VO-BB - 20 YEARS OLD!

[Bruce]

I stowed this away and have just rediscovered it and had to share. Now we've all seen specs or directions for auditions that run from short (i.e. "Not too announcery" or "30-something gal next door") to maybe a paragraph describing the in some detail who they want you to sound like and what they don't want you to sound like. Well, here's the ultimate.

I've disguised the names of the store and the production house to protect the guilty. What follows is the background you must have in order to audition effectively. The kicker is the actual copy at the end:

"Here is an opportunity to audition for a local supermarket chain that covers only 3 radio adi markets in North Central XXX and Southwest XXX. Acme Supermarkets is over 50 years old and is still a family owned and operated supermarket. They hold over 35% of the market with loyal customers against the largest competition in the supermarket industry….Wal-Mart, Kroger, Meijer and Super Target.

Acme Supermarkets has steadily grown in market share as these competitors have increased their presence. There are two things known to be true….there is little difference between good tofu and bad tofu, and that Acme is not able to out-price their competition on every product. They have maintained their loyal customers by offering a clean, helpful and friendly environment that offers savings on the items you purchase most often. Acme is a very community-minded corporation that shares its growth with the communities it serves. I have produced commercials for them for 23 years and have never been more proud of my relationship with a company.

This is the offer. XYZ Productions will be producing 70 to 75 spots like the one you will be auditioning over a 12-month period starting next year. Each spot runs 1 week in the A, B and C markets. The audio will be broadcast as voiceover to a TV spot, as well as a radio spot. There is a required commitment to absolute exclusivity in the supermarket or any food restaurant, service or retail industry in these markets. There is also a requirement of your own professional studio with high quality acoustics and equipment. ISDN (layer 2) at no extra cost is preferred, but not required. After the first several sessions, most sessions may be done on your own and emailed. Sessions will be on same day each week required. Your audition must be recorded on the equipment you will be using without any processing… whatsoever! Payment will be minimum $100/spot, radio or TV net 30. Revisions after original recording will always be paid at half rate. This is not a bidding war, but if you need more than that per spot, make certain it is made clear what your cost will be. There will be at least 2 callbacks with a different script and one of those may be a live audition. There is no guaranteed quantity of spots per week. Some weeks there will be zero, while others will have 4, maybe 6. Final decision is to be made by (date).

Here is the direction. This is not hard sell. This is not soft image. This is a natural communication of benefit. Your voice should have a smile. Your demeanor should be sincere. Your melody should be varied while your pace should be comfortable. Your purpose is retail and your solution is hard economics. The “add it up” should be emphatically economics. You just saved….. You are the bearer of the grocery list for thousands and you feel good about being able to share it. Each product deserves it’s own space and presentation. Just because you just saved $4.95 doesn’t mean that the next savings of $.85 isn’t of it’s own importance. The true benefit is that each product is the lowest price and therefore by adding it up….you have saved at Acme. There is no example of a read or name of a voice to style after. It will be yours to make.

The music bed under you will be a medium/fast tempo instrumental. Its instrumentation is full and acoustic. It is not a symphony of synthesizers. It is a friendly yet direct feel-good romp. You can sense it’s pace because of your pace. The read is :26 maximum, :25 minimum. Your audition must be this time.

Questions will be answered after first call back. There are only about 50 hand selected voice talents invited to this audition. I have also been asked to participate with an audition. I receive no special consequence. I have no input in the selection process. You will have to trust my integrity. For if I had none, you wouldn’t know I was participating. Please do not let it be a deciding factor in your auditioning or not. I feel it is important that you know that the producer is also in the casting call. You will only be notified as to the next call back.

Here is the mission from Acme, the client, as to the direction this campaign will take….

Our price point program is intended to be the primary means with which we communicate our value message to the consumer. The program is direct, focused and based on real savings to the consumer. In fact, the price of the item itself is secondary to the message of savings, in figurative and literal terms. We seek an immediately identifiable look, approach and delivery of this price message…one that is unique in execution as well as sound. In addition, the approach should be clearly “retail,” while maintaining our qualities of friendly, helpful employees and an accessibility not to be found in our competitors. It’s not in the volume level, but rather in the delivery."


Now are you ready?


Have all that info in your head?


Here is the copy:


“This week at Acme…Save a Bunch!
Green Seedless Grapes, 50 cents a pound, save 3.98!
Johnsonville cooked or smoked sausages, 2 for $5, save 2.38!
Lay’s Potato chips, three for five dollars, save 3.97.
Tony’s original crust pizza, 4 for $10, save 3.56.
And, Carl Buddig thin sliced meats, 5 for $3, save 95-cents!
Add it up! You just saved 14.84!
Only at your neighborhood Acme.”



B
_________________
VO-BB Member #31 Enlisted June, 2005

I'm not a Zoo, but over the years I've played one on radio/TV. .

[Rob Ellis]

Hmmm...possibly a tad bit of overkill on the directions possibly...????
I did a million tags like that in the radio daze....

[RayAnime]

Looks like could've taken two words from this mess--"friendly, helpful "--thrown the rest away, and left the actors with a much clearer idea of what to do.

YIKES!!

[Philip Banks]

1430 BST - Started reading.

1552 BST - Just woke up ....what happened?

[tackerman]

I have a headache.

[KaraEdwards]

oh. my.
_________________
Threadjackers local 420

Kara Edwards
http://www.karaedwards.com
kara@karaedwards.com

[Lizden]

wow.
So...did you get the gig, Bruce?

