VO-BB - 20 YEARS OLD!

[richvoice]

Thanks for all the input, all. Seriously, it's all been quite helpful.

When I received the offer, I was very happy; when I saw that the agency expected me to shell out money to be represented (even if I wasn't shelling it out to them), I was much less happy. I've really been on the fence: I'm not bothered by the amount of money so much as I am by the principle.

In addition to asking here, I reached out to a few of the talent listed on the agency's website who's names were familiar. Melissa's comment, followed shortly by a private email from one of the talent I contacted directly, convinced me: I'll be politely declining -- with an explanation of why I'm declining.

It's discouraging to get an offer of representation after forking over thousands on new demos, only to feel the need to turn it down. I certainly don't judge anyone else negatively for making a different decision, but this is the right thing for me to do.

Again, many thanks.
_________________
Cheers,
Rich
http://www.richvoiceproductions.com
@RichMillerVO

[DougVox]

Don't be discouraged, Rich.

If you'd have put thousands of dollars into building and opening a retail store, you'd be picky about the vendors whose items you'd carry in that store (and therefore, be associated with) wouldn't you?

Sorta' the same thing here.

You don't want your demo on the shelf in shitty stores.
_________________
Doug Turkel (tur-KELL)
Voiceover UNnouncer®
UNnouncer.com

[richvoice]

Thanks, Doug.

I went ahead and politely declined, and that opened the door to a friendly and open discussion. I ended up agreeing to a very short-term trial period. While I recognize the potential long-term negative effects of a poor choice (e.g., submitting a sub-standard demo all over the place), for a number of reasons I don't think this arrangement falls into that category, so if I'm not happy with the outcome in a short period of time, I'll simply withdraw.

The voiceover world continues to evolve. Sometimes in ways that aren't 100% positive.
_________________
Cheers,
Rich
http://www.richvoiceproductions.com
@RichMillerVO

[dbeers]

Rich, I can't believe you fell for that! Sure you can sign up for VOCADD on a month to month. But the button line is, no casting agents have even heard of VOCADD, let alone use the service.

Furthermore, I know several people on the Idiom roster for along time. I recently checked in with them again, and was told by all, "they" don't pay for VOCADD (and didn't even know what it was). All 4 people said, almost no auditions ever come from Idiom anymore.

So for what it's worth. I hope that information is useful. Oh, and by the way all 4 people I talked to are rather well established talents. One said, he'd been meaning to contact Shane to get his demo removed from the Idiom site!

Please do update us in the future, on your experience.

Good luck!

[DougVox]

On a side note, I'm always put off when a site has NO information about who owns/runs it. And this one has even been registered privately, so a Whois search won't reveal the site's owner.

Also, a Google search for "vocadd.com" turned up the site itself, this conversation, a number of bot-based IP info sites, and nothing else. Nothing.

That's just plain odd.
_________________
Doug Turkel (tur-KELL)
Voiceover UNnouncer®
UNnouncer.com

[richvoice]

dbeers, I don't think I "fell for" anything. I had a conversation with someone, and I believed them to be sincere. Could they be lying to me? Of course. But taking everything into account, I don't think that's the case.

I also contacted some well-established voice talent who are on the roster of the agency that sent the offer, one of whom I know personally, another who I've been aware of for quite a long time. Both offered some helpful advice.

I'll be happy to report on how the arrangement progresses, whether it fails for some reason before it even gets underway, or it goes forward for some short period of time with no positive results and I cancel it, or it goes forward and is beneficial.
_________________
Cheers,
Rich
http://www.richvoiceproductions.com
@RichMillerVO

[richvoice]

I've gotten four or five emails in the past week about this topic from people who were offered representation by Idiom, had the same concern I did about the vocadd.com subscription, and found this thread while Googling. So I thought I'd post an update for anyone interested. This technically violates the "one month rule" about old threads, but just barely, and it seemed to me that keeping the update here was a better choice than starting a new thread, but I'll understand if this gets split out.

I agree with Doug, I'm put off when there's no information about who's in charge of a website. When I subscribed to vocadd.com four weeks ago, another red flag popped up. I got a confirmation email, and at the bottom of the email there was a message stating that if I had any questions I should email Shane's email address. While the sign-up process could simply be programmed to display the agent's email address so that whoever's running vocadd.com doesn't have to deal with any inquiries, it tends to imply that vocadd.com IS Idiom talent, which would make the whole thing unethical IMO. Without any concrete proof, I'm not going to make any accusations, but I don't like it.

