Voiceovers, VoiceCastingBank, And VoiceRegistry

Last week one of the new online voiceover casting players, VoiceCastingBank, hosted a webinar.

EDIT: Voice Casting Bank has since gone out of business!

Co-founders Lenny Williams and Stephanie Crammond demonstrated to the agents & producers in attendance how to host their talent rosters and create projects. Being the non-agent, non-producer Nosy Nate that I am, I crashed the party just to see what’s-what (it’s not as dramatic as I’m making it out to be, anyone could have attended the webinar).

VoiceCastingBank seems pretty easy to use. Agents build a profile then add their talent roster to them. Producers create projects and post casting notices which the agents in turn send out to the appropriate talent.

Once I realized that voice talent can’t create profiles, I suggested that producers should be able to add talent to their roster since talent cannot add themselves and some talent that producers want to work with may not have representation. They seemed to like the idea so we’ll see what happens.

If you want check it out for yourself, there are a series of instructional videos on the VoiceCastingBank YouTube channel.

The same day that VoiceCastingBank went live, Voices Dot Com made this announcement:

Today, we’re announcing that after many years of weekly workouts between voice actors and casting directors, demo critiques, and one-on-ones, we will be sunsetting Voiceregistry on November 30th.

For those of you who are not aware, VoiceRegistry is a part of Voicebank that, among other things, allows voice talent to practice copy that gets evaluated by agents, casting directors, etc. I did it for a little while but it didn’t seem worth the effort so I stopped. They were nice enough to interview me a few years ago, though. The links to check them out are here and here. FYI the links are downloadable .mov files so don’t freak out if your computer starts downloading them.

TIP OF THE WEEK

Sorry if I’m starting to sound like a broken record, but all of this begs the question yet again; what does this mean for the voiceover industry?

Times change. Companies rise and fall. Your job as a voice talent is to keep your finger on the pulse of the industry and know what the hell is going on.

With that in mind, check out VoiceCastingBank and let your representation know about it. BTW It is free to sign up in November.

While you’re at it, check out Voice Casting Hub which will go live December 1st. Right now it’s free for voice talents to join. And don’t forget to join VO Weekly Workout, too!

NEWS AND NOTES

Tuesday, October 24th-November 9: Going to the Mid-Atlantic Voice Over conference (MAVO) in 2018? How would you like an early-bird discount? Just enter the promo code “MAVODheere” and you will get $25 off your registration fee! Be sure to do it by November 9th @6PM EST to get your discount.

November 1st to December 15th: ACA Enrollment is here!

Tuesday, November 14th: my next “Marketing 201” webinar topic will be ‘Thriving In a Smaller Market City’.

Tuesday, November 21st: my next “Business and Money 201” webinar topic will be ‘Managing Your Money’.

HAPPY HAPPYS

Happy Nachos Day and Love Your Red Hair Day!

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

I have steak at home, why go out for hamburger?

Paul Newman when asked if he was tempted to stray

From my village to yours; this is Tom Dheere, The H is Silent, but I’m Not.

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Tom Dheere is a 30-year veteran voice actor specializing in corporate narration and commercials. Known as a "street-smart professor," he blends his theater-based training and guy-next-door performance style with mastery over voice over project management .

When he isn’t in the booth, he provides strategic business consulting at VOStrategist.com and produces the comic book Agent 1.22.