This job makes me feel like I’ve been around the world every couple of weeks!
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I’ve Always Wanted To Go To Tokyo
Posted in Travel, Video, Voice Over
Tagged geobeats, hosting, naomi mercer, tokyo at night, Voiceover
Voice Over Agents: Don’t have to have ‘em to survive, but you GOTTA have ‘em when it’s time to thrive
In the last year I’ve been teaching classes about the business of voice over where I’ve said you don’t have to have an agent to do voice over work. Let me clarify: you don’t have to have an agent to get started in voice over work. You also don’t need an agent if you just want to do smaller, local jobs and you don’t want to progress beyond that. Like maybe you’re on payroll to do the voice over at a company for all of their vo needs. That’s a great job, and you certainly don’t need an agent for it.
So some people say, “why do even need an agent anymore?”
Between my big jobs that I get via my agent, I make my money every day doing voice over work for clients I gathered via Voice123.com and a few other places. The website that handles the big jobs (voicebank.net) can only be used by SAG agents and you can only get your voice listed on there if you are on the roster of one of these agencies. The difference between voicebank.net and voice123.com is like the difference between an entire Home Depot Campaign and a an E-Learning job for a small community college. In order to access those big jobs, you need an agent that uses voicebank.net.
The second reason agents are awesome is equally important: they negotiate for you. I’ve gotten pretty good at negotiating my own rates for small jobs but I wouldn’t know the first thing about the bigger ones. I booked a national EA Sports commercial the other day and I only had like two lines. But each line was in a separate commercial so I got paid two session fees. Then my agent asked me about any alternates. Alternates or an “alternate line” is another option – reading the line again only a little bit differently. Maybe with one word added or removed. My agent took a look at my script notes from the session and negotiated ANOTHER session fee from my ALT line. We’re talking about like 4-6 words in a line and she negotiated another entire SESSION rate!
In conclusion, if you are just starting out, you don’t have to have an agent to get your first job. In fact, you should get as many jobs as possible first so you can look desirable when you go after an agent. But once it’s time to go for the big jobs, you really can’t thrive without the right agent on your team.
The Fantasy Jumper
This was a really fun job. The Drabblecast is a neat podcast that I’ve read a story for once before but this one really struck me. It’s by Will McIntosh who is a highly decorated science fiction writer. The Fantasy Jumper was in 2009′s Year’s Best of Science Fiction and Fantasy and Will has a good shot at the Hugo Award this year. Here’s a cool review about it:
‘The Fantasy Jumper’ by Will McIntosh is a first BS appearance by a regular contributor to sister-magazine Interzone,and it’s a fine story, perhaps the best in the magazine; set at a future World’s Fair, which includes amongst its attractions a booth that will generate temporary people designed to replay selected memories. Breaking from it’s expected narrative arc, it’s short and to the point, and perhaps worth the price of the magazine on it’s own.
Click here for the entire by Sci Fi Fantasy Fiction.
Click here to listen to the story. Just so you know, it’s like 20 minutes long. I read the Fantasy Jumper at around 4:24 into the podcast. Hope you enjoy!
Posted in Audio, Voice Over
Tagged drabblecast, naomi mercer, podcast, Voice Over, Will McIntosh
I’m Thinking Of Going Platinum
I’ve been working full time as a voice over actor for about two years now. I have several agents, who all work really hard for me, but the majority of my work is via online websites like Voice123.com and Voices.com.
I also teach classes about how to be successful at the kind of voice over work I’m doing. Where you set up your own studio, learn how to record and edit, find and negotiate your own work and collect all your money sans a $300 or so annual membership fee.
In my course work I talk about how I’ve, personally, had more luck with Voice123 than Voices in the past but that I’ve noticed there are people doing well on Voices.com. When I did some investigating to see who those people were I noticed they all had one thing in common – Platinum level memberships.
I paid something like $299 for the year but these guys paid $2000. They get priority listing on searches (huge) and they get an entire PR department working for them, including press releases and ad campaigns for their voice.
I spoke with someone at Voices.com today and they said all of their current Platinum members give it a 10 out of 10 rating. I’m thinking about signing up and posting the results play by play on this blog so that, if it sucks, you won’t have to waste your money.
Stay tuned!
Posted in The Business of Voice Over, Voice Over
Anybody Wanna Go To Munich?
Here’s the latest video that Geobeats posted:
This job has been so fun already and I’m just getting started! The Geobeats Vimeo Page has the rest of the videos they’ve done so far. I love the video and pictures of the architecture in Seoul, Dubai and Beijing. Too bad I didn’t have to go to each of these places to tell you about their top 5 or 10 attractions;)
Posted in Travel, Video, Voice Over
Tagged geobeats, germany, Munich, naomi mercer, travel attractions, Voice Over
Who Says You Need A Car To Do Laundry?
I’m trying to save up to buy my first real car. Like a reliable one where all I worry about is the car payment. In the meantime, we got a Schwinn electric scooter that, I must say, does almost everything a car can do for me.
It can go on the subway, you don’t need to pay for licensing or registration on it and I haven’t needed gas in ages. You just plug it in to the wall! And our neighbor modified the engine to make it go fast enough where it’s not just a toy, it’s actually useful. I’ve been getting around lately with nothing that’s gas combustible and it makes me wonder if I even want a car until I can buy a reasonable electric one.
The next thing I’m buying in my life is a nice laundry machine. I teach exercise so the laundry can pile up fast but, when it does it’s hard to transport everything to the stupid laundry mat. With Dis’ help, between the bike and the scooter, were were “Makin it Happen” today.
Posted in I'm Into This!, My Life, Video
Tagged Dismost, electric scooter, gas, laundry, naomi mercer, no car, schwinn
My Dream Job Seems to be Unfolding
I’m so excited to announce that I was recently hired by Geobeats. They are a really cool company based in Boston who is hiring me for voice over + editing as well as a little on camera hosting. And, get this, for the most part I’m talking about travel! I love this stuff. There isn’t anything I would rather talk about. Their editing team is working on my first assignment but here is one of the samples from my first assignment.
Sydney Travel Guide – Top Travel Attractions in Sydney, Australia from geo beats on Vimeo.
Posted in Travel, Video, Voice Over
Tagged geobeats, hosting, naomi mercer, Sydney, travel, Travel Shows, Voice Over
I know, I know I said I’d never do this…
I said I’d never teach one of these voice over workshops in Los Angeles. I just loved the idea of going to other cities around the country and teaching people this approach that tells them they really don’t need to move to LA or NYC anymore to do voice over work.
But then, when I started partnering with the Guitar Center they were most excited about their new facilities in Los Angeles, GC Studios. This place is awesome. It’s about a year old and a state of the art set up for a learning environment and rehearsal space.
The more I thought about it, the more I realized this workshop is perfect for Angelenos too. If you’re interested in voice over, it can be years before you get an agent and a lot of waiting for the phone to ring while working jobs to survive in the mean time. But my workshop teaches you to find small yet regular voice over jobs that you can work instead of a starving actor job. You’d be making the same money but you’d be working and gaining experience within your field.
Guitar Center’s corporate office hooked me up with GC Studios and now my workshop is a part of their “Summer Sessions” series. Check it out!
They are handling all sign ups so I’m taking the sign up option down off my workshop website. If you are interested in taking the class or know someone who might be, contact GC Studios (818.883.4427) and they’ll sign you up (hurry though! Only 20 spots and they told me yesterday they’ve already registered some people)
Posted in The Business of Voice Over
Tagged gc studios, guitar center, los angeles, Mercer, Naomi, Voice Over, Voiceover