Since signing, Idiom has sent me around 20 auditions, more if you count multiple roles in some of the auditions. There was one week with almost a dozen, one with only a few. This is far more than my previous agent used to send me many years ago. On the other hand, by the looks of the auditions I'm guessing that most or all of them are voicebank.net auditions, which means there are probably hundreds or thousands of people auditioning, and I have no idea if any of my auditions have even been listened to. I asked Shane whether or not Idiom does any "screening," and he replied that almost all auditions that are sent in are sent on; but if there are actually hundreds or thousands of people auditioning, of course it's unlikely that all auditions will be heard (he didn't address the question of whether or not they're all coming from voicebank.net). So... mixed bag on the auditions. A lot of high-quality (in terms of clients and copy) auditions with reasonable fees, but not high-quality in terms of the likelihood of booking (I'm guessing), and, in fact, I haven't booked anything yet.

In terms of dealing with Idiom, I can say that Shane has been very responsive to my questions, both before signing and after.

As I've been researching other agents, I have found at least one other that requires something similar to vocadd.com (it might be two others, but I'm not sure: someone mentioned an agent to me that did something similar, but I don't know if that agency was the same one I'd found on my own). I was also told by someone well-known in the VO community that one of his agents does something similar. Sadly, I'm guessing this is the way the agent end of the talent industry is going to move: several of these middleman casting sites will spring up, marketing themselves to agents as a tool that will save them time, and two or three or four will "win" and become the predominant sites, and the talent will continue to be the one to foot the bill. That's probably just the pessimist in me coming out, and I'll be glad if I'm proven wrong.

Based on the number of people who have contacted me in the past week, I have to guess that Shane is making substantial changes to Idiom's roster. Whether that's because several people have dropped Idiom as an agent, as dbeers mentioned, or if it's for some other reason, I don't know. A more cynical read of the situation might be that he's simply adding people so that he can get more revenue through vocadd.com, if in fact it belongs to him, but again, without any kind of proof of that, I'm not going to make the assumption.

So my reaction so far is pretty neutral. If nothing else, having decent commercial copy to practice on has been a plus, albeit a small one.
_________________
Cheers,
Rich
http://www.richvoiceproductions.com
@RichMillerVO

[dbeers]

Rich, thank you for that update. It's good to know your getting some auditions with good copy (of a higher caliber). And I assume you submit those auditions through vocadd? I only ask, because you mentioned you asked whether Idiom does any "screening"… and he replied that almost all auditions are sent on.

My thought was this service was suppose to make it easier for the agency, so they weren't having to forward everything on. I just don't get it. But I sure appreciate your follow up reports.

The only question I still wonder about, is why doesn't your demo (or name) show up on the Idiom website? It that something your've asked?

I only mention that, because the people I personally know have there demo's listed, and have been there for many many years. They are the ones that told me not much ever comes from Idiom anymore. But I do see there demos are getting listened to.

Did he indicate if there is sometime period before your demos are posted on his site?

Just curious if this was something covered in the non-non-exculsive agreement? Thanks.

[richvoice]

I actually did ask about the demos. Shane said that they're in the process of re-doing the website, and it should be done "in two or three weeks." If it's not different and/or my demos aren't there in a month, I'll be asking again.

The audition process that I've been going through is no different than what I've done before: the agent emails the script with instructions, I email my .mp3 back. So I don't believe that vocadd.com plays a part in that process. I believe that the idea behind that "service" is that it's used when the agency is connecting directly with a casting director, but I could be wrong about that. I think it's also a way for them to have demos available on the website that they don't have to be concerned about hosting. In fact, that could very well be the reason that nobody else who you contacted knew anything about having to pay a fee to a third-party: perhaps Idiom has only instituted the third-party arrangement recently, in anticipation of getting the website redone, specifically as a solution for hosting demos. I'll ask about it, maybe when I see the website's been redone (or when I ask why it hasn't been in a month).
_________________
Cheers,
Rich
http://www.richvoiceproductions.com
@RichMillerVO

[richvoice]

I thought I'd post a final update on this. Again, I'm breaking the one-month rule for replies just because it seems to me that keeping this in one thread is preferable, but I understand if you want to break up the thread to conform to the rule.

In three months, I received somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 auditions. I continue to believe that most or all of these were voicebank.net auditions (and therefore were going out to hundreds or thousands of people through multiple outlets), though I never got that confirmed. I did not submit an audition in at least two cases because the rate quoted in the email was very low; in one case, I sent a response indicating why I wasn't submitting ("$1,000 seems like an incredibly low rate for a 2-year buyout for all versions in all markets and all media, especially given the fact that other cellular carriers would be a conflict.").

I didn't book any jobs.

Just before the fourth vocadd.com payment was going to be charged, I cancelled my account. Within a day or two, I stopped receiving auditions. Never heard a word from Shane or anyone else at Idiom. That was a few weeks ago; as of today, my demos are still up at the Idiom website (which, BTW, has not been updated).

I don't have enough data to be able to label the whole vocadd.com thing a scam. All I can say is that, based on my experience, if another agent offers representation on the condition that I pay a recurring subscription fee for demo hosting or anything else, I'll politely decline.

Hope this information is helpful to someone.
_________________
Cheers,
Rich
http://www.richvoiceproductions.com
@RichMillerVO