OT - How to Become a Voice?

[Carl G.]

Most Voice Talent are members of AFTRA if they are represented by a union at all. SAG is usually used more for film and indie film contracts.

But all these actor, voice talent, screen talent unions are always fighting each other for membership and jurisdictions, etc... They rarely get along. Even though there is so little worth fighting over.

side note: The ratio of members doing free-lance to members successfully doing full time free lance is quite large.

[Mark Stebbeds]

I don't think I've ever had an AFTRA member turn me down for V.O. work off the card if the pay was similar to single scale. Most are happy to get the work.

Last couple of times I checked going with Studio Center non -union talent, they wanted to charge me more than paying L.A. scale locally.

Mark

[RBIngraham]

side note: The ratio of members doing free-lance to members successfully doing full time free lance is quite large.

Yea well any of them are better than Equity, maybe? At any given point in time 95% of Actors Equity members are unemployed. Schools hate it when I tell the students that.

[Demodave]

The great William Shatner in a voiceover session. He destroys this poor producer...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMV1bwXyi54

[Dave Labrecque]

The great William Shatner in a voiceover session. He destroys this poor producer...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMV1bwXyi54

It's really funny, but it does reveal Shatner's huge ego (and ultimate insecurity, therefore), I think. Poor producer.

I do love Shatner's comic gifts and the way he's been able to use them in recent years.

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[Dave Labrecque]

Six (oops)

It does get worse...

[Cary B. Cornett]

The great William Shatner in a voiceover session. He destroys this poor producer...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMV1bwXyi54

I wish I could find the one where Orson Welles is supposed to be voicing an ad for frozen peas and ends up storming out of the booth in a rage! Now THAT was losing it!

By contrast, Shatner taking that poor producer to task was a model of arch comic subtlety. Notice that he does not raise his voice, just keeps the riff going... right over the cliff. Part of the lore of VO work, from what I heard when I was a tech a studio that specialized in that, is how some producers are, well, full of themselves.

Then there was that gag reel I heard decades ago, with one particular classic. Wonder how many experiences like that Shatner had before he gave that one poor guy what for?

[Brent Evans]

I wish I could find the one where Orson Welles is supposed to be voicing an ad for frozen peas and ends up storming out of the booth in a rage! Now THAT was losing it!

Like this?

[Dave Labrecque]

Then there was that gag reel I heard decades ago, with one particular classic. Wonder how many experiences like that Shatner had before he gave that one poor guy what for?

That is funny. I like that it shows the insecure producer who's looking to the engineer for guidance. I've been there.

It's kind of funny when you, as the engineer in a big-time session, feel like you know more than the young producer about what's what. But you gotta stay on your toes. A few weeks back I got lazy and was just doing the engineering stuff, not really paying attention to the performance in any detail, when the producer at the other end of the line says, "Yeah, I think that was good. Dave, what'd you think?"

Huh? Wha... ?

[Dave Labrecque]

Apparently, the man had issues...