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VO-BB - 20 YEARS OLD!
Established November 10, 2004
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Bob Bergen
CM
Joined: 22 Apr 2008
Posts: 979
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 Posted: Sat May 23, 2015 8:59 am Post subject: |
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| Ooooo, DB, I need me some edumacation! No idea what you are referring to. Please enlighten!!!! |
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Deirdre
Czarina Emeritus
Joined: 10 Nov 2004
Posts: 13023
Location: Camp Cooper
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| Posted: Sat May 23, 2015 9:24 am Post subject: |
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You are so adorable! I can't even tell if you are serious.
In the event that you ARE:
Collective bargaining agreements are only allowed where there is an employer/employee relationship.
Arranging minimum fees among tradesmen, artisans, freelancers of any sort is PRICE FIXING and is against the law.
Therefore, you need to establish what I call "an episode of employment" for your single visit to a recording studio, and also NOW thanks to the internet handing us an industry, for your ISDN or phone patch or unconnected-to-anything recording session in your own studio.
It's technically "employment".
And NOW, home studio LLC talent who funnel their self-negotiated work thru a paymaster have to pay worker's comp to their state.
For sitting on their own property, doing their work.
LALALALA head a splode.
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DBCooperVO.com
IMDB
Last edited by Deirdre on Sat May 23, 2015 7:34 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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ConnieTerwilliger
Triple G
Joined: 07 Dec 2004
Posts: 3381
Location: San Diego - serving the world
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| Posted: Sat May 23, 2015 9:31 am Post subject: |
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I remember a tale or two of someone hired to do a VO through a union contract - spent an hour in the studio - and then filed unemployment.
Old wives tale? I don't know...
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Philip Banks
Je Ne Sais Quoi
Joined: 20 Jun 2005
Posts: 11074
Location: Portgordon, Scotland
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Lee Gordon
A Zillion
Joined: 25 Jul 2008
Posts: 6864
Location: West Hartford, CT
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| Posted: Sat May 23, 2015 11:00 am Post subject: |
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| Bob Bergen wrote: | | Before the Internet, vo was primarily in the larger markets. There was really very little non Union vo work. |
That is true for "big" VO, but out here in the hinterlands there was still VO work to be had. Things were just done a little differently. There would be a relatively small group of local voiceoverists who would go to the local studios to record VO for local clients (including locally based major national clients). Of the two studios where I got the bulk of my jobs, one was a union signatory and the other was not, but generally paid union rates.
Then, along came technologies like switched-56 and ISDN and suddenly, instead of every local client having its commercials done by the same relatively small band of local voices, they could stand out by getting a unique voice from clear across the country. And the way for us to make up for all that lost business was to become the unique, out of market voice in their home markets. The internet is largely what made that possible.
| Quote: | | I don't believe that a Union whose membership is talent/performance based can have any kind of competency requirements. Acting and talent is subjective. |
I completely agree. However, because so many trade unions do have both training programs and competency standards, it's easy to see how people could be under the false impression that all unions do, including the artistic/performance based ones. Theoretically, there should now be more of a de facto standard because the rules of the merged union require you to have been hired for a real job before being allowed to join, whereas the only prerequisite to join AFTRA in the pre-merger days was to come up with the initiation fee and dues.
| Quote: | | Not just a vo gig, an acting gig. Vo is our game. But the union covers many, many acting genres. |
And that's the other thing. AFTRA was a radio and (mostly) TV performers union and SAG was a TV and (mostly) movie actors union. And while it does deal with all aspects of performance, including VO, I believe that SAG-AFTRA is far and away more concerned with the needs of TV and movie actors than any of their other constituencies. Yes, VO is one of their categories, but I get the feeling it is relatively far down their list of priorities.
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Lee Gordon, O.A.V.
Voice President of the United States
www.leegordonproductions.com
Twitter: @LeeGordonVoice
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bobsouer
Frequent Flyer
Joined: 15 Jul 2006
Posts: 9883
Location: Pittsburgh, PA
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| Posted: Sat May 23, 2015 7:47 pm Post subject: |
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| Bob Bergen wrote: | | Then, the tide turned. The tide being the internet and P2P. |
Bob,
This is the only part of your comments with which I disagree. The tide that turned was not the Internet and P2P. The tide was the stupid, stubborn and completely wrong-headed decision on the part of the ivory tower elites that ran the (at the time) separate unions to call the commercial strike in 2000.
The failure of union leadership at the time to understand that the Internet had changed everything all ready, that there were thousands of highly experienced and highly talented non-union performers (not just VO, but on camera as well) who were ready and willing to step in to fill the production gap created by the strike; that was (not the tide but) the tsunami that shifted our world.
And the shift has continued and accelerated, and the rate of acceleration continues to rise. Eventually the shift will become so pervasive that even that chair of the VO committee won't be able to pretend it doesn't exist anymore; but by then it will be too late. The union will have completely lost relevance.
It's also very important to understand DB's points about the labor laws. As things stand at present, there is no fix or certainly no simple fix.
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Be well,
Bob Souer (just think of lemons)
The second nicest guy in voiceover.
+1-724-613-2749
Source Connect, phone patch, pony express |
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Bob Bergen
CM
Joined: 22 Apr 2008
Posts: 979
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| Posted: Sat May 23, 2015 8:05 pm Post subject: |
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Hey there, Bob!
