If it’s time for that dusty old voiceover demo to die and go up to that big old tape deck up in the sky, join us for the last demo day of 2009. This will be you get a brand spanking, shiny new demo ready for you by early january. Here are all the details.
P is a rockstar. Not only does she look great in a dress, but she also keeps us on the right side of the law and afloat by looking after all the finances @ Piehole. Along the way we’ve picked up a few tips and tricks to help Voiceover Actors do the same thing. Questions we get asked all the time include
“When will I be paid by the advertising agency?”
“How much should I charge?”
“What do I do when people don’t pay up?”
We’ve put all our best answers together into this ebook financial special for your perusal. Have a look and tell us what you think.
J
Don’t miss Nicola Lindsay in the Clean House at the new theatre. Visit www.thenewtheatre.com
Yeah obviously. Even my mum’s on facebook. Well anyway, we started a facebook group. Find us, we’re under the name Piehole. It’s for ad industry folk and voiceovers alike. The plan is to bring the two groups together. For Piehole VOs - if you have comps to any shows you’re doing, and would like to promote yourself and show off your acting talents, you can get the ad industry to go and watch you. We’re going to use the facebook group for that type of thing. So get your butt in there, it’s lonely without you.
Q: What does your average voiceover artiste and a leprechaun have in common?
A:Answer: they both know how to avoid getting found.
If you catch a Leprechaun, he has to give you his pot of gold. As a result, Leprechauns are secretive little fellows. One was however once caught by a young farmer. The farmer couldn’t believe his luck. Demanding his pot of gold, the Leprechaun reluctantly pointed to a tree in a forest under which the gold could be found. The farmer tied a red ribbon around the tree and headed off to get a shovel so that he could dig up his new found wealth.
Here voiceovers and indeed many other business people go wrong. You see – on www.piehole.ie, the most popular category of voice talent is ‘versatile’. In other-words “I can do anything”. As a result, searching the ‘versatile’ voices tells your pretty much nothing about the voice. But if the category is pretty useless in finding the one VO you need for your job – why does everyone choose it in the first place?
The reason is that they don’t want to lose out on all of the other work on the site. Fear is the strongest human emotion and the fear of losing out drives them to put themselves in this bland category where they get lost in the crowd.
The Leprechaun in our story used this effect to his advantage. He didn’t want the farmer to find his gold so while he was away he tied a red ribbon to all the other trees in the forest – making his pot of gold completely vanish.
The Leprechaun here knows how not to be found. So does a your average voiceover. The only difference is – one wants to be and the other does not.
