Name: Back to the Booth: Your Questions, Real Answers
Uploaded: 2026-08-12T18:46:05.032Z
Duration: 1 h 6 min 28 s
Description: Back to the Booth: Your Questions, Real Answers

Transcript for "Back to the Booth: Your Questions, Real Answers": Hello, everyone. Welcome in. Thank you so much for joining. I'm Marissa Hadden from Voices, and I will be your host and moderator for the next hour. And before we dive in, just a few quick notes. This session will be recorded and the replay will go out to everyone who registered, whether you're here with us live today or just catching up later. So you'll receive that by the end of the week. And if you would like live captions, just click on the CC button at the bottom of your screen in the toolbar. You may have noticed that there is a q and a box on the right hand side of your screen today. It is going to be open for the entire hour, so please feel free to add any questions in there at any time. And at the end of our conversation today, if we happen to run out of time and your questions didn't get answered live, please add them to the q and a box, and we will be able to reach out to you directly to get your questions answered. Now, we'll get into who we are and why we are all here. An introduction to Voices. Voices has been around for twenty years and is a trusted company built to connect voice talent to paid work across a global network of professionals. A lot has changed in the last two to three years, so we are here to reintroduce ourselves and answer some of your questions. One thing that hasn't changed though is that we do listen, and a lot of what's shifted in our business came directly from your talent feedback, your your feedback. Now with us today as well is Kava. Kava is the Canadian Association of Voice Actors, which is a nonprofit that educates, supports, and advocates for the sustainability and advancement of the voice acting industry through action, inclusion, and benefits. Inspired by the work Nava has done in The US, a group of Canadian industry professionals came together to extend the same mission here with a focus on resources for the Canadian voice over industry. And something worth knowing as well is that you don't actually have to be Canadian or live in Canada to join Kava. So if it is of interest of you to join today, please go to kavavoices.org to learn more. Now without further ado, let me introduce today's panel. Bev Standing is with us today, and she is Kava's vice president and an award winning Canadian voice actor with over ten years of experience. Many of you will know her as the original North American text to speech voice on TikTok, a legal battle that became a landmark case for voice actor, protections in the emerging era of AI, voice cloning, and synthetic media. Bev is known for her versatile, warm, and trustworthy sounds, working mostly in commercials, elearning, corporate narration, and explainers with some animation and audiobook work as well. Hi, Bev. That's She grew up immersed in media as the daughter of an advertising executive and later worked as a radio drama production assistant for the CBC. And today, she continues to work globally for her remote from her remote home studio, which I believe you're in today. Thank you, Bev. Welcome. Thank you. I'm actually beside my studio. I'm, at my. mess I'm at my messy desk. But, yes, thanks for having me. It's great to be here. Bev. I'd also like to welcome Emma O'Neil, who is the Kava president and a multi award winning voice actor specializing in radio and TV commercial, TV narration, TV promo, corporate training videos, and most recently, audiobooks. Emma's full time voice over journey started in 2012, but she's been in the acting business her entire life. She holds a bachelor's in acting from York University in Toronto and has appeared on stage and screen in hundreds of productions. Outside of the booth, Emma is a fitness, wellness, and yoga enthusiast and has been a yoga instructor for over twenty five years, hosting retreats worldwide. Hi, Emma. Thank you so much for joining us today. My pleasure. I'm excited about this conversation. And last but not least, I'd like to introduce Sarah Hunt from Voices. She is the Manager of Agency Services and has been with Voices for twelve years, which means she's seen pretty well every iteration of the company, and she'll be fielding the company specific questions today alongside Bev and Emma. So thank you all so much for joining us today. Before we jump right in, today, we are structured with four content blocks. We'll get into answering everyone's questions that you provided upon registration. So our first block is how to create a successful VO career, tips and tricks, key insights, and last but not least, safety and the three c's. And then we're going to flip the format a little bit for our last block being where, Kava and all of you will be able to put your question into the q and a box, and we will answer some of those. But just as a reminder, if anything does not get answered today, we will be reaching out directly following, to get those questions answered for you. Perfect. So let's jump right in. Our first question. For experienced talent still building traction on voices, which platform metrics best indicate a profile, demos, and auditions are moving in the right direction? Sarah, I'll hand it over to you first from the voices side. Cool. Yeah. I'm gonna answer this question with, like, a two pronged approach, if that's okay. Because it's a pretty specific question around, like, profile completeness, which has some technical components. So, you know, you wanna make sure that you have, demos. Right? A nice full well rounded demo library, is really, really important, and it makes you more searchable. So, of course, we are, first and foremost, a platform that has, like, sophisticated algorithms designed to help clients find you based on what they're looking for. So you want, different demos that accommodate different categories. If you have different, performance qualities, like you're really, really good at, the guy, gal, or person next door, or, you know, you can equally do a hard sell really well. Make sure you've got, you know, those kinda well rounded, well tagged profiles. That'll help out your search results, your voice match score, and some of those other, like, technical considerations. The next thing that you might wanna consider is, like, the details that speak to, your experience, and then as well your studio. Right? So, you're gonna wanna see like, be very clear about your capabilities. Do you have a high quality mic? Do you have editing software, session capabilities and that kind of thing? And then as far as, like, for you to identify whether or not you're moving in the right direction, I think a really promising signal is are you getting invites. Right? So is voice match catching you? Are you getting invited privately or we should say, like, one to one? Are people personally inviting you because they liked your demos? And then are you getting listens and likes? There's a thumbs up option. Right? If somebody likes your audition, they're going to thumbs up or shortlist you. And that's a really good indicator that you yourself can measure, when you're looking at, you know, your profile and how things are tracking when you're just getting started. I think that about covers it, but I think, probably Emma and Bev might have, some good insights as well, from a talent perspective. Absolutely. I think it's important overall to have training and understand the industry, when you're getting into this. No matter what site you wanna put yourself on, you only have one chance to make a good first impression. And if you have a horrible sample off your phone