J. Michael Collins

Did you watch the Super Bowl last night?

You can be excused for tuning out around halftime as the outcome was never in doubt, but if you are a voice actor it was worth hanging around until the end, and not just to hear Gabe Kunda sell Eagles championship merch or VO Atlanta Keynote Speaker Imari Williams crush it on the Taco Bell spot with Doja Cat and LeBron.

To the astute follower of commercial VO, something else stood out.

I’ve been talking for the better part of a year about the dramatic shifts happening in commercial VO casting, primarily the end of the Era of Quirk. Cutesy is dead, and what we’ve been defining as “conversational” over the last decade or more, is quickly following it out the door.

Super Bowl spots are generally not the place to look for commercial trends, as they are the ultimate mini-movies with a nature more cinematic than most advertising, but sometimes they capture a moment in the social psychology of the nation that speaks to where we have been, and where we are going.

Over the past six months there has been an acceleration of “something” changing in commercials in general, and commercial voiceover casting in particular. A shift that in workshops and coaching sessions I’ve variously described as being more assertive, declarative, or alpha. Very much counter to the prevailing trends of the past decade. Older. Less under-30 sounds and more 35-65. Not particularly less diverse, but more open to exploration of voice types in verticals and on product types that would not have been first choices over the past five years especially.

Last night, what I heard, (and what I SAW on spots that did not use VO,) was something that crystalized this trend into one word: Ownership.

The Era of Ownership in VO reads has begun.

What does that mean? It means that the socio-psychology of the nation has shifted into a dynamic where we no longer question what is ours and if we belong. Where certainty of perspective prevails, regardless of the perspective (and for better or worse,) and where we acknowledge and support victims but no longer are willing to BE victims.

The Nike spot (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0Ezn5pZE7o) is a perfect example of this: This read is not “empowered.” Empowered is an out-trending buzzword that implies taking something that was rightfully yours but to which you were denied access. And while the spot’s messaging could easily be read that way, a listen to the read and a close watch of the visuals reveals that the perspective of this voiceover, the perspective of this spot, is ownership. The read declares that it is no longer about change or making up for things that should have been……this voice OWNS her place, just as the athletes do, just like Kendrick Lamar owned the halftime show, and no permission is asked or required to occupy her rightful space. This person has never been a victim because her success, her dominance, was inevitable. There’s no glory in having overcome…..only the power of ownership in the moment. It’s present-facing, forward-facing, but never looks back.

Even when humor is still at play in commercials, ownership is beginning to muscle its way into the delivery, like in this one of several Fox IndyCar promos: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXn1l-R7uPY) The visuals and copy still have loads of play, but the read is winking deadpan, declarative, and masculine without trying.

Same with the Taco Bell spot I referenced earlier (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rzJPAqhIbXw) Great writing, cute spot, but the VO leans deeper, hip but more 35-45 than 20-30. And owns the read entirely, which is hard to do against celebs like LeBron and Doja.

Even Harrison Ford’s clever Jeep spot that many rated the best commercial of the night, without VO, was a good indication of where we are going. Certainty. Assertiveness. Open-minded, but not questioning or hesitant. A nod to unity, but also a decisive choice. Ownership.

What does this mean for us as Regular Joe & Jill VO’s?

It’s time to get out of the 2010’s and early pandemic mindset. Quirk is dead. Trying to be the “clever” voice is dead. No one wants to be preached to anymore. And the traditional rules of “conversational” are heading out the door, after over a decade of overuse leading to consumer fatigue. Ad buyers are telling us that their data says consumers are responding to messaging that knows what it wants, doesn’t ask for permission, and states its perspective clearly.

In 2025 there will be no “it” voice. No demographic that dominates. The only question will be, did you own the read?

Well, did you?

 

And once again it’s time to make a jackass out of myself with predictions for the New Year both for the voiceover industry and the world at large.

Now, before you get too excited, I’m the guy who predicted that the election would be thrown to the House and that a No Labels ticket of Larry Hogan and Jared Polis would win the election, so get your grains of salt ready!

That said, let’s see how my other forecasts for 2024 did before we move on to my Kreskin act for 2025!

