7 Voice Over Audition Red Flags – RUN, DON’T WALK AWAY

Auditions are the lifeblood of any voice actor. It's the main way that we compete and win work in our business.

Assuming you're properly trained, the more auditions you do, the more work you're ultimately going to be able to book, and that's a great thing.

But what about bad work? Work that is unfair, exploitative, or downright dishonest? How do you avoid those jobs?

Well, the best way to avoid bad work is to not audition for bad work.

Today I'm gonna walk you through seven common audition red flags in voiceover.

Now this list is not meant to be exhaustive or comprehensive because it can't be. The industry's changing all the time, but what it is meant to do is make you aware of some of the more common red flags so that you can avoid those bad auditions which then lead to the bad jobs. Let's get to it and do it.

Audition red flag number seven: no budget or a low budget given.

Now in every audition notice or casting spec, there are certain pieces of information that are absolutely essential for you to be able to tell whether a job is credible or not. And the most basic piece is the budget. In other words, the budget should be included with every single last audition notice or casting spec. And if it's not, that's a red flag.

Now in the overwhelming majority of cases, the complete lack of a budget is usually a red flag that the rates are unfair at best and exploitative at worst and the client knows it.

And that's most often on the pay to plays, but also most often on the pay to plays, there's a low budget listed rather than no budget.

So if there's a low budget, how can you tell whether or not it's credible? And the answer, folks, in our business is shit-simple: The GVAA Rate Guide.

Get it. Use it. Live it.

It is the standard for professional non -union voiceover rates in North America. In the UK, I highly recommend the Gravy for the Brain Rate Guide.

Okay, so you might be thinking, “Why avoid low-ball auditions? After all, there's some money there, right?”

Here's why. Low-ball auditions lead to low-ball work and low-ball clients. And low-ball clients, my friend, are the most demanding. They will ask for the sun, the moon, the stars, all of it for free, and will suck the joy and the life right out of you and your career.

The lowest budget clients in any business are always the highest maintenance. Bank on it.

Furthermore, low-ball clients are bad long-term partners. You're never gonna turn a $50 client into a $500 client or a $5,000 client. Once a low-baller, always a low-baller.

Now there are exceptions. Occasionally, occasionally, rarely, when you see a low-ball rate, with a new client, meaning they've never worked with a professional voice actor before, they may have no idea what an appropriate rate actually is.

Now on the pay-to-plays, it's impossible to know whether the client really knows what they're doing and just doesn't care about the rate or whether they're acting out of ignorance, and they don't know. So, on the pay-to-plays, a low-ball budget is a hard pass.

Now, if you believe that a given client is credible, maybe you already have a relationship with them and they come in with a low-ball budget, you may want to take the extra step to help educate them. Now this is a time investment, of course, because it takes time and sometimes it takes multiple times, but it can often pay off in the form of a client who appreciates the education, adjusts the budget, and becomes a great partner.

And in some cases where the budget is missing altogether, rarely, but occasionally it happens. It's just an oversight on the part of a credible, professional client. And it usually happens in their haste to get the casting notice or the audition notice out the door and into your inbox.

So, if you believe the client to be credible, in other words, you know them, you have a relationship with them, or they're a well-known brand, etc., reach out and ask the client what the budget is for the job and then make your determination based on that budget.

To be clear, though, if you don't have a budget, don't audition! Why would you spend that precious time on something that you're not even sure you really want?

And one last note on budget. Avoid, whenever possible, hourly work. The exception, of course, is audiobooks because audiobooks are frequently done per finished hour. Now remember, if you're new to audiobooks, it takes about five to seven hours and if you're newer, maybe even more, to produce one hour of finished audio.

Now, here's the problem for hourly work with non-audiobook jobs. If you're a pro, if you're proficient, if you're efficient, you actually get penalized because you can do the job quicker and easier.

On the other hand, if you're new and it takes you too long to get the job done, well then, you've violated client expectations and they're not gonna have you back.

My point is, it's rarely ever a win-win situation for both you and the client.

So, an appropriate budget is table stakes. Mandatory.

Red flag number six: the usage is unclear.

Now the second piece of absolutely crucial information in any audition notice or casting notice is the usage. How will the recording be used? If it's a broadcast spot, when, where, and for how long will it run? Specifics.

If it's non-broadcast, when and where will that run? And this is where the details matter because every genre and use case in voiceover has a different rate structure.

And if you're not familiar with how rates are structured for each genre, or if you're a person that just gets overwhelmed when they look at the GVAA Rate Guide or the Gravy For the Brain Rate guide, then I highly recommend you take our VO Rates 101 course.

Clear, specific usage is table stakes for auditioning because without that, the client essentially can use the recordings however, whenever they want.

For example, broadcast jobs always involve soft exclusivity. So, if you don't define a finite term on how long those ads can run, then you could potentially lose thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars of future work.

And yes, we do cover soft exclusivity in VO Rates 101.

Number five: unlimited cut downs, lifts and edits.

What's a cut down?

A cut down is when you read one script, for example a :60, and the client then cuts that recording into additional recordings, let's say a couple of :30s, maybe a few :15s, some :10s, etc.

Now ,cut downs themselves are fine as long as they're clearly defined and the overall rate is appropriate to include that amount of cut downs. When they're undefined or worse yet defined as unlimited, that's a red flag.