that you stick on voices and hope somebody's gonna hire you, they're gonna remember that. And they might even talk about it, you know, at the dinner table or at the bar going, oh, you remember so and so? I got that it was ridiculous and that name will stick so don't put yourself out there till you're ready. There's a lot of free information. I know as as a member of CABA we have free resources all over the you know the site for you to look up. There's also lots of chat sites that that share information from established talent, and, you know, don't ask a question till you've researched it. Again, first impression. Right? How do I do this? Well, we've said it 33 times in this Facebook group. So just do a quick look if you have a question, and if you don't see an answer, then ask your question. And those are all great ways to get established and and find your find your place. And certainly on a site like Voices. It's a it's a, you know, it's one of the tools in your toolbox. It's not the be all and end all, but it's certainly a place to find to find, clients. The demo aspect is so important. I think we'll probably get into, you know, creating a quality demo, leaning on a coach, getting scripting and everything. But, just so you guys know, your demo doesn't start and stop at, like, your profile and whether or not you get invited to jobs. Our team is showcasing demos all the time. We leverage your profile and your demos when we're out, pitching clients and big agencies who hire tons of voice over talent. So if you have a really good demo, then clients might see it outside of just a job posting or hear it, I should say. Emma, do you have anything to add to that or did I print? No. You covered it, but it's I mean, training, training, training is so important to train, to understand that the this industry is especially now leaning into voice acting and your ability to act. As for your recording equipment, it doesn't need to be pretty, but it does need to work. And learning understanding that as a voice actor, you wear many, many, many hats. You are the engineer. You are the editor. You are the copywriter. You are all of the things, really. So you're receiving copy. You have to be able to understand what the copy is. You need to and it's not because it's not about the sound of your voice, especially now. It's about being really good at what it is that you're doing. And the only way to be really good at that is to practice, to work with vetted coaches, to to be really open to feedback because feedback is always there to make you better. It's never there to bring you down. It's always there to make you better. So understanding that this if you want to step into into this work, if you're already working in this work, that it's a constant, training situation. You never stop training ever. It's kinda like being a professional athlete. Like, you're just you're always working with a coach. Can I I just want to add the word consistency too? So if you are starting out and you don't have a dedicated space and you're using a closet, for example, it's filled with winter clothes and now you're doing auditions and you get hired and all of a sudden it's, you know, t shirts and shorts and it's not as full in your closet, your sound will change. It's understanding that. So whatever space you have, it has to be consistent from start to finish because the voice you audition with is the one they're expecting. The sound of the quality of the audio, that's what they expect. Yeah. That's great insight. I didn't even think of that. When the seasons change, the surroundings may change as well if you're you're working out of your closet as well. That's wonderful. Our next question is kind of on that same wavelength. How do I increase my chances of being chosen and getting hired? I know we spoke a lot about that consistency. But is there anything else, Mary? Maybe, Sarah, I'll hand it off to you first, that we Yeah. Okay. So how do I increase my chances of being chosen and getting hired? Well, so I assume in this scenario, like, you're auditioning for jobs. Right? So you're already auditioning. That's the first step. You don't get what you don't try out. for. But, I think it's really, really important just really to echo Bev's most recent point, that quality. Like, they're going to assume that the quality of your audition is going to be the quality of your final recording. Right? So there's edge cases maybe when, like, it's a really unique brief and you know you're, like, one of three people who's gonna get it and you're not at your booth and you wanna knock out a phone recording, just to get submitted, maybe. But for the most part, like, you wanna be auditioning often, and make sure you match the brief and the quality of your audio represents how you're gonna sound if you're selected. The next thing and we actually work with casting directors all the time. We're, like, really we don't claim to be casting directors, but we at least try to understand how to think and listen like one. And, the vibe check really matters. Right? Like, if you don't understand the essence of the script and, like, the direction that the brief is trying to get across and, you know, you totally missed the mark. They're asking for emotion and whimsy and you give, like, a, you know, hard sell, AVL read. We might send you through, but they probably won't consider you, is just my hunch. So really make sure that, like, you're you're understanding how that brief is supposed to be interpreted. And sometimes adding a little bit of, you know, I don't wanna say that you should freestyle, too much, but adding a little bit of personality, an unexpected pause or breath or something that brings a little bit more emotion and depth to your read is going to make it stand out if it fits. Definitely. I think it's also understanding that people there's a lot of people submitting for this stuff, which does it shouldn't scare you. It I I feel like that should be more exciting. It's like, oh, it's a lottery. What's gonna happen? But it's the first kinda two or three seconds of your audition that are the most important, not that the rest of it is not important. But you wanna make sure that you don't get really, really connected to the copy at second six or second ten. You wanna be connected from the second they they press play so that they're really here and, like, oh, wait. What? Who is this person? What are they doing? This is amazing. This is I wanna listen more. You want them to want to lean in and hear more so that if you're submitting two takes, they've lost track of time by the time it gets to the end of that m p three that they're like, oh, I listened to both. Hang on a second. I'm gonna go back because I was so involved in the story. Like, a trick that I use is read the copy, read it again, put it away. Can I tell you the story? Can I tell you what that copy is about in my own words in a very short period of time, then I understand what I'm talking about, then I'm able to bring me to the story and bring that forward? But the first two to three seconds, that's where the gold is. I love that so much. Like, connect with the copy before you even start reading. Don't like, there's no warm up period. Right? I'd I'd love. to add, something that you can do to listen to yourself to see what we're talking about is if you were to pull up a script. And and let's let's go big and say it's a script about it's a corporate script about something you know about and just record yourself as a cold read. You'll find as you read the script, you get more and more into it. But when a casting person is listening, they don't wait for that. So you read it and you go, oh, I get it and then go right back up to the top. Now you're into the script. Now you get it. So if you were to do that at home and just record cold and get into the script as you go, then walk away and come back and listen and hear the difference in the connection, find out how to get that right off the top like Emma's trick. Right? And and that's what they're gonna hear because if they hear blah blah blah blah blah blah blah, oh, they're not they're not hearing that last part at all. So the way to test. yourself. I think, like, you know, there are different jobs that we can audition for. Right? But at the end of the day, it's, like, the high paying commercial jobs that require, to Emma's point, an actor, true, like, voice. over talent. So, making sure that your read is gonna stand out in a room of a 100 other reads is probably, like, the biggest takeaway. Oh, perfect. Thank you. Another question that I found quite interesting was how does the team measure success beyond user growth or revenue? What metrics matter internally? Sarah, I'll hand this over to you. Oh, yeah. Well, I guess the clearest answer is, whether talent on the platform can actually earn. Right? So to measure that, it's you and you have access to these metrics, like, what's your win rate? Are you getting repeat bookings? How long did it take you to win your first ever job if you're just starting out? From a, like, company perspective and, you know, are we measuring our success of bringing jobs to the platform and matching talent to those jobs? It's more broadly, like, are we growing the number of jobs? Are we bringing more jobs? Is the value of those jobs going up? So we look at, like, the average rate paid for a national TV commercial, for example. Those are things that, like, we keep a pulse on behind the scenes to see, you know, if we're being effective and and having a positive impact on the industry and on, you know, our highly valued voice talent members. Right? And the same goes for clients as well. Are we are we able to win a job that a client brings to us? Are we able to help them find and match them to the voice that they really want for their commercial or for their project? Perfect. Thank you. We'll move on to segment two, tips and tricks. Our first question Marissa, oh, yeah. before we go on, I'm I'm kinda glancing at the questions, and somebody wrote in there, and I just wanna address this, now, Yeah. for everybody. One somebody said Betsy said, curious if you think there's a market on voices for women aged 50 and up, and I will tell you the answer to that is yes. Hello. Move on. Hello. No. Thank. you, Beth, for keeping, an eye. on the questions. thing. Actually, like, I can speak, to this. We just got a job. It is a, like, a union job, but you can audition for a union job even if you're not a union member. And it was, for a car commercial, and it was casting, like, multiple roles, but the lead role was, a woman 40. A woman 40. So I think, you know, that speaks to it's not like it's the high paying commercial jobs as well that are looking for all kinds of, you know, age ranges and yeah. Alright. Thank you, Bev. If there's anything else that comes up in the chat that that you that catches your eye, feel free to answer as well, and then we will take take some time, closer to the end of the webinar to answer some of the the bigger questions that may come in as well. just a quick yes. So No. That's I love that. Thank you. Okay. How should I think about pricing my audition? This question came in quite a few times from those that registered and and submitted a question prior to today. Bev, I say you grab that one because we've we've had such great extensive conversation about this. Yeah. Happy to. I think I so CABA, in general, doesn't tell you what you should be asked to pay. But what we do is we give you the resources and the different rate guides that are available across the injury industry, including ACTRA and SAG AFTRA. And, GBAA is is huge, in North America. Gravy for the Brain has other ones for outside of North America that gives you and there's others And, you know, we're trying to find them all and vet them all so we can provide that information. I think the biggest thing is to remember, oh, I'm just talking. A $100 is fine. And you have to look and go, well, I've put money invested into the training, my equipment, my time, my you know, the list goes on to all the things as Emma says we wear a lot of hats and that all took time and money and investment and now you're saying, and how many eyes are on this when you get into commercials? Is it national? Is it regional? Is it local? There's so many different ways to say well this is how you should quote, but I would recommend that everybody quote within the industry standard because if there's people out there going I'm just gonna charge $50. I'll be a voice actor in no time. If there's enough people doing that, that's what they're gonna start ask they're gonna hire less qualified talent for $50, and that doesn't help anybody. I think if you're gonna get quality, you should pay for it. And I and I don't mean to sound that in a in a greedy way, but that's what it is. at all. You don't, you know, buy a Lexus and and pay I can't I don't wanna bad mouth any I used, you know, twenty o 2009 broken. up car. Clunker. I mean, they but they it'll get you from point a to b, but you wouldn't pay the same. I think once you get to the point where you're trained and you have, quality audio to submit and you you're in the industry, you should get industry standard rates. And I think that our job is to let people know where to find that information. And I think to we had a conversation about this the other day as well, that on voices itself, there's generally a budget, but you can quote outside that budget. Yes. Right? Yep. Do you wanna expand. on that? Because you just said it so eloquently the other day if you remember. Oh, Yeah. well. Oh, If. you remember. Do you I'll like, I wanna kinda speak a little bit. to the voice perspective on that too because we. get asked all the time to like, my team, briefs jobs, post jobs. So that's a managed job that I'm referring to. Right? We have certain minimums, like, where we won't even allow our team to post a national TV spot for less than, like, seventeen fifty regardless of the bio period. Right? So there are bare bones minimums in place that our platform kinda protects against. And then, for self serve clients, we provide, like, recommended rates based on, like, a whole bunch of things, data algorithms. It's not a clear cut rate card like GVAA, but, we do we, as a team, refer to the GVAA as well. They are an unaffiliated third party. I want to make that clear. But it is a very great up to date resource, and we'll all send it straight to a client and say, hey. If you're not sure, like, leverage something like this because it's a resource for clients and talent alike. Right? And then as far as, like, the practice of, like, actually bidding on a job at hand, if you feel the budget is low, and hopefully it's not if our team briefed it because we will negotiate before it gets to the site. But if you feel the budget's lower lower than what you would accept for a job, quote what you want. Quote what you want at the point of auditioning. Don't, like, quote what you think you're gonna get the job for and then trying to go to negotiate after because it's too far gone at that point. On the spot, when you read, submit the quote that you want for your take home amount. You can if if it's significantly higher, we have, like, a proposal section where you can freeform, like, basically add a message with your audition and explain it. It's highly likely that your read's gonna get passed on to the client. And, like, it doesn't happen