I agree with you..... to a point. The strike coincided with the launch of V123. THAT was what I call the perfect storm. The union was on strike commercially. V123 presented a platform where buyers needed commercial talent. Union actors could not work. The new online non Union talent was literally handed opportunity. After 15 years, the rest is history. Both entities have created and conditioned what I call The Walmartization of vo. The've created a cheaper, easier, and faster way to conduct business. The buyers are thrilled. The talent is too far removed from the union world they don't care or relate. The union world is still stuck in 2000.
Wanna hear more??? The guy who launched V123 actually intended it to be a Union site. He attempted to get both unions involved. But neither returned his phone calls or emails. So, he launched it without the union.
Another example where the union f'd up. |
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RAINVO
Contributor
Joined: 29 May 2012
Posts: 41
Location: NE Texas
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| Posted: Wed Jun 03, 2015 8:16 am Post subject: |
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Like a few other people have stated I'm making a pretty good living being an entrepreneur making well above the afforementioned union average, and being a full Union Member would be shooting myself in the foot here in NE Texas away from "Ivory Towers" as they are referred to. I've considered the FI-CORE option, but as Texas is a Right To Work State I've often wondered if this means I can audition for and/or work for Union jobs anyway should something appealing come my way. Can someone from here or a state with similar laws chime in on this?
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Jen Gosnell
A Hundred Dozen
Joined: 14 Jan 2010
Posts: 1290
Location: Portland, OR
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| Posted: Wed Jun 03, 2015 11:39 pm Post subject: |
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| Deirdre wrote: | | Your story about that dame at the helm of union VO makes me wish we could figure out a way to make our own union, and kiss the suits good-bye. |
Regarding the case of the dedicated VO who rarely or never does on-camera work, it seems to me this would be ideal. And yet...
I was thinking along these lines several days ago when I read the early part of this thread; it just goes back to the dollars. Like Bob pointed out, VO is just one little part of the union pie. Surely, film funnels exponentially more money into SAG-AFTRA than straight VO does (I realize there's crossover there with animation, but the bulk of VO work doesn't fall into that niche). So they don't have much incentive to care about the small fry. Probably even if they got a bunch of the high-earning non-union folks to join the fold, and even if there were magically some provision for allowing these folks to preserve their previous non-union earning levels, that financial bump to the union still would be dwarfed by dollars brought in from feature-film-employed members.
But that doesn't mean the flyover-state VO wouldn't likely appreciate the benefits of collective bargaining, such as reduced bulk rates for high-quality insurance coverage, and standard operating procedures for booking- and payment-related matters. At least, it seems to me that these might be incentives for the average (or above-average) VO to care about union membership.
So we have a mismatch of incentives with the existing parties and infrastructure, and the problem of employers/employees being scattered to the four winds makes the idea of creating a new collective-bargaining infrastructure a daunting prospect. Clearly the choice of the majority of VO folks is to simply get on with making an independent, freelance living rather than trying to throw the Titanic into reverse. My feeling is that it's going to take the likes of a D.B. Quixote  and an army of her recruits to chart the path toward a completely new collective paradigm. I don't think the current union is going to be relevant to the vast majority of non-film VO work in the next 10-15 years.
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https://www.jengosnell.com
Skype: jen.gosnell
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ballenberg
Lucky 700
Joined: 10 Nov 2004
Posts: 793
Location: United States
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| Posted: Thu Jun 04, 2015 6:00 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | Clearly the choice of the majority of VO folks is to simply get on with making an independent, freelance living rather than trying to throw the Titanic into reverse |
Using the membership of this unfortunately non-union oriented board as a barometer of what is a " majority of VO talent is not necessarily a valid point. |
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Jen Gosnell
A Hundred Dozen
Joined: 14 Jan 2010
Posts: 1290
Location: Portland, OR
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| Posted: Thu Jun 04, 2015 9:07 am Post subject: |
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Fair enough, Bill. I concede that it's very difficult to get one's arms around how many legitimate VO talent are out there and what their affiliation is. I think we have some good, strong perspectives from both sides on this board, though.
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jen@jengosnell.com
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Skype: jen.gosnell
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Bish
3.5 kHz
Joined: 22 Nov 2009
Posts: 3738
Location: Lost in the cultural wasteland of Long Island
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| Posted: Thu Jun 04, 2015 9:19 am Post subject: |
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I actually think there are more union members here than we think. Many choose to avoid these discussions as they can become a circular time-sink. Others see it as a lost cause... and probably more than a few are cautious about outing themselves and being dragged into "political" discussions. Not every union member is an activist or even a vocal supporter... some are just pragmatists doing their job as best they can.
There is no doubt that there was a perfect storm that caused the decline the union in the VO world... the rise of the internet, the strike, the fact that it's a lumbering behemoth that's slow to change, the SAG/AFTRA infighting, and (as Jen noted) the lowly standard of VOs in the big picture.
Is it a lost cause? Time will tell. I personally think we're rapidly approaching a sink or swim point where the union can either rise to the challenge and put the ship back on course... or throw it's hands in the air and go home with regards to non-broadcast VO. Ignoring the issues are no longer an option... they run the risk of being irrelevant through denial and inaction. The changes need to come from within... and that's an uphill struggle.
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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. |
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