GOT IT RIGHT/PRETTY CLOSE

“2024 will clarify what areas of voiceover are likely to be heavily impacted by AI, and which are likely to feel very little effect. I am more confident than ever that this technology is very little threat to real creative VO, and will largely proliferate in the YouTube, cheap explainer, and perhaps Imaging and Affiliate spaces, where price pressure is always on. Low-end e-learning will disappear, but quality-minded buyers know this tech does not hold the attention of their audiences. Moreover, more and more regulation will be enacted to protect us and society at large, and people will continue to reflexively simply reject the vulgar inauthenticity of generative AI in creative media. If a technology makes a noise in a tech bro’s house, will anyone else hear it? We will see.”

Well, that feels pretty spot on. In fact, if anything, Imaging & Affiliate were less affected than expected, and low tier e-learning has not completely disappeared. Most accurately, I think it has become clear that first and foremost gaming is the most at-risk genre from AI, as the continuing strike attests to.

I’ll take an “almost” on my Super Bowl pick…..got the 49ers getting there right, but the Dolphins became frozen fish in Kansas City.

Sadly my prediction regarding the turmoil in the Middle East was just about right on the nose.

“In a world that has grown more serious and dangerous, voices of strength and gravitas begin to grow in demand again, much as they did during the pandemic. For all the wrong reasons, middle aged talent and less-chatty reads have a strong 2024.”

I was about six months early on that, but man was it spot on in the second half of the year and in overdrive since the election.

Got China not invading Taiwan right.

Feel pretty good about my prediction that NAVA would keep kicking arse in 2024!

 

BLEW IT/WTF WERE YOU THINKING?

My wishful thinking about certain online casting platforms getting their act together….not so much.

Obviously my West Wing/Madam Secretary moderate election fantasy did not quite pan out. LOL.

Commercial VO did just fine in 2024, (indeed it was my personal best year,) but I don’t think the floodgates opened overall as much as I expected in general advertising, though political spots did have a record year as predicted.

My prediction of a deal in Ukraine sadly has not yet come true.

Wrong on no more strikes 🙁

Wrong on the housing market, at least with regard to cost in most places.

“While instability percolates abroad, America’s pivot to the political center at year’s end ushers in the beginning of a new era that sees moderate voices prevail and a new coming together around common sense ideas for growth, cooperation, inclusivity, and tolerance of diverse perspectives. Extremists on both sides of the ideological spectrum become the subject of deeper skepticism, and we all begin to get along again as the nature of both major parties begins to change in the wake of their rebuke by voters in November.”

This might look better a year from now, but that goes in the “loss” column for the moment.

 

OKAY, TIME FOR THE 2025 PREDICTIONS!

 

INDUSTRY: It kinda feels like someone turned the tap back on high around October of this year, and barring black swan societal events I think 2025 is a banner year for voiceover…….indeed, as the flood of new entrants that came with pandemic has already dramatically slowed, and with many washouts starting to thin the herd again, I believe 2025 will restore balance in many respects in the industry. Work volume grew in 2024 and we’ll continue to see that in 2025, with the interesting added dimension of a return to parity among demographic groups. The pivot to more assertive reads that I suggested in my previous blog looks like it has staying power, and in 2025 I don’t think we’ll see the same, “this type of voice is hot,” vibe that we’ve experienced over the past decade. I believe the market will settle into a place where everybody who has chops has action, and you’ll see some surprising casting choices with unexpected sounds on unexpected brands.

 

WORLD: That Super Bowl pick……my poor Bengals…..Joe Burrow throws 8 touchdowns and still loses…..on his couch on Super Bowl Sunday, on Madden. Meanwhile in the ACTUAL game, we’re gonna get the rematch America wants, and with the return of Aidan Hutchinson just in time for the big game, the Detroit Lions edge out the Buffalo Bills with a last-minute Hutchinson strip sack of Josh Allen as the Bills are threatening to win in the final moments.    BONUS PICK: The NFC Championship Game is a surprise Stafford/Goff Bowl, with the Los Angeles Rams unexpectedly meeting up with the Lions in Detroit, but taking a whoopin’ when they do.