every time. Sometimes budgets are tight these days especially, but enough that I would encourage it. Clients will go over their budget for the right voice because they're probably holding some budget close to their chest anyway, let's be honest. So that's, like, kind of my recommendation, when you're talking about a job at hand. Yeah. And I I think it's an opportunity for talent to present themselves to, perhaps clients that are not educated and to let them know why you're charging more, in that proposal area. Because they don't know. They go, I don't I don't know. What? $200? $2.50? And it's a national commercial. It's like, no. No. And here's why. You know? But happy to have a discussion. Add that in your proposal. I'm happy to have a discussion. Everybody understands budgets are what they are. And if they don't have the money, they don't have the money, and then that's your choice. But it it is a good place to to educate the other side of the non managed jobs. You've already done your part on the managed side, but the non managed jobs might just throw something out there. It's true. On the flip side too, sometimes clients think that it's a national TV spot for a year, but it's actually the media buys only for, you know, 16 regional market. And can we actually get a bit more nitty gritty on, like, what they're licensing? That's something that we try to consult on too. Like, you really need five years digital or, like, can we expire it at one year with an option to renew? You know? Exactly. And I think on that same kind of realm within pricing, we did receive a question that asked, when bidding on a job, should I factor in the 20% fee voices charges the client? Yes. Factor in all of the fees. Think about and what I mean is, like, think about it all transparently. Right? The client sees it on their side too. The breakdown is available to them. So think about what you wanna take home, and what you bid is what you will earn as, like, your take home amount. Right? And and that's that's the same as having an agent. An agent gets paid x amount whether it's inclusive of yours or on top of yours till they when they talked. It's the same thing. So, yeah, you have to know what you wanna take on. Perfect. Thank you. Asked about any quick wins for a better audio without new gear. I know there was a couple different questions that popped up in the q and a box as well about their equipment and what equipment to use and if we have any insights on that. The first I always tell this story when people talk about, you know, investing in in correct gear and and, you know, a studio and things like that. Yes. It's important. But as I said earlier, it just needs to work. It doesn't need to be pretty. My first studio was a blue storage box, Tupperware, shout out, some mattress foam and a USB mic. And I used Audacity, which is a free software. Nobody knows what your m p three is coming from. They have no concept if it's from Pro Tools or from Audacity or from, audition. They it's an m p three. That's what it is. So I paid a lot of attention to learn how to listen to the sound of the space that I was in. And I've now I've become the self proclaimed queen of the pillow fort that you'll see on all of my social media every time I go to a conference, every time I'm on holiday. I somehow managed to build an epic pillow fort. The last one was in Mexico with boogie boards. It was fantastic. I had a noise floor of negative 70. It was it caused, like, arguments online. It was fantastic. You just if you really, really start to learn, and there's so many free resources, as Bev was saying, online that you can learn about sound engineering. You can learn about how to create a space anywhere that you are. The back the back seat of a car is a fantastic place to record. It's got great, great audio, because a car is literally a piece of metal that's designed to hurl down, you know, at high speeds and not be noisy on the inside. It has great acoustics. So it doesn't need to be pretty. It just needs to work, and it needs to be, as we keep saying, it needs to be consistent. So you don't need to spend a ton of money, but my suggestion is as you start to earn in voice over, you invest a percentage of your earning back into your business every year. And you work with a sound engineer so that your con your con the consistency of sound is this is what my studio sounded like last year. Now I've upgraded it. I've changed my mic. I've changed the you know, I've I've built a little actual booth or I've got a, you know, a better closet situation. And you work with an engineer every time you change your sound so that the sound stays consistent. Consistency is is a huge part of this. There's also things to learn like some mics you wouldn't wanna use if you were doing animation. Some mics are more directional than others, so they'll pick up your voice here but not here. And if you are flailing, you're gonna sound like you're constantly bouncing off mic. The other thing is it doesn't have to be new equipment. There's lots of people that are retiring or upgrading there and getting rid of their less ends, so you can always look on, I'll say, marketplace or used places, and see if you can find something secondhand. Doesn't mean it's broken. And, Emma, made a great point about, like, having an engineer. Like, have good friends who can help you, make friends who are also colleagues and have a strong background themselves in voice over. Join a community like Kava voices. There's like free coaching resources. And then ideally, you become so successful that you can then reinvest in your quality, equipment. Right? Exactly. Perfect. I am looking at the chat as well, and I think maybe we can answer some of the ones that have come through before we move on just to kinda close out the conversation we're having about pricing. We had a question that asked if talent were to quote over budget, even with an explanation, do you think that's going to hurt that talent competitively? Like, is that a reason they won't be chosen? Not if they're good. Like, if if it is a read that the client would otherwise select without knowing the quote, right, then I don't think it should hurt. The truth is that we don't know what's on the other side of, that client. Right? We're working for a producer who was given a budget by a creative director who was given a budget by a CMO. So, like, we don't really know how flexible it is, and it is, you know, a gamble no matter what. But, like, I stand behind. If you feel the rate is too low for you, but your bid is, you know, reasonably above, then you should submit it. Perfect. And there were a couple other questions about negotiation, ensuring that there's a way to politely ask for a higher rate. So I think that's that's kind of along the same line. Sorry, Emma. Go ahead. Yeah. No. There's a negotiation is is a huge part of this and understanding that asking what you believe you should be paid for. And, again, to Bev's point earlier of sometimes the budget is the budget and there isn't any there's there's no wiggle room. So to overquote, like, to quote higher than what the budget has stated, I've so many times had people come back that if they weren't able to accept the quote, they've come back with, we love your work. We love what you did with this. We just don't have the budget for that. So either we work together on this budget or we know to come back to you when we have a bigger budget on jobs that blah blah blah blah blah blah, stuff like that. But understanding one of the one of the tricks that I learned very early in this industry was when there's a budget question or a negotiation question, you can always pitch it back. I mean, not necessarily when you're working on a