David Toback

Warning! This will be a VO rates rant, something I don’t do much of but, as one the Voiceover industry’s foremost rates experts, I feel compelled to do so.

More and more, we’ve seen Commercial VO rates plummet. The thought is that they’ve hit the bottom of the well, but just when we think that worse rates come.

We continually see the neglect and abuse of talent and their value from the very people who are supposed to be in our corner and fighting for us – agents and casting directors.

Let’s be clear, this doesn’t apply universally, but in the past couple of years, we all check castings to see how bad the rate is going to be. It’s disheartening, especially when it feels like certain casting companies have doubled down in this regard.

Frankly, I’m sick and tired of seeing insulting rates being offered so multi-billion-dollar corporations can use our talent to make millions of dollars.

I know, “then just don’t audition”. Well, that’s not the answer nor should it be suggested. The fact that the answer to trying to combat abusive rates and hold people’s feet to the fire is to ignore the issue and pretend it doesn’t exist, is aggravating. We saw how that worked this year…

This is why non-union Commercial VO is dying and why I don’t audition as much anymore. Is it really worth the time and effort just to support atrocious rates (more and more of in-perpituity), giving clients permission to continue the abuse? Talent have NO voice in this fight, and we rely on our agents and casting directors to hold up fair rates for our industry, and they’re failing us. Sending out jobs that come with abusive rates just supports those rates from continuing.

I understand these parties have difficult jobs and are in difficult positions balancing talent and clients, but at what long-term cost? As business owners, voice talent are taught to stand up for their value, learn to say no, and respect the craft. So why are we the only one’s doing so?

“Why don’t you just join the Union?”. If that were a realistic option for the overwhelming majority of voice actors, who are non-union, then sure. But it’s not. At least 80% of VO work is non-union and for many, joining the union doesn’t make sense for their business. And what if we all did? There wouldn’t be enough work to support us.

So, what’s the solution? Stand up, say no, tell your agents, tell casting directors, you refuse to audition for jobs that have predatory rates. If enough people stand up to this, changes will have to be made. We are THE BEST IN THE WORLD, and we should be paid fairly. Don’t be desperate to work, the work will come. Value your talent and worth more than the opportunity to work. Market your business, find your way into non-broadcast work where the money is good, and you can control your destiny. If the reasoning is “it’s an effect of supply and demand”, demand they find their supply somewhere else.

I know I may get some flak for writing this, but I don’t really care at this point. I want to work with people in this industry that stand with talent and support our right to fair rates. This may be an oversimplification, but from the talent perspective, this is what we see. I’ve offered to host a panel at VO ATL bringing in all parties; agents, casting directors, buyers, etc so talent can understand the factors that are going into budgets and why they keep going down but was rejected, twice.

I use this analogy all the time: If Coca-Cola didn’t know their cost for aluminum, they would be in trouble. We deserve to understand the reasons why our livelihood gets determined by people trying to make more profit and reduce costs to get bonuses.

This isn’t just about money. This is about respect, talent value, and the future of Commercial VO for voice talent.

Thanks for coming to my TedTalk

Rates in the voiceover industry are somewhat of an enigma. In days of past, Union work was the only work, agents held the keys, drove the bus, and took care of everything. Talent went to their agent to audition, got direction, then went home, wiping their hands from the “business” aspect of their job.

Enter the internet…

Once the internet grabbed a hold of the industry, it changed dramatically. Now talent could audition and complete jobs from home, anywhere in the world, not needing to rely on agents and studios. No longer was work confined to the traditional methods and Non-Union work began to explode.

The internet also allowed an explosion of talent into the industry. Advancing technology meant that good, even professional, quality audio was available to even beginner talent and at a fraction of the cost in previous years.

To accommodate the increase in Non-Union work and connect buyers with this growing supply of voice talent, online casting sites were born. At first it seemed like these sites were great, they provided a source of auditions outside of agents and your own marketing efforts. But as we would come to learn, a downfall of this new business format would be the impact on rates.

Rates for voiceover are complex with so many different types of voiceover work, all commanding differing values based on genre, usage, recording time, recording amount, etc.

The traditional values for voiceover, held by agents and more traditional voiceover industry participants, was no longer the rule of the land. Now, a client’s budget dictated the rate, not the value of the service they were getting.

This created a large problem for the industry from the talent perspective. As the barriers to entry as a talent dropped, so did the amount of industry education of business norms and rates. New talent were flying blind and becoming a victim of the gig economy auditioning and accepting jobs for FAR below industry averages. It became the Wild Wild West.

While this rising problem grew, I happened to come across my own rates quandary and the help of my mentor, Cristina Milizia.

What happened next would change the Non-Union voiceover industry and propel my career in new and unbelievable ways…

Stay tuned for The GVAA Rate Guide & Me

While it was a great feeling, I finally got a client with my own marketing efforts, it brought a glaring problem I had into focus. What do I charge for my services?

Until then, I had always relied on my agent and online casting sites to “tell” me what the rate was. I had no knowledge of what the rate should be for any one particular job, let alone have a handle on rates for all the possible types of jobs I could offer. I realized I needed to have a rate card that I could reference when quoting clients.

This is where I asked my mentor, Cristina Milizia, for help. “What do I charge for X, Y, & Z Cristina? How am I supposed to know in the future?”

Cristina is a research and results oriented person, and being such she passed along some rates resources available at the current time, and told me to have fun. From those I realized I quoted too little for the job, but the lesson was learned. Now, I could create a rate guide from these rates resources to help me for future projects.

I fired up Excel, analyzed all the data, and created as comprehensive a rate guide possible (I knew all those years in the corporate world would pay off!).

Feeling pretty proud, I sent it to Cristina to see what she thought, and her response wasn’t what I was expecting.

“Oh my God, this is exactly what we need in the industry! Would you want to work with me on expanding this?”

That was an easy answer…YES!

And that’s how the GVAA Rate Guide began. From there Cristina and I gathered rates from agents, casting directors, coaches, and industry pro’s, and expanded the scope of the Rate Guide. I joined the GVAA staff in March of 2016 and in April we launched the first version of the GVAA Rate Guide!

From that day, everything changed. Talent now had a reliable rates resource to know, understand, and command their value. It quickly became the most used rate resource in the industry and garnered the GVAA good-will as a leader in rates education.

Continually updated and improved, the GVAA Rate Guide is the most comprehensive rates educational resource in the industry. Used by agents, casting directors, talent, and clients all over the world, the impact this guide has had is immeasurable.

I’m not sure anyone thought the Rate Guide would have had this kind of impact, but being a part of helping to shape, educate, and support the voiceover industry is one thing I’m most proud of.

And to think, it was born from an over analytical guy anxious to use Excel to make a pretty guide…