 

INDUSTRY: With advertisers starting to get a better understanding of where younger eyeballs and ears are, we see that previously predicted flood of commercial spend in 2025, though we start to see geo-fencing become a much bigger factor in the way VO’s are hired, meaning LOTS more work, but the need to book in volume to earn. True national buys will slowly start to decline.

 

WORLD: The bird flu pandemic becomes a reality, but in a lucky twist of fate we get the version that has been infecting cows and dairy workers, not the nasty clade still found in birds. A short panic leads to the rapid realization that, like the H1N1 pandemic in 2009, it’s conjunctivitis and maybe a cold, and it’s a three week news cycle.

 

INDUSTRY: I’m calling at least one big agency merger in 2025.

 

WORLD: The first year of the new administration is a mixed bag. Successes will include making some real progress in cutting overspending by government and slashing bureaucracy. Trump will be largely successful in consolidating executive power around him, and that reality coupled with world leaders’ collective concerns about his predictability will actually help the world becomes a little more stable. The Russia/Ukraine war will end the way I predicted it would in 2024…..with a deal that leaves territory under the control it is currently under, while creating strong security guarantees for Ukraine and other East European nations. Israel and Saudi Arabia will strike a groundbreaking deal to bring the action in Gaza to an end. One or more nations will attack and destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities and capabilities, and the Iranian regime will fall by popular action and be replaced by a moderate, Western-style democracy.

On the other hand, Trump’s immigration crackdown will produce horrifying visuals, and scandals will quickly emerge over the enrichment of private detention companies and their abuse of deportees. A dramatically overvalued stock market will crash hard and the inflation crisis will be replaced by an unemployment crisis. The Democratic Party will sense the opportunity to seize back the mantel of populism and push hard for a stronger safety net, low cost education, and in the wake of copycats of the United Healthcare CEO murder the drumbeat for ending for-profit healthcare will become a movement that may be the most important issue in politics by the end of 2025. China still won’t invade Taiwan, unless the Trump administration actually moves on the Panama Canal or other territory, in which case they will frame it as a tit-for-tat.

 

INDUSTRY: The talent who have been hearing, “we have too many of you,” from agents over the past few years will hear that less in 2025, as long as their skill set and package for representation is impeccable, as the previously predicted market equilibrium grows. On the other hand, the 25-35 demographic might start hearing that more than they have in the past, as agents have been collecting youth for awhile now and are reaching a saturation point. The pendulum always swings.

 

WORLD: While some will dispute the findings, scientists will reveal convincing evidence of the existence (past or present) of an alien civilization in 2025.

 

INDUSTRY: You’ll hear Southern voices/accents in very unexpected placements. Write it down.

If you attended the NAVA gala, you can skip this blog as you’ve already heard what I’m about to say. ACTUALLY……maybe you didn’t. Why? Because there were 400+ of the Who’s Who of voiceover in that room chattering up a storm and I practically had to shout like Juan Peron on a balcony to be heard. That’s not an indictment of the noisy crowd, but reason to celebrate.

See, here’s the thing…..in just one year, the NAVA Gala, an event where people come from far and wide, sometimes at great personal expense, to then GIVE BACK EVEN MORE by bidding on auction items, making donations, and spreading the word, has grown to a size equivalent to the One Voice Conference USA…..in other words, pretty much tied for the second largest headcount among industry events. And no one is there to GET……everyone is there to GIVE.

Conferences are incredible and valuable things, but you pay for your admission with an expectation of RECEIVING…..knowledge, insight, face-time, a few free drinks, maybe some good Southern fried chicken….free swag on closing day. But just over a week ago, in LA, hundreds turned out to GIVE back to an organization that is dedicated to fighting for our collective existence as professionals.

This tells me something that runs counter to so much of the FUD (look it up) that we see on voiceover social media these days. It tells me that, in spite of synthetic voices….in spite of current and past and future? strikes…..in spite of a rapidly changing media landscape that naturally engenders uncertainty…..WE, as a profession, WE, the voice actors…..WE ARE WINNING!