platform, but just in general across the board with negotiation is what's your budget? Back to the client. When they're like, what's your rate? You're like, what's your budget? Because sometimes you're gonna leave money on the table because you're like, this job, I would do for x amount of dollars, and they come back with, oh, we have this. You're like, yes. Thank you. Yes. Thank you. Because it's higher than what you would have done said job for. And sometimes that happens. At the end of the day, using the the rate guides as a guide, understanding that this is what fair rate is across the board. And as nonunion talent, we have a little bit more flexibility than union talent when it comes to things like that because we're setting our own rates, but we're also leaning pretty heavily on GVAA, on ACTRA, on SAG AFTRA, on Gravy for the Brain. We're we're leaning on industry experts that have already kind of set the bar as to where things should be. So because we don't want to, again, to Bev's point, $50. I'm just talking. But you had to pay for a mic. You had to take time off work. You had to train. You had to do all this stuff. All of that takes time and money. That's why there are industry standard rates. I do I. do wanna throw in a a little tip for people. If you're in a point where you can negotiate, and they just like in MS situation saying, we just don't have the budget for that. If you really wanna do the job, if you need the job, you have to put rent on the table. But you can word it in such an and be quite honest about it. Generally speaking, this is my rate. But you know what? I really wanna work with you, so I will give you a one time discount of. But make sure invoice them and let them know put that in writing, whether it be in your proposal or an email or a phone call, whatever, you know, works, and or your invoice at the final end if that goes directly to a client if you're not on voices. And just say, you know, one time discount, 50% so that they know if they come back to you, they can't say, well, last time, you only charged this. I know it was a one time discount. Here's the proof. Right? So it's a it's a way to work with some a client because when they hear the voice and they love the voice, if they have the money, they'll find it. Because for the same as us having to connect to the voice, they have to hear that. And if they go, that's the voice we need for this product, this message, this show, they want that voice. That's gonna make their product that much better, their story that much better. So if they don't have the money and you wanna work with them, figure out how, but noted as a discount. Wonderful. Great insight. I'll ask one more question from the q and a box before we move on. Quick question. Emma sounds really good on my monitors. What mic are you using? This is a it was like a GoFundMe thing. It's called a Bumblebee mic. It was, like, $19.99. So and, yeah, we're we're, we're we're mic people in this house. There are there are more mics than two people should ever own. But but, yeah, this is like a it's called a bumblebee because it looks like a little it looks like a little bumblebee. Awesome. Okay. Moving right along. How do I create a profile that gets selected by project managers? Okay. Well, to clarify, project managers don't select profiles. Right? We screen auditions, and I'll maybe give a little bit of insight into the process. Right? What is a managed job even? So we at Voices don't just manage jobs. We hustle them. We go out there, and we try to present voices to, the biggest voice over buyers in the world. My team specifically focuses on, the advertising industry, so brands that make a lot of ads, agencies that make a lot of ads for those brands, production companies that all they do is make audio based content. And then we also have other segments of the business, obviously, like consulting, gaming, elearning, AI and data. And so when we win one of those jobs, we help get it posted to this site. Sometimes we're working with clients who, they're really large networks that have, like, twenty, thirty producers, and they all wanna work the same way. So we build out, like, these little account teams for them. And that way, they have, like, a standard workflow through voices, and it helps us with volume and make sure, again, that all those jobs are getting onto our platform for you guys to audition for. We brief the job as mentioned. We scope it. We negotiate it if we need to, make sure that the, like, budget and the terms are super clear cut. Sometimes we do a little back and forth to get more information on the creative direction as well, because friendly and professional is not good enough. We want more. And then we'll get the job posted so that you guys can audition and bid on it. So, really, again, going back to, like, first and foremost, make sure your audition nails it. But if you wanna talk about, like, what makes your profile stand out, I mentioned earlier that, yeah, sometimes we're out there. We do lunch and learns, to, like, large groups of advertisers. We, like, we book time. We we travel to these, like, hotspot, locations and, like, present voices, and we'll, like, scroll through demos, show them how to search talent. So what makes a really good profile? A headshot doesn't hurt. Some talent have, like, an icon of a microphone or something or maybe they have their own logo, but a headshot certainly personalizes it. So, I think that's always great. A really well rounded dental library is so important. This is, like, I have an analogy that your profile is the store. Your demos are the shoes, and the audition is you trying on this is the client trying on the shoes. Right? So you wanna have a lot of shoes for the client to choose from, so, hopefully, they find one that they like enough to try on. So, yeah, demos first and foremost. And then another thing that, like, I think really attract client's attention, when we're showing profiles is, the client list. So as long as you're not under any strict NDAs, make sure you're naming all of the big brands that you've voiced for because that indicates to me and to a client, like, oh, they've got experience on, like, a, you know, high budget commercial job. They're, you know, experienced enough and they have good quality, that, you know, a major consumer packaged goods brand, rehires them. Another, you know, tidbit is that session information. You really if you can do source connect, tell us right away because, you know, 90% of, the high budget commercial jobs are recording on Source Connect these days, if not in person, so that's really important too. And then if I can maybe take a moment to plug a personal preference. It's like no fake languages or accents, unless it's like a character job or something. They're always looking for authenticity. Right? If they're casting, like a Southern US accent, they would rather be authentic. Or if they're casting for, French Canadian and your Parisian French, still audition for it. Yeah. That was a long answer, but hopefully there were some good bits in there. That was great insight. We did have a couple other questions about demos as well if we wanted to get into demos a little bit deeper on someone asked if I need classes or training first or how many I should have or where I should get started, with creating demos. Yes. Short answer, Do you want, my opinion? Yes. you need training. You need training. coach. Do do not produce your own demos? I mean, there are people who can produce their own demos because there are sound engineers who are brilliant talent. You know, they're they're unicorns in the industry that are able to do this thing. Outside of that, the the other 99% of us, you need a coach, you need