Interview | Voice123 Discusses the Voice Acting Business

Voice123: After working in radio for several years, co-founder Tania Zapata decided to make voiceover a career.  It was tough to find information about the industry back then and marketing yourself as a freelance voiceover talent was very expensive. Besides she was taken advantage of by people claiming to be talent agents. So, in 2003, Tania and husband Alex Torrenegra hacked together Voice123.com, creating the world's first voiceover casting website. Voice actors now had a way of connecting directly to clients. Word spread quickly and today, Voice123 is now over 100,000 talents strong and has delivered over 3 million auditions.

Cubed3: How do you feel your company is different in comparison to places like Voices and The Voice Realm?

Voice123: With Voice123, it's a much more selective process. SmartCast ensures that the best talents for each job get invited to audition. This is great for clients because they only hear auditions from talents that actually match what they want to hear, so they return to Voice123 again and again. It's a good thing for talents, too, because you are not competing against thousands of people for a job. Also, since the best matches are invited first, you don't have to run to your microphone to be one of the first auditions.

Cubed3: What are some of the biggest clients that your talent roster has done voice work for?

Voice123: Pixar actually cast Javier Fