VO-BB - 20 YEARS OLD!

[Steven Lowell]

LOL In the 5 years I dealt with the rankings confusion, Melissa managed to explain it better than anyone with that analogy.

While reading the response via phone, my wife was trying on clothes and asking me, "Do you like this one or this one?"

I would say, "That outfit definitely!".

She would then come back with a totally different outfit on. When I asked why she changed her mind, she told me, "You liked my outfit for reasons I didn't like."

Alas...creative choices are subjective. Statistics are pointless. But these facts are super-ceded by the demand of people who want to know, "How did I do!?!". And websites are supposed to supply answers.

When I took classes in voiceovers in the 90's, or in college, you NEVER asked for feedback. You waited for people to tell you something, and if they didnt, you forged ahead. Oddly enough...people who worked in that type of environment....tend to have an easier time working online. My first book on voiceovers was Susan Blu's Word of Mouth. She writes about avoiding "voiceover hangover". I took that advice to heart a long time ago, but people today do expect answers from google searches and that expectation blindly carries over.

Still...it just doesnt matter, and any impact on your ability to get invites is impossible to understand unless you have a computer science degree and understand meta-heuristic algorithms.

I approach it like I did golf...."You get off your game, when you care about things that dont matter. It makes you play the game a little out of control, and you have no one to blame but yourself for letting it get to you."
That's my main beef with stats...With even the smallest data, you can create false truths around what really matters.


Focus on what matters: Online communication, audio engineering, marketing, and copy reading. "Standards" and "stats" are irrelevant to the artist. If ya dont like it...leave it. Leslie...you have a point, too. We cant complain about a garden, if we are the one's planting the seeds for what grows next.

[Bish]

Some good points and some good explanations. Any P2P discussion is going to bifurcate into two separate, although undoubtedly related, topics. The first is easy... is it worth doing? That, my dear fellow VOs, is a personal choice made from how well it fits into your own business plan. Currently, it fits into mine, but I totally understand why it doesn't fit into others... I also understand the disdain in which they hold these sites... 'nuff said.

The second is our own feelings about how the site is run. As paying subscribers we should have a voice and feel entitled to make observations, complain bitterly and dispute the birthright of the site owners. This is the baggage that comes with paying for something... phone service, cable TV, etc.

P2P... I have to say that I abhor the way this abbreviation has been misappropriated. Pay-to-Play is a reasonable description and explains it well. I object to the hi-jack that's in progress at the moment to call it Peer-to-Peer. It's not. It will never be. You cannot remove the negative connotations of the Pay-to-Play label by using a warm-and-fuzzy networking term. I've seen this bandied about on websites and in interviews by P2P employees. To be fair, it's the other place, not V123... but it strikes me as cynical and purposefully manipulative. Stop it.

Here's the rub... most of the people here and either full-time, want to be full-time, serious part-time or at least are really trying to get there. This is a place for working professionals and as such any observations come from that place. A lot of the time we are being judged by the rank-amateurs on V123. Projects may be posted by non-production people... by the company owner or the department head.... they may have even given the job to the receptionist! So, Joe The Plumber gets to say that you are crap... fine, that's his opinion, give the job to someone else... but his opinion can go on your record, and that can have a real effect on your ability to see auditions and get yourself in front of clients. This is why the system is flawed. I don't enter a negative rating with the BBB just because I didn't like the plumber's quote! Any system that restricts my ability to work based on the opinion of someone with no professional experience or expertise is fundamentally flawed.
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Bish a.k.a. Bish
Smoke me a kipper... I'll be back for breakfast.
I will not feed the trolls... I will not feed the trolls... I will not feed the trolls... I will not feed the trolls.

[Ben Amos]

Melissa, that was certainly the easiest explanation I've ever seen.

Steven, so glad to see you on here! Deborah Richards and I were wringing our hands at lunch this week over the hole you left.

I'm still very early in my career, but the truth I embraced very early on was this- If the casting director looks at the script and hears Steven Lowell's voice in his head before he puts the job out there, then no matter the venue- agency, P2P, Craigslist, etc- then there's nothing I'm going to be able to do to overcome that. I don't sound like Steven. I don't know that that's what that CD is looking/listening for, and he might not either until he hears Steven's audition. It doesn't pay to get all bent out of shape over something I have ZERO control over. I can control auditioning for jobs that are a good fit, and staying away from the ones that likely aren't. I don't sound like Sam Eliot, so why on earth would I go for that job?

Sometimes I win on auditions. My first V123 booking came from a private invitation. According to the seeker, my submission was the very first one he listened to. To him, I captured the essence of the character, and the other 51 auditions couldn't overtake that impression. More often than not, I'm (and everyone else that auditions) is on the losing end of that imbalance. It's activity-based. Mud against the metaphorical wall, as it were.

[Lee Gordon]

[melissa eX]

Lee owes me a new keyboard.

Good to see you here Steven!

[todd ellis]

[Bish]

[ccpetersen]

Todd -- it makes perfect sense. If you've walked the walk then you can lend that expertise to help others select a VO for their projects. I often wonder how much, if any of that type of expertise exists at the P2P joints.
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Charter Member: Threadjackers Local 420

[captain54]

[Bill Roberts]

Call me dazed and confused, but when I read all the techno crap about ranking systems, it makes my head spin. My ranking system is simple…did the check clear? and did the Client pass or fail? So far all my clients are 100%.

Sorry…just had to vent, now back to our regularly scheduled program!
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VO-BB Member # 764 (Dec 2009)

[Bish]

[Philip Banks]

Henceforth I shall refer only to POS sites .... POS being Pile O' Shite. I will no doubt get a thank you note as the owners of such businesses do not like them being called P2P sites.

How public spirited am I?

[BruceG]

[Steven Lowell]

[graemespicer]

Uh oh ...

(pass the popcorn)
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Graeme Spicer
Voice Actor

Member of the World-Voices Executive Board

tel • (416) 716-2246
email • graeme@graemespicer.com
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