training, and you need like, again, I'm just gonna constantly call on that. The of talking about what your sound and Sarah said it as well, that whatever sound you are producing, your demo sound, if you go into into a pro studio and then you come home and you're recording at your kitchen table with a USB mic, uh-uh. You have to be be able to create the sound that's on your demo for the job that you are doing. You also have to be able to per to recreate the performance on your demo because a lot of people can be directed into a performance. And if you're working with, you know, someone who's good at at chop and sound up, they can chop sentences together. They can chop words together to create a performance that's really, really good, but you're not able to reproduce that. Your demo has to be a realistic, expression of what you're able to do as a talent. Demos are so important. They're so important. Mine makes sense. Perfect. Thank you so much. Bev, are you wanting to add anything else for today? No. I mean, it it could be a whole hour conversation. I think what Emma said is is great. You know? And have I I guess the other thing is if you when you when you're working with a demo producer, once you get it done, have some other ears on it, people in the industry before you sign off and say, yeah. I'm happy with it. Because most demo producers will make some minor tweaks and changes if you don't like what you hear. Now that spot just really didn't can we take that off and try and yep. They will. But sometimes we're so personal and so into it. When we get it back, it's like, you're never gonna get hired for that. Why is it on your demo? Like, it just didn't work. Right? You thought it might, so you asked your demo producer to put it on, and it just put some other ears to it before you go final. That's all. No. Thank you. That's a wonderful insight. Yeah. Just a little note on that. I had a Bonnie Bell spot on a demo one time. Listen to this voice. This this is not the voice of Bonnie Bell, and yet it was there. Don't don't be me. Don't don't do what I did. And remove them when the stores check like, when the stores It was so bad. close, It was so them on your demo. It dates you. You have so many ideas. I love it. Tips and. tricks. Oh, so bad. Too funny. Oh my gosh. Okay. We'll move into some key insights. I am seeing some great questions in the q and a as well. Maybe I'll I'll ask one from the q and a box. Someone is asking if we can talk about what clients see on the audition side. Do they get all a 100% of the auditions that were submitted? How does that process work? I can partially speak to that, and then might have to defer, to, like, our product and tech team for a full rundown of, like, the logic and the sorting and all of that stuff. But every audition that's submitted is available to the client in real time. If it's a managed job, we do screen them first because they want us to. But just so you know, we're, like, only screening for, did you read the brief? Are you available the date that they need you to be available on? Are you speaking the language that the job is posted for and that kind of thing? Otherwise, the client hears all of those too. There is I I can't remember if it's submitted in order of, like, exactly when you guys audition. So, like, first person to submit is the first person to be heard or if there's, like, a rough sorting around, like, voice match. So let us get back to you on, like, the ordering of things. And they can see your proposal as well. It's really, really easy for them to see your proposal, like, when they're reviewing all of the auditions, and then your rate. It's all right there in front of them when they're reviewing. Alright. Thank you, and great question. We also got a question. Why am I seeing duplicate beside jobs now on the voices platform? Right. So this is kind of a newer feature, I believe. But basically, clients, have the option to change the title and sometimes they even duplicate jobs. So sometimes it's a manual thing if they're posting, like, more than one job. But there's more than one job posting for the same overall project, or if they have duplicated the job because sometimes, the brief changed or they're, like, recasting or something, then the system tags it that way. I think I'm capturing the technical side of that correctly, but that should be why you're seeing that tag. So let. me follow-up that question with, if you have submitted for that job and you see it again and it says duplicate, reread the specs and resubmit. That's such a good point. 99% of the time well, a 100% of the time, you should reread the job that was duplicated, to see why it was duplicated. If we duplicated it, like, our rule of thumb is to, like, call out why. Like, this job was reposted because the client changed the direction. So then you know. And then another thing that we do again, I'm speaking to managed jobs, which we have a little bit more control over, but we even offer callback. So we'll say, hey. Like, if you really like Bev's Reid, but, like, you just need her to slow it down a little or something, then we'll actually let you know. We'll reach out to you, Bev, and say, hey. They loved you. They want one more take. Here's that new job posting. So we try to make sure it's, like, as connected as possible, from just, like, you know, a platform experience. So those are some things to consider. But, yeah, definitely read why it was duplicated, in case you wanna do another take. We did receive a couple other questions with regards to union, nonunion. But, one question in particular was, what's the situation with the ACTRA commercial lockout, and how does union versus nonunion status affect opportunities? I mean, I'm nonunion. Bev is nonunion, so we can't really speak to what is happening with ACTRA. I would rather defer to ACTRA to speak Mhmm. on their own behalf with that. I can speak as a nonunion talent that as a nonunion talent, you do have the opportunity to audition for union jobs. If you are granted said union job, you can work on a permit. You could choose to join the union. As a nonunion talent, there's just a there's there's a lot of stuff that doesn't happen within the union. Within voice over, there's a lot of corporate work that is always nonunion elearning that's that's generally nonunion. If you are leaning more towards wanting to perform in video game and animation, that's when you would want to lean into the union and really rely on them because they're gonna protect you with their, with all of the the the safeties that they have in place within the industry. But commercial right now is it's happening on both sides. And, again, relying on the the rate guides to make sure everything is is, status quo. But there's there's there's opportunity on both sides, and no working nonunion, in my experience, has not limited me in the the opportunities that are presented for work. And, I mean, I've done this for a while. So That's a really good point. It depends what you wanna do and how, like, yeah. do you want your career to check? If you want to or maybe you're doing voice over because you have on camera dreams and you think it's gonna be a stepping stone, then maybe considering joining a talent union depending on where you. live is something to consider. I'm more familiar with, like, the SAG AFTRA, rules around that permit. There you there is a law in The United States that says, and I'm sure the same as in Canada, that, employers cannot use union status, like, as a preferential. So they have to open up, jobs to union and nonunion. If a nonunion actor is selected for a production that is tagged as union, then, they can be hired with a TAC Hartley permit. However, after they've been