New and Clueless

Robert Shea · Posted: Wed Mar 19, 2008, 03:26 (GMT) Post subject: New and Clueless

Hello everybody,
I joined Voice123 in the fall of 2007, and it's been good and bad. Good, because it's been all kinds of educational. Bad, because I haven't made ANY progress.
I've only been rated on one audition, and I've never gotten a contract. I don't belong to a Union. I only have access to basic equipment.
What am I doing here? And does anyone have some advice? I want to utilize this site a lot more, but I'm just felling frustrated.

Jenna Sharpe · Posted: Wed Mar 19, 2008, 10:42 (GMT) Post subject:

Hello and welcome Robert

I too am new to the site and I to have yet to land a gig despite getting a few 5* ratings (but mostly none at all). For a lot of people this is the norm. Even some of the really talented people fail to land a job which is perhaps a reflection of the Smartcast system or the kind of voice seekers that post here. Some are specific in their heads about what they want but their audition descriptions don't reflect that. We also never hear whether the job was actually filled, let alone by someone on this site.

I think everyone here will tell you that you can't earn a living soley from sites like this, you need to explore other avenues of marketing and ideally get an agent.

I did a months free trial and decided not to renew but I have learnt a whole lot in that short time just by listening to other people's demos and advice on this forum.

So don't be disheartened! Keep plugging away. I loved your character demos on your page. They were witty and well written.
I too specialize in character but unfortunately I have found few auditions for these spots here at V123. Get yourself an agent and maybe get rid of that scary brain picture!

Scott Pollak · Posted: Wed Mar 19, 2008, 11:55 (GMT) Post subject:

Robert,

I went to your page to first of all try to see if you had talent or not. I think you do, but the problem is all you have there, and for all I know perhaps all you can do, are character voices. There are so very few calls for character voices on these sites and most want impersonations of famous folks. But the vast majority of leads that come thru are looking for real reads.

The fact that Jenna hasn't landed a job either blows me away. This is one astoundingly talented girl you're hearing from here with some pretty major stuff to her credit! But she also DOES tend to have a character-voice sound to a great extent which may limit her scope on sites like this.

On the other hand, I do almost NO characters or impersonations, but have had excellent success on this site since I think I can deliver the simple, real reads that people are looking for nowdays.

You may need to expand your skills with some acting classes and voice coaching to be able to deliver some killer auditions that DON'T rely on cutesy characters in order to land some jobs here.

ALSO: On your home page it says you've answered 19 auditions in the last 6 months?! Good Lord, NO ONE gets hired from only 19 auditions! If you're really, really good, you'll land one out of every 50-100 that you submit. It's a numbers game.

Just my thoughts. Hope it helps.