalcy'? Things will go back to being about 'quality business', and not 'who I can find.'

The End to an Eight Year-Long Butt Kicking

There is a different feeling today, and even for long-winded types like myself, it is difficult to know how to describe it. Obviously, there is a great deal of emotion behind the results of Election Day in the US, regardless of who you voted for, and I am going to do something that has not been done in the last eight years:

I will not put any pressure on you to make you feel like less of an American for your political beliefs. I wonder if this will become the new 'buzz phrase', but 'AS OBAMA SAID...', even Abraham Lincoln said the beauty of this country is that we co-exist even when passionate beliefs put a strain on one's affection for another.

That said...I can wake up today, and say, 'The last 8 years are finally over.'

Let me give a time-line of my last eight years:

• 2000 - In the middle of a SAG strike, while an up and coming non-union talent, my entertainment career was put on hold for a variety of reasons. I worked in Times Square for ESPNZone as a production assistant. I remember that I kept certain televisions on in bar late Election Night for some guys who wanted to see who won. While watching, oddly the man I voted for was elected, but after the candidate who lost's brother, the governor of Florida, decided it was ok not to count votes from a certain group of people in his state....the new president-elect...was no longer elected. It took two weeks to find out why we had a new president-elect. I always think, 'Imagine if I never went to bed until I knew who won'. It took two weeks, but nevertheless, the president elected in 2000 gave birth to the belief in my heart, that voting is just a political farce, and my trust went out the window.

• 2001 - I will be brief here. I live in New York City. The events of September 11th left us devastated, even to this day, whether many admit it or not. I did find more 'good' than 'bad', in NYC people at least, while the entertainment crowd skipped town for the west coast, which meant work was scarce. I started to trust government again. I felt strongly for Bush after he came to NYC. Even though Rudy Guiliani was pretty much hated before 9/11, he seemed to be showing character. The people of NYC came together, but the obvious change to the skyline left many wanting 'redemption' in their hearts.

• 2002 - I barely remember this year. I began to travel while working for General Motors and their auto show tour. I felt no need to keep any record of the trying times, going from city to city, and I was really not doing what I wanted to do. I blanked out shortly after our president said the people who were responsible for 9/11 were in Iraq, and many were too clouded with anger to answer the question for me, 'Do you think he is just using this opportunity to get back at Saddam for trying to kill his dad? He is still from Texas, and obviously his family has power.'.

• 2003 - Somewhere around this time, complete demoralization set in. GM laid me off for financial reasons. I worked for an agent helping disabled athletes get funding for their tournaments. I sold golf and ski equipment. I became licensed in NY State as a 'Loss Prevention Officer' (an in-store security guard with a license to stop shoplifters without getting sued). From my knowledge at GM, I sold cars! I marveled at the fact this country went to war without a vote from Congress. I was still trying to act, but my family was pressuring me to 'settle down'.

• 2004 - I ran out of energy and my family helped me get work at AIG. They recognized me as someone who was trying to work very hard, and they accepted me for it. That was very new to me, so I stuck around with the Wall St. gang for a while. I met a woman, and things appeared to be looking up. Then, I watched my company bend over backwards for the tsunami in Indonesia, while denying insurance claims to Florida citizens hit by hurricanes. I was not feeling this new type of hypocrisy would be healthy. I did get in touch with my voice over coach again who told about Voice123. In this election year, I did not vote. I found the president threw around "9/11" to create fear and loathing for personal gain. I wanted no part of any of this country, which let a president get re-elected after he sent people to war, stated 'WE WON!', and then continued the war. This had effects on a close family member who was in the 101st Airborne division, and going crazy over his friends still being in a war that was supposedly over.
  

• 2005 - I was put in charge of an insurance claims unit that took in new claims. The lack of caring for the citizens of Louisiana after hurricane Katrina left me wondering just what I was doing. Voice123 started to seem like a good hobby to 'get back to where I once belonged.' I was happier only because of my soon-to-be-wife.

• 2006 - After helping out AIG with NY State audits, seeing more stress than economic reward, I paid more attention to my wife and Voice123, while wondering why I felt dead inside. I was engaged, and worked 8 hour days, but waking up each day and darning that suit each day left me feeling like just another hypocrite who has settled down. I was not happy. Bless my wife for just 'being there' at a time when most people seem to give up.
  

• 2007 - I had enough of the unhappiness, and finally started fighting back. I got married 90% out of love, 10% out of the tax break. I quit AIG. I found a job at Voice123. I was feeling good, and had many things going for me now, but what still weighed on my conscience was that people who cared more about money, than they did other people, were still running the show. I was trying to sort out why simply feeling that way led others to believe I was crazy.

• 2008 - Wall St. tanks, and bails out people with all the money. My family that had pressured me to settle down were now emailing ME, asking me if I knew of any extra work. This was a sobering feeling to finally be recognized as the one who, throughout all pressures and criticisms, may have actually been the most settled down out of anyone I knew, simply because I believed in treating people with respect, and that change is inevitable, so staying in one place is not always the wise choice.

Election Day was yesterday, and I finally feel like it is ok to be myself again.

• In the past eight years, what always got under my skin was the belief that you are NOT American if you do not do as the president says, or you are NOT American if you are against the war.
• I watched a country succumb to fear, by which many people in higher positions have profited financially from.
• I have watched a president abuse his position to a perverted level whereby it is completely obvious to the American public, but no one felt as if they had any power at all to do anything about it.
• It was a country where rich men in suits told every American, 'You can be whatever you want in America. You can even be as rich as me.', leaving off the fine print of this statement that this would involve breaking laws, shipping work and money overseas, stealing, bullying, only to eventually bankrupt the American public while protecting the very people who caused it.
• Then, when I disagree with this, I am told I am a 'communist' or 'socialist' or 'idealist'?

I will forever find 'gloating' to be overrated, so I wont mention how this country now feels they need change like I do, regardless of who was elected. If they feel change was not necessary, I can only imagine they were of the 15% of Americans who profitted the last 8 years; the very same people who said, 'You can do anything you want in America.' I will fight for anyone who fights for me, and the past eight years left me feeling like I was just being beaten up by the actions of a few, who then expected the country me to fight for them or else I was 'not American'.

Waking up today, I feel that pressure lifted. I feel we all can really do something with the opportunity put before us now. Maybe I see things in black and white, but my wife is black and I am white, and I have lots of diverse friends of many cultures. That is the America. I tend to listen and love more than criticize, but I am not afraid to confront you with my beliefs. I know money worries are not the real issue in America. Money will always just be paper and power control system.

This is the dawn of a new day where 'caring for others' really takes on a new meaning, and I plan to be a part of it.

I am making a choice today to never forget how I feel at this moment, so I am driven to always be my best because one day, it will mean something. To all of those out there, especially my mother in law, who waited 50+ years for yesterday...your bravery, strength and conviction that you are doing what is right, is inspiring to me and admirable. Today, my beautiful African-American wife and her mother are trying to cope with heavy feelings today, and I know their fight was much longer than 8 years, but I just wont know the pain they felt because my problem were minor in comparison. I feel today though, that they will be just fine.

I wish us all strength and courage in the days ahead.