hired, like, three times in sixty days, I think, don't quote me on that, then they become a must join. So, you can audition for a union job even if you are a nonunion. You have to be willing to sign a permit, and then go from there. Perfect. Thank you for that insight. I think that was a good transition as well to go into our next block, with regards to safety and the three c's. So moving, I guess, moving lanes a little bit. Our first question in this block is, how do I know if my voice is being cloned without my permission, and how can I prevent that? Big question. Skyline? So I'll take that one, Yeah. you know, as as much as I can. Your voice and your voice likeness should belong to you. I'm, again, kinda citing SAG AFTRA. It's called the voice replica or a voice clone. Right? Really, really important that you protect that and we protect that for you. At the end of the day, like, do we know if our audio data is being scraped online by big companies? No. But if you're on voices, I can assure you, that we are involved in every single job that is like an AI job where it, like, a big brand wants to clone your voice. Or we even call it AI adjacent jobs where they're not actually cloning your voice, but they're maybe using AI to edit it in some way. Like, we don't let any of that fly onto the platform without our oversight. We have filters in place that catch those jobs before they even get posted. So, and then we tell a client, hey. If there's any AI involved in this job, your timeline's gonna extend because there's contracts. We actually don't even let the job go onto the site until an agreement is signed by the client. So we, like, get something in place before they're they're even allowed to hear auditions. So, it's tight, and our contracts clearly state exactly how a client is allowed to use your voice if they hire you. I'm talking, like, just like a commercial agreement. Right? Like, there are it's a termed period. We almost never let a job go for in perpetuity. There is, like, a a product or a use case. There's a market. So we we keep it really tight as I mentioned. And then, you guys likely have very similar foundational philosophies as we do, in Nava as well. It's the three c's. Right? Consent, compensation, control. We preach this all day long in our pitches to clients. When we're talking about a job at hand, you will hear us talk about the three C's because every single AI job has to come, come together with those in mind. You know, I. got a like a Kava sorry, sir. Did I interrupt you? little passionate, but, I I love, that. I love that. topic. It is. It's a huge topic, and it's an important topic. At Kava, we there's many things that we're we're we're up to. We are in the process of trying to work with Canadian government alongside ACTRA to make sure that our vinyl, our voice, image, name, and likeness is belongs to us. Because currently, as far as Canadian law is concerned, it does not. We do not own our voice, our image, our name, or our likeness. So with the advancement of AI, there has to be advancement in AI regulation, and we're trying to work alongside many different government bodies to to bring this to the fore so that it is part of the conversation instead of just AI advancement or innovate or innovation. There has to be regulation. As an actor, as someone working in this industry, you have resources like Nava's AI writer, which we have on our website as well. I include that in every job that I do, whether it's through agency or not. I send that first. As the negotiation is going through, we've agreed to a rate. We've agreed to usage in a term. Now I'm going to send my AI waiver and ask you to sign this that states that you will not be selling or, you know, selling the voice to or the audio to a third party, anything like that. And I've I think I've had pushback once since this has been happening, and it's solely because they weren't the final owner of said audio that they're like, oh, we can't really do that. But it wasn't because they were trying to do anything malicious or or, you know, evil. And so baking that into your contracts, making sure that you have terms and conditions in your contracts and that any everything that you agree to is written down. Again, with Kava, we're working with this. We're working alongside Nava as they're doing that. We're also we host monthly webinars, for our members to educate. So any information that we have, we're constantly being sent information. We're always trying to share the information with our members so that understanding that AI is not going to go away. AI is not something to be feared. AI is a tool. And if we understand how to use the tool correctly, we can move alongside with it. Again, be a really, really good voice actor and understand that this is a business, understand that AI is a tool, and understand that the more you know, the the more effective you can be in processing all of this work so that you don't need to be afraid of it. You just need to be informed about it. I just like to add as far as a contract. I don't want the word contract to stare away someone that's newer. To have an email back and forth, have it if you say to your client, this is not gonna be used. Can you agree that this is not gonna be used to reproduce, to clone the whole thing, And they respond to you, that becomes a legal, submissible document even if you don't have a contract. If you say, I'm gonna do it for, you know, for I keep saying $250. If they don't reply, then it it's not etched in stone. There has to be a response to a rate or an AI agreement. If there is a response, it is a submissible document if you have to go to court. I I don't wanna offer legal advice because I'm not a lawyer, but, that's what I Oh, that's great insight. Thank you. Maybe we. can go a little bit further into this as well. We did receive a question about what voices in Kava are doing to prevent the AI industry from making voice actors obsolete? I think we went into it a little bit. But, Sarah, maybe I'll hand it off to you first to to speak on, and then we can I would love to. The word obsolete is a scary word, and I don't think that is anywhere near our future. Again, I will say from my perspective, I track our jobs. We are not shrinking in the number of commercial jobs that we bring to you guys. Our, like, advertising business remains steady. I would say maybe, like, some jobs are going the way of AI, like like, you know, clinical elearning scripts where maybe, like, clients are okay to sacrifice quality. They shouldn't, but they do. But, really, like, those high paying commercial voice acting jobs continue to come to us in droves. And we go out and we talk to ad agencies, and they tell us to our faces we don't use AI for our ads. Right? So I don't think that, there is a a near future, or at all where it's obsolete. I think that the industry is changing, and I hope that we see it's more so, like, opportunities are being created. Right? We use this case study all the time as an example, but, it's because we're allowed to because we got a release to to talk about it. But BMW used a voices actor, HoneerVoice, who's now the in car assistant for this voice. That job wouldn't exist for, like, a traditional voice over because it requires text to speech technology for the car to talk to the driver. Right? So, that talent now is being paid an insane amount of money annually for their voice to be used in that car. And so I hope that it's more of a shift, right, where AI opportunities are are being created, based on, like, cool new technology. But at the end of the day, those jobs will go back to a person who is a professional voice actor, and they're getting paid, every cent that they deserve for the