A room full of people bidding 10x market value on autographed VO-industry memorabilia to help NAVA fight for us. A room full of people standing up so fast to just DONATE thousands of dollars that the folks writing down paddle numbers could barely keep up. A room full of people only half? based in LA, the rest spending copious amounts to fill up hotels and airplanes just to be there to give. This, my friends, is not an industry in difficulty. It is an industry full of success stories.

However, all too often, the increasing tenor of social media, with small but noisy groups of tut-tutters sniping at those who post their wins and amplifying struggle stories and doom and gloom about the NEXT BIG THING THAT WILL BE THE VOICEOVER APOCALYPSE, not only gives the impression of an industry that is doing poorly, but moreover discourages the many talent who are absolutely thriving from sharing their successes for fear of being labeled show-offs. And ultimately, this damages all of us, because mood matters……when collective psychology says, “things are bad,” people don’t fight as hard for fair rates, because if things are bad we need to take what we can get, right? Even agents might be afraid to push for more when in the grips of a culture of negativity. When newer talent are talked down to and dismissed for asking questions or told, “why bother in this market,” they might hesitate to speak up when something goes right for them, or avoid making that one move that would be the difference between them reaching their goals or not, or just give up altogether.

Negativity breeds more negativity, which ultimately leads to defeatism and collective damage.

This is not to dismiss those who ARE legitimately struggling. And there are many. And for innumerable reasons. And yes, we want to hear those stories too, and help, and lift you up and see you become a part of this vibrant, thriving community.

But this is meant as a challenge to those who ARE NOT struggling. To those who are fu***ing crushing it right now day in and day out, or week in and week out, or who just booked their first big national thing but aren’t sure if someone will say something critical if they post it…..    IT’S TIME TO SHOW YOUR A**

This industry needs to know that there are hundreds of talent out there booking daily. Thousands booking weekly. And that for many, 2024 will have been their best year yet. It’s time to change the conversation. It’s time for those who win in the shadows to step out and LEAD the conversation. To show and tell, and heck, if you can, TEACH others how you did it. If you are hitting six figures plus and you care about this industry it’s incumbent upon you to send the elevator back down….to make yourself known….and to yell to the rafters that IT CAN BE DONE AND THIS IS HOW. The voiceover business NEEDS YOU. We need new blood, new thought leaders, new perspectives, and new stories about how building a career in the 2020’s looks different, but can still be just as rewarding as ever.

Are you up for the challenge?

 

This is not an article about politics, but rather the impact of socio-political and socio-psychological trends on the commercial industry, and how that impacts the choices we make as voice actors. My job is to keep my finger on the pulse of the industry, and regardless of how we individually feel about the results last Tuesday, they are going to have an effect on our business.

I’ve been having conversations with advertising industry players since the election was decided, and I am convinced that we are about to see a rapid shift in what gets hired for commercial voiceover as a result of the vote, and that we need to be aware of what is coming.

The consistent theme of these conversations has been that buyers/brands/corporations and the advertising pros who support them have been jarred into a massive rethinking of how they have been selling many of their products. Much like many people did not see what the tea leaves were saying about the election, advertisers were caught off guard by the possibility that they have been missing market segments and positioning their brands in ways that are not effective to substantial portions of the population.

Let’s add some historical context with regard to how the political climate pertains to delivery and performance trends in commercial voiceover.

We’ll begin with 1996-2000, Bill Clinton’s second term as President. Everything prior to this period falls into the category of “the before time,” where announcer reads were fairly universal in commercial VO.

The first hints of change came during the dot com boom, during Clinton’s second term. Millennial voices began to find some traction, especially in the tech vertical, with younger male voices in particular starting to book reads that I would describe as pre-conversational. They weren’t as nuanced or acting-centric as much of what we have seen over the past decade-plus, but they were very different for the era. They felt like the future, and dovetailed with an optimistic America where the stock market was through the roof, “the end of history” had been declared, and there was an assumption that we were entering a period of permanent peace and innovation.