L.
_________________
Liz de Nesnera O.A.V. ~ Livin' The VO Dream!
English/French Bilingual VO w/ ISDN
HireLiz.com / liz@hireliz.com

[tackerman]

Don't just announce it, I really wanna feel you connect to 4 for $10.

[mcm]

Good price on Tony's Pizza though.

[todd ellis]

sorry mary, no price is low enough for tony's "pizza".
_________________
"i know philip banks": todd ellis
who's/on/1st?

[Deirdre]

Wow.

Lost the will to live somewhere in the 4th paragraph.

That is some seriously holy crap.
_________________
DBCooperVO.com
IMDB

[Tom Test]

Oh. My.

How about THIS gem that I made the enormous mistake of auditioning for through V123 (their average rating of 202 auditions was 2.2 - I got my first V123 rating ever of less than a 3 from this bozo):

DESCRIPTION: This voiceover is for a training course for the film industry on a specific topic that is very technical, but nevertheless an interesting and fun topic. The style is more that of a commentary than a narration. The course is heavily scripted, but needs to sound like everyday language. We don’t want a “narrator” or a “teacher”. We want an industry friend with certain expertise explaining something to another industry friend who doesn’t have that particular expertise.

Being able to sound free-flowing, honest and natural, and to plow through sometimes technical jargon like you use it every day, is the most significant requirement. Not being able to step out of the typical “narrator” role and just be a person would be the most significant drawback. A typical narrator-role will for this project create a feeling of a glass wall between the viewer and the material. The goal is not perfect, the goal is honest.

By budgetary necessity, at least part of the fee will have to be deferred, because we’re coming to the end of a long production and will see our next payments upon release. We are willing to negotiate a higher fee for a higher ratio deferment, such as 50% increase in pay for an 80% deferment (resulting in a total pay of $15,000 where only $2,000 are paid during recording). Deferred payment is triggered by sales of 200 units, and is thus guaranteed, since we have thousands of customers signed up, so payment will likely happen within 2 weeks of release. You will be given auditing rights of company books until deferment has been paid, and your contract will be worded to give you an enforceable legal claim without conditions.

RECORDING: More likely, you’ll be recording in your own studio with the Director monitoring and directing over Skype or other real-time codec (AudioTX/ISDN for example), and uploading uncompressed files after each session. This requires you to have excellent recording gear, including tube-microphone and tube-preamp, and a thorough understanding of recording professional audio. We will not want the signal processed in any way, except possibly a built-in analog compressor in a preamp. Smooth treble and non-nasal upper mid-range are the preferred qualities of your recording setup. Noisy or PC microphone setups will not be considered. If you are the perfect voice but don’t have the perfect recording gear, we may supply it, although this is not preferred.

EARLY CASTING: The training program is still more than 6 months away from release, but we do not want to wait until the last minute to select a voiceover artist, especially if we need to make any changes to adapt the script to your voice. Ideally, we would like to begin recording within a month or two, and spread it out over the remainder of production, which can be over 6 months. That means that your recording setup must be static, or be possible to return to fixed settings, over a long period of time. We need to be able to replace a single sentence without any change in audio quality from the surrounding material.

AUDITION: A video clip is posted as an attachment. Please do not take the temporary voiceover as guidance. If we feel that you could work for the project, we may want to do an actual audition of a full chapter as well as an equipment test.

We look forward to hearing from you!
_________________
Best regards,
Tom Test
"The Voice You Trust"
www.tomtest.com

[bobsouer]

Tom,

You and I both fell for that one, and both got, shall we say, similar "ratings" from the "client."
_________________
Be well,
Bob Souer (just think of lemons)
The second nicest guy in voiceover.
+1-724-613-2749
Source Connect, phone patch, pony express

[Lance Blair]

There's no way I would have responded to that last audition call. That screams "nightmare client" all over it. Wants a tube pre and mic? Oops. I'll go put my U87 and high-end solid state preamps away, I'll be right back with my ChineseToob Mic and Presonus Blue Toob I got at Guitarget.

Yak yak yak...we're going to do this, we want you to do that. The more you yak it up the less I trust you, guys. You want the pickups to match the original takes? No really? Gee, that's what a pro does. I wonder if you've worked with one before. No mention of phone patch either, but Skype's okay. Bizarre.

Not a fan of the "We want this, and you will accordingly have to do X and Y to satisfy our demands" attitude I'm seeing more and more online...as if we're the hired help that come in through the back entrance. Meeting client demands and expectations is what we do...but there's a sinister tone afoot in leads like this that I would never use.

And isn't it ironic, that they failed in writing this audition to be "friendly", "conversational" and clear but technical??? I don't feel like these people are my colleagues at all!

I'm so glad I left V123 so I only have to read this kind of dreck on messageboards.
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Skype: globalvoiceover
and now, http://lanceblairvo.com the blog is there now too!

[Lizden]

Tom..wow...now I'm not familiar with your work but...
BOB???!!!!! YOU GOT LESS THAN A 3??????????? YOU?????????????????

jeeze....

L.

EDIT: BTW...Tom...that didn't sound quite right! That's NOT to say that you aren't REALLY GOOD ....I just know Bob...and don't know you that well...and well...OK...so I stuck my Foot in my mouth!!!
SO:
TOM???!!!!! YOU GOT LESS THAN A 3??????????? YOU?????????????????


_________________
Liz de Nesnera O.A.V. ~ Livin' The VO Dream!
English/French Bilingual VO w/ ISDN
HireLiz.com / liz@hireliz.com