A lift is when they lift the audio from one recording to use it in another. In other words, let's say you did a radio ad for a client and they lift the audio to use it in the TV ad.

So, now you can start to see how your work can be repurposed in almost infinite ways. And if you agree to unlimited cut downs, lifts and edits, then you're signing your rights away to ever get paid for those additional usages.

Number four: No experience necessary.

Sometimes you see this in an audition notice. These folks aren't looking for or interested in working with pros. Next!

Number three (this one's a biggie): All media buyouts.

An all media buyout means you're assigning the client the right to use your performance in all media, including broadcast, non-broadcast, and media that doesn't even exist yet. And all of that for a flat one-time fee.

Why is that bad? Glad you asked. I'll give you an example.

A fellow voice talent reached out to me at one point on LinkedIn. He says this,

“Hey Paul, I was wondering if you had a quick minute to help me price a VO project. It's a (foreign) production company that's doing a (product category) campaign. They want a :90 second script with multiple cut downs, a :20 second script, five years usage worldwide, all media.”

Now clients typically don't really intend to use that performance in all media. They don't even really need an all-media buyout, but it's their way of simplifying the process rather than multiple licenses for multiple usages, some of which they might not have even decided on yet.

I understand why clients ask for the all-media buyout. It's simple and it's easy.

But when they come to understand the scope of what they're really asking for, they learn that an all-media buyout comes at a very steep cost.

Here's exactly how I responded to that colleague:

Hey, (voice actor)

Thanks for reaching out. If this were my gig, here's what I would send the prospect…

“Thanks for reaching out about this exciting project. I book within standard U.S. non-union GVAA rates. If this were simply a TV broadcast commercial, my rate for worldwide usage for five years would be $50,250.

To include an all-media buyout for the same period, that's three times the TV rate. One time for digital broadcast, one time for all other media. That would make the rate $150,750. Thanks a million for keeping me in mind.”

Well, thanks $150,000 anyway. And that just covers the broadcast part. Plus, you lock yourself out of working for any of that client's competitors forever. Yeah, even after you're dead. Which brings us to…

Number two: Broadcast in perpetuity.

Broadcast ads should never, repeat never, be assigned in perpetuity.

What does that mean? It means that you're assigning the rights to your performance to that client for broadcast forever and ever, even after your dust.

Why? Soft exclusivity.

Even if your client doesn't require exclusivity, no other competitor of that client is going to hire you because you've already assigned away your broadcast rights. to that client.

Congratulations. You've just locked yourself out of an entire product category forever.

Broadcast should always have a finite term: 13 weeks, 26 weeks, a year, two years, et, cetera. And broadcast includes TV, radio, and digital. Things like Hulu and YouTube. Even things like promoted tweets, boosted Facebook posts. LinkedIn ads, etc.

If the client is paying to place the ad, it's called paid placement and it falls under broadcast.

Now that said, non-broadcast work is typically licensed in perpetuity forever. For example, you do, let's say an explainer video, then you license the use of that performance to that client forever with the clearly defined usage attached, meaning they're only going to use it on their website or maybe they're going to use it in an in-store kiosk.

Whatever the usage is clearly defined, they have the rights to use that forever.

And finally, audition red flag number one: AI and TTS - artificial intelligence and text to speech.

Now here we are as we're recording this in early 2024 and only in the last couple few weeks has legislation been introduced in the US Congress called the AI Fraud Act to protect not just voice actors, not just actors, but people in general, the citizenship at large from exploitation due to generative AI and text to speech.

In fact, at the time that we're recording this, that bill hasn't even come up yet for a vote in Congress.

Even so, the law will never catch up to the technology. And when it comes to AI and text to speech, you have to be uber careful on what you agree to.

Irish voice actor, Remy Michelle Clark signed a contract years ago with Microsoft and in the process unwittingly signed away her rights for that performance to be resold to other generative AI and text-to-speech companies.

You can hear her story in this video right here.

And the moral of the story is this, if you know or suspect that a job is artificial intelligence or involves text-to-speech, I strongly urge you to either avoid it altogether or consult an attorney that is highly, well-versed in AI and text-to-speech.

So, all that said, how do you figure out when you're looking at an audition notice whether that job is for AI or generative AI or text-to-speech?

There are a few tells.

A. The script is nonsensical. That's usually a tell that they're going to use this data to train generative AI.

B. The specs ask for things like no emotion, no acting. They might also even ask for no voiceover experience. Again, that's a tell that that data is going to be used to train AI.

And C. It says so. But just because it says so upfront doesn't mean that your rights are protected, and that the usage has been clearly defined. Again, consult a good AI expert attorney.

Now, not all AI and text-to-speech jobs are bad. Some can be super lucrative and even provide passive income for voice actors.

But the devil is in the details. And right now, from where we sit in early 2024, with almost no legal protections in place, you need to do your research and your due diligence.

Read your contracts. Have a lawyer read your contracts.

Now, if you're professional voice actor who's looking to up their game, be surrounded by other driven, high-character voice actors in a community, educating yourselves with courses, webinars, workout groups and much more, check out VOPro.app.

And if you're really looking to up your marketing game, check out the VO Freedom Master Plan.

Thank you so much for your support. Thank you for the conversations we have here on the channel in the greater VO Pro community and in the voiceover community at large. The more we talk, the more we exchange information, the more we have rational debate, the stronger and better industry we can have for everybody.

Thank you so much and we'll see you back here again soon.