The dotcom crash, and then 9/11, put a hard stop to many of these trends. The Bush era saw a reversion of commercial performance trends to reads that were more corporate, polished, and in many cases assertive and even Alpha. While there were exceptions in places, the period between 2000 and 2008 was a time where powerful voices dominated commercial VO, and there was less room for brighter, fresher sounds.

Eight years of trauma, war, and two massive economic collapses, (the bursting of the tech bubble and then the Great Recession,) changed the mood of the nation, and in 2008 Barack Obama was elected on a platform of hope and change. Simultaneously, we began to see the beginning of the conversational revolution in commercial VO (and other genres as well,) as the nation and VO industry embraced introspection, self-care, youth, and diversity.

This trend snowballed into an unstoppable juggernaut, and has dominated the commercial space for over a decade.

Correlating trends like these to political winds and national psychology, one might have expected a pivot back to older-school approaches after the 2016 election. Rather, the unexpected nature of Donald Trump’s first win, coupled with the immediate resistance to the new administration, if anything led to an acceleration of the already prevailing trends, with smaller, acting-centric, conversational, relatable, and deeply authentic reads dominating throughout the 2016-2020 period. The COVID pandemic enhanced the appeal of less-is-more approaches and human connection in commercial VO performance, as the nation needed comforting, and in-your-face deliveries were largely frowned upon.

This continued largely through 2022 into the Biden administration, however even before last week’s election we have been beginning to see signs of the methods that have been dominant since the late ‘aughts starting to become less omnipresent. The “Happy Mom” read started trending in 2023 with a little more polish and sunshine returning to many female reads. Certain verticals that trend heavily male have seen a bit more push in performance over the past year. It makes me wonder if we could create some algorithm that might use VO trends to forecast elections, LOL.

The conversational read still predominates, but this may be about to change.

Indeed, in the conversations I’ve been having over the past week, I’m being told to expect much more of the following to make it to air, (which, as always, doesn’t mean the specs will immediately change, but they could do so more rapidly than we’ve seen in the past.)

1.) Assertiveness in general, across the board for men and women, and all demographics. We’re not going back to 1990’s announcer puke, but push and polish may be making a rapid return.

2.) A trend towards somewhat older talent.

3.) Female reads that are steely and confident, male reads that are more Alpha without being priggish.

4.) The “tech-bro” read becoming a thing very quickly, especially around suddenly hot-again crypto and finance products, and other tech-heavy industries.

5.) Alternatively, MUCH more targeting and geo-fencing, with heavy emphasis on compassionate reads for verticals that may be directly impacted by the shifting socio-poitical landscape, especially healthcare and health services.

6.) No shift away from diversity. Indeed, I’m told that diverse voices may now be actively considered for product categories that may not have previously been accessible, as companies realize that consumption patterns are not as monolithic in some spaces as they might have assumed.

Overall, the consensus is that, with the exception of commercials that contain humor, which could become edgier but are otherwise unlikely to change in terms of delivery, the days of less-is-more may be numbered, and with a low number indeed.

The election is still, and will remain a sore subject. I’m not here to judge your politics, (and acrimonious commentary will be deleted.) I’m here to pass along information that IS ALREADY CHANGING THE WAY I AUDITION, and will affect all of us.

The coming months and years may see events that cause these shifts to be short-lived. Alternatively, they may become “the next thing,” after over a decade of everything moving in one direction performance-wise. Commercial VO has been overdue for a pivot. Buckle up.

 

Happily enjoying a couple weeks of travel respite after the 11th Euro VO Retreat, the 4th at the stunning K-Club outside of Dublin, Ireland, so many reflections on what was probably one of our very best events have taken hold. When to do less. When to do more. When to go completely off-the-rails in an audition. But I think I speak for the majority of our attendees when I say that the biggest takeaway was learning to believe you belong with the best and brightest.

During the retreat, the term, “Elite Sandbox,” was coined to describe the university-like environment of working 10-hour days not just with top-tier agents, casting directors, and coaches, but also getting to experience the dynamism of being amongst a small group of truly world-class talent and seeing ideas and techniques come to life as one performance inspired another, and another, and another. The joy of deep, immersive, creative play.