work. Emma, what do you think? It's I mean, it's just gonna be repeating what I just said, really, because it's because it's still so new in all of this. Like, even though AI has now been around for a few years, the conversations about regulation is still government is very, very slow to put parameters in place because the innovation right now is taking the front seat, really. So trying to, put parameters around that, it's like, oh, but wait. We we wanna play more. So we're working we have a fantastic, group of humans working with us with our executive board, with our advisory board. We have a wonderful human, Bill, who is constantly in contact with the Canadian government, which is fantastic. He is we've had many back and forths with different offices within the government, but we also, again, are talking with ACTRA. We meet with ACTRA National, pretty regularly to discuss what's happening on their side of the board and how we can support them, how they can support us so that we can work together because there's strength in numbers. And, again, it's about education. So constantly staying informed, constantly staying educated. And for us, building Kava as an organization and developing our reputation as an organization that's here to help and to inform. We're not casting directors. We're not going to we we don't provide job opportunities. We don't pitch businesses. But what we are here for is to inform, to educate, and to support. So that's the more, traction we get as an organization, the the louder our voice can be within this world. Great. Thank you, Emma. Thank you, Sarah. I am just looking at the time. We will jump to one of our last couple questions, but we may run over a few minutes if that's okay. We did receive quite a lot of questions. We're wanting to get to all of our questions. And, again, if we don't get to your question live on the webinar, we will be reaching out directly following, the webinar. Just give us, some time to to gather all of those questions. But moving along to one of our last questions, how has voices evolved over the last couple years? So this one, I'll hand over to Sarah. Well, also kind of a multifaceted answer, I guess. You know, we're always investing in our own technology, our platform. There are, you know, new bells and whistles being added to the talent experience, the client experience. Again, shameless plug for for my team and, our account people who have recently, developed this, like, very concentrated strategy of of getting out there and marketing voices, in clients' offices and, becoming more integrated with these, like, high volume voice buyers, if you will, is something that, we've really mastered in the last two years, and we even hard launched, voices for agencies or agency services, just last week. So, these are things that I think are ensuring, again, that we're protecting talent upfront, briefing jobs, more soundly, and then giving talent a better experience if they're booked for the job. And then I'd be remiss not to acknowledge how drastically things are shifting, in the AI and software space. So we are making it easier for talent to audition for AI jobs by, again, briefing them carefully, getting, those three c's covered upfront, and, ensuring that everything that you guys see at the casting stage is as transparent as possible. We're also investing in, technology to capture that recording and, make it heck of a lot easier to record, like, high quality voice data audio for those clients. And maybe not in the same vein as Kava, but we lead every single one of these projects with education upfront. We talk clients through the implication of, like, if you need to use AI for this project, here's what you're getting into, and here's what you need to consider. And here are, the payment tiers that you should be prepared to offer for AI. Just because it's AI doesn't mean it's going to be cheaper. In fact, it's more of an investment. So I think those are some of the ways that we've evolved, not just like our service and our product, but our approach to to the industry and working with clients. Wonderful. Thank you so much, Sarah. And with that, I know looking at the time, thank you all so much for joining. Maybe before we go, we can do a quick round, one sentence each of what we want people to walk away with as the most important takeaway. Maybe something we didn't get to. Well, I I said this at the beginning, and let's just pay attention. Pay attention and learn what AI is doing. Pay attention and learn about, studio equipment. Pay attention and learn who good coaches are. Ask people that have been coached by that person. Listen. Listen to yourself. Be have big shoulders and accept critique, and be positive. Do your research before you ask a question. That's a lot of things, but there's a lot going on up here at any given time, so that's just me. Yeah. I think to to continue with what Bev is saying that this is a business. To be a voice actor is to be a small business, and you are responsible for many, many different things. It doesn't have to be scary. It's one of the best jobs in the world, but you're responsible for your own learning. And there's many, many free resources. There's a lot of resources that aren't necessarily the best, but it's up to you to use your judgment and ask the questions after you've done your research. Do your research. Do your research. Do your research. And then ask questions for of people who you find out in the industry are, you know, veterans in the in the business who offer coaching, so that you can really lean in and learn from people who have been where you are. And I I'd just like to be remiss if I didn't say, go to the kavavoices.org website and have a look at what we do because I'm gonna say it again. We don't hire talent. We don't offer jobs anywhere ever. We don't critique your reads. We don't do that. What we do is offer places to go to find out how to get work, how to do it well, how to protect yourself. Perfect. And, Sarah, Okay. I'll hand it over to you. Mine, because I have so much time to think about it, is, be open. So from the voices perspective, like, be open to feedback from our talent community. Moreover, be open to fostering strong relationships with our talent networks like Kava, like Nava, like these client networks. Be open to new technology, new opportunities. But, you know, with that, take Bev and Emma's pointers as well. Do your research while you're being open. But I think for me, like, that's something that I'm even taking away from from this conversation. I'm so grateful to be in the same room as, Kava and, you know, these industry heavy hitters. So, we were open to the conversation, and I'm glad we did it. Wow. That hour really did just fly by. It really did. It really did. We needed Yeah. a few more hours, I think. Yeah. We got lots of questions today. So thank you everyone who registered and submitted a question or submitted a question during the q and a box today. We tried to get to as many questions as we could within that hour. But as mentioned, we will be following up shortly. This was a recorded conversation, so the recording will be sent out by the end of the week for those that weren't able to stay for the whole time or were unable to join us live today. And I want to give a huge thank you to Kava, to Bev, and Emma, and Sarah. Thank you so much for your time and your honesty throughout this entire process. And today, it it really meant a lot to us, and thank you again to everyone who joined, the webinar live. Thank you. hope everyone has a good rest of their day. Thank you so much, Thank thank. you, voices, for having the conversation. That's that's huge. Mhmm. It really. is. So thank you. Definitely. Thanks again.