In the beginning, everything was Union Scale…and it was good. Rates were controlled, clients paid them, talent did the voice work and agents took care of everything in between.
The industry has done a 180 since the good old days.
With the advent of this little thing called the Internet (thanks, Al Gore), the opportunities for voiceover jobs and voice talent to fill them has exploded. Talent are now entrepreneurs and are expected to become savvy marketers, content providers, web designers, techies, brand managers, finance managers, and client relations managers…or pay people a ton of money to do it for them.
While the opportunity has expanded in the same vein, it has also created a vacuum where the union once stood. Gone are the gates that protected fair rates; they have been torn down by the free market’s relatively new grip on the industry.
In today’s business climate, profit is King. Many companies that are now finding the need/want for voiceover don’t understand, are ignorant to, or flat out just don’t care about the value of voiceover. They want to get it as inexpensively as possible because, after all, it’s just someone talking into a microphone right?
Of course there are plenty of upstanding clients that do understand the value professional voice talent bring to their projects, not to mention the countless hours (read: years) talent have devoted to honing their craft. The problem stems from more and more voice seekers utilizing the gig economy, P2P, and internet commerce to fill their jobs well below fair rates. Who’s giving these newcomers education on voiceover rates?
The voiceover industry is one of the only professional industries where the client gets to tell the business provider what their services are worth. Internet economy has opened the doors for service seekers to put their projects up to the lowest bidder – “Who wants my business? You’ll need to pay my rate or I’ll go to the person waiting right behind you.” Sound familiar? It’s happening in all facets of our economy – but that’s a different discussion for a different day.
Enter: The Global Voice Acting Academy. A key part of the GVAA’s mission is to educate voice talent and voice seekers about proper industry rates.
“The trend of lower and lower rates is a major concern for all of us professional talent, and we are making a huge effort to make quality information readily available to all voiceover talent” – Cristina Milizia
The more people that become educated, stand up for, and demand fair rates, the more likely we’ll be able to stop the troubling increased downward trend of voice over rates.
So how do you go about educating everyone in or beginning their voice over career? What about a free rate guide that covers the entire industry?
Sounds awesome, let’s do it!
Stay tuned for part 2: GVAA Rate Guide – The Origin!
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