It might be a bit much to describe it as like watching the neurons of the scientists fire in a scene from Oppenheimer as great minds came together to do impossible things, but there’s some validity to the analogy……though the only thing we detonated were about ten minutes worth of fireworks at the end. And any pretense that a few of us were good golfers. That poor caddie needed a stiff drink.

Minds, however, were certainly blown. And egos were checked at the door as even top-booking talent learned things they didn’t know they didn’t know. It was PhD level voiceover, and if I had a personal takeaway from the week it was that for all of the distress and uncertainty over so many shifts in the media landscape that are impacting everyone in entertainment these days, when all is said and done and the voiceover industry of tomorrow comes clearly into focus, those who will still be here are the ones who refuse to settle for anything less than greatness in every performance…..even through the failures it takes to get there.

Throughout the week there were many happy tears, many emotional ones, and a few questioning ones. But in the end, everyone rose to the occasion to grow from wherever they were, to the next level in their journey, and with more focus and understanding of what reaching the pinnacle really requires in terms of training and personal investment.

The great thing about the Elite Sandbox, however, is that you don’t need to spend thousands to come to a retreat to experience it. Never before has our industry been filled with more abundant and accessible offerings to learn, gather, and grow together. From sub-$100 webinars to conferences, meet ups, donation-based online events, and opportunities to learn with and from those who know what it takes, the Elite Sandbox is just a click away. Or a flight to Europe if that’s your jam. Or anything in between.

What matters is……that you come play. Grab a shovel. Grab a bucket. And dig. Dig for better. Dig for greatness. Dig and play and laugh and cry until your soul pours forth from every read. Because if you do, the temporary vicissitudes of the marketplace will never be able to hold you back from the destiny you deserve.

The voiceover industry is undergoing changes unlike anything we’ve seen since the first days of online casting reordered the way many parts of our business worked. As is typical during times of change, this has led to much hand-wringing, but just like the shockwaves of twenty years ago created a generation of talent who navigated change to tremendous success, so now exists the opportunity for anyone prepared to thoughtfully adapt to thrive and grow their business.

KEY #1: INCREMENTALISM

Something that must be remembered is that careers in voiceover, as in many other walks of life, are built incrementally. We live in a society that cannot abide a lack of instant results. Football teams pay tens of millions of dollars to top draft picks only to declare them a bust if they haven’t become elite in two years, whereas in past eras greats like Steve Young and Peyton Manning, Drew Brees and even current star Patrick Mahomes were given several seasons to develop mastery of their craft. Success is not fast food but for a lucky few. There’s a reason the tortoise beat the hare. Most enduring voiceover careers are built on the incremental development of a base of long-term clients in less-glamorous genres, while big one-off jobs can make a month or a year extra special. Think about it this way: You need to beat out hundreds of elite talent to book that big national campaign or animation job. But a corporate narration, e-learning, medical, or small-time commercial client who pays you $500/job three times a month is an $18,000/year client. Ten loyal clients like that and you’re in the top 1-5% of earners in voice acting. And these kinds of jobs represent the most abundant and easily-sourced work in the industry. Small starts can lead to big finishes. Building relationships and nurturing client loyalty will carry you through even the most jarring changes to the way we work. It may not be glamorous, but if you got into VO for the fame you got into the wrong line of work.

 

KEY #2: DON’T BE AFRAID TO SHOOT YOUR SHOT

Sticking with football analogies…..summon your inner Travis Kelce and just go for it with that dream agent or manager, (just be sure you have Kelce-like skills!) I recently had a top-5 agent tell me that they are constantly getting people telling them they “aren’t ready to send [their] demo.” To which the reply was, “What the f*** are you waiting for?!” It doesn’t matter how new you are or what you sound like….with top tier representation, timing is everything. If you’ve done the work, have the skills, have the reel or reels that showcase them, and the ability to back those reads up, let ’em fly. Yes, your coaches or producer/s should give you some guidance, but don’t get caught up in hesitation. All the agents have plenty of voice actors. But they don’t have a you yet…..and they might just hear you and decide they need one. Agents are just people. And business-people at that. If they hear something they think can earn for their agency, you’re likely to get a yes.

 

KEY #3: MAKE PEACE WITH AI

Can we all agree yet that the robopocalypse is starting to feel a bit like Y2K? For those of you just joining us in the last quarter century, I’ll mansplain that Y2K was a moment before the year 2000 when eminent scientists and commentators were largely convinced that there could be a massive technology-based catastrophe due to most computers at the time only being coded to recognize years up to 1999. Planes would fall from the sky, nuclear missiles would escape their silos, factories would shut down, we’d all become cannibals and look like characters from Mad Max. Now, to be fair, I’ve grown very pale and quite bald, so that last part might have come true, but the rest….not so much.

AI is here to stay. It will get better. It has and will be used for voice work. Some talent will lend their voices to it in ways both wise, unwise, and in between. But there is ZERO EVIDENCE on the demand side to back up any assertion that AI is substantially impacting professional voice actors, and for that matter, even semi-professional voice actors. Agents are sending as many auditions as ever. Talent doing marketing are building careers. Even P2P sites have not seen any noticeable decline, (P2P CEOs have publicly stated that their numbers hover anywhere from five percent erosion to actual growth, though in some cases slowing growth, which is easily attributable to any number of causes that might include AI, but is in no way significant enough to justify the terror this technology strikes into so many.)

If anything, organizations like SAG-AFTRA and NAVA have been shockingly effective in helping to move the needle on serious legislation and agreements that will substantially protect working voice actors. Their efforts, those of the legislators who are coming together on both sides to take this issue seriously, and the skepticism of the business world as AI continues to underperform earnings expectations, and that of the public in general about its value, means AT MOST this is a P2P-site level disruption of the industry, and possibly less than that. Twenty years after the dawn of the P2P sites, we’re still here, and we’ll still be here twenty years from now. It’s time to make peace that AI exists, we wish it didn’t, (at least in this capacity,) but that it also is not the grim reaper of VO.

 

KEY #4: UNDERSTAND THAT RECESSIONS IN THE ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY ARE CYCLICAL

Now, as much as I’ll be the voice of reason on AI, there’s no denying that the entertainment industry at large is facing a crisis. Driven largely by the ravenous appetite for profits that are endemic to undertaxed mega-corporations, as well as the dramatic change in how consumers consume content, traditional forms of entertainment are seeing production budgets slashed and jobs cut to the bone. There may not be an actual recession in the greater economy, but there certainly is a major one in the arts. This inevitably impacts the most creative and artistic among us, with voiceover jobs tied to movies, traditional linear TV and even streaming, and video games under enormous pressure. The arts are, in the end, a business. One largely driven by ad dollars. Right now, the rapid shift in where eyeballs are looking for entertainment is causing an entire industry to play whack-a-mole trying to figure out where they will land….or if they will just keep moving from one new app or platform or new technology to the next. It’s hard to keep up. But while artistic forms are impermanent, the arts are forever. Ultimately, whatever Gen-Z and Gen-Alpha and their kids decide is the desired form and delivery mechanism of entertainment will take shape. And actors, and voice artists, and those who can deliver the role convincingly and sell a product without turning off an audience and teach a generation how to do the things that will be their essential skills will have a place in that ecosystem and those who excel will continue to be paid fairly and even handsomely for their work. Change isn’t the only constant. Humanity requires creative outlets and art, and eventually the money will once again flow freely to those who can master how to tell the story in the chosen forums of the future.

 

KEY #5: MAKE YOURSELF IMPOSSIBLE TO IGNORE

Good enough should never be good enough, but at times in our industry, it has been. At the dawn of the online casting era, an above average talent who learned how to game site algorithms could earn six figures with a volume strategy. Those days are gone. Now, to be sure, there are still plenty of earners both online and through traditional means of sourcing VO work, as well as the beginning of an era of ultra-savvy direct marketers and SEO stars who are finding niches and sub-niches to dominate. But good enough doesn’t cut it anymore. You could fill a stadium with online trolls who love to hate on voiceover coaches, schools, and demo producers, but the fact of the matter is that the proliferation of these services, (and yes, we all know there are plenty of dubious ones and buyer beware,) has forced EVERYONE to up their game. B-plus doesn’t work in 2024 and beyond, and while that may chafe if you were one of the ones coasting on just being good enough, there are two choices: Be great, or be gone.

It’s not just historically underrepresented communities that are thriving in voice acting today: There are plenty of voices in more saturated demographics still killing it. But they bring their A-game to Every. Single. Audition. And to Every. Single. Session. And their A-games are staggeringly good. Want to make it in today’s marketplace? Can you look at a piece of copy and instantly conceive of and be prepared to execute nine different delivery approaches for that read? Are you ready for a director in a live callback to say, “okay, I’m gonna pretend to be someone in the store and we’d like you to go off-script and just riff some funny comebacks?” And then be, actually, funny? No? Get there. Because your competition is.

Be so good they can’t say no. And they’ll still say no 90% of the time. But if they’re saying yes 10% of the time you’re gonna have a very nice career indeed.

 

KEY #6: EMBRACE AI? WHAT? OKAY, STREAMLINE PROCESSES

I had a chat with a casting director recently that I found fascinating. This is someone who, as a highly sophisticated creative who works in our space, you’d expect to be as far from the AI bandwagon as possible. And with regard to voiceover, they are. However, they use it in PRACTICALLY EVERY OTHER ASPECT OF THEIR BUSINESS. This person told me that using AI to streamline administrative processes, prioritize tasks and emails, organize their schedule, etc…. was saving them essentially an entire workweek per month. Now, whether you use AI, a great personal assistant from somewhere like vaforvo.com, other technology, or some combination thereof, one thing voice actors must always consider is this: At the pinnacle of the industry, (setting aside mega-millionaire animation talent who are largely celebs these days anyway,) the upper crust of just “working VO’s” earn in the low seven figures. That means that your time is, in theory, worth perhaps as much as $1,000 per hour or more at its maximum potential, based on a traditional 40 hour workweek. Now, almost everyone reading this is going, “geez, JMC, $100/hour over a 40 hour workweek would be just fine,” but even at that number, ask yourself, why are you doing tasks manually that could be streamlined with technology, and once you’ve started earning sufficiently, human help that might cost $20-$50/hour? YOUR TIME IS WORTH MORE! If you find tech or cutting-edge, yes, even AI, tools intimidating….do what you did when you started in VO….take a course…LEARN….and free up your time to get your voice on the ears that will pay you WHAT YOU ARE WORTH.

 

KEY #7: HAVE THE VISION TO SEE A BRIGHT FUTURE FOR YOURSELF, AND THE INDUSTRY

Let’s talk politics. Okay. Let’s not. Ever. Seriously I might consider letting the robots take over if we could just….not. But there’s an analogy to be made between politics and our industry in the sense that the voiceover world is not what you see on social media. Just like politics is not what you see on social media. I want you to think about that. Imagine the last time that you were at a non-political in-person gathering, like a voiceover conference for instance. Or a concert. Or a ballgame. Did you discuss politics with the other people there. Did you complain about inflation, or the dangers of authoritarianism, or whether or not there was sufficient fact-checking of that thing you just read or watched or heard? Probably not. You know why? Because all the complaining, vitriol, passion, and most of the ugliness lives behind a keyboard. When people come together, in person, we have a way of just wanting to lift each other up and believe the best about each other and the best about what the future has to offer.

Similarly, voiceover social media can sometimes be a nest of acrimony. Its where grievances are aired, fingers are pointed, and yes, sometimes home to important and needed discussions, but for the most part it is NOT the actual industry. The actual industry is the work being booked, the sessions being recorded, the finished product making it to air, and, when we’re together, the actual industry is people. People who time and again show that they are brilliant minds, free spirits, kind hearts, and hard-working actors dedicated to this craft and to its future. I’m never more inspired than when I’m with my colleagues, whether they are fellow voice actors, casting pros, directors, producers, or whatever role they play in this magically creative business. And one thing I am certain of is that such a collection of giving, decent, and magically talented professionals can write whatever future they….whatever future WE want. All we need is to give ourselves permission to believe it can be so.

Change is not the only constant. The arts are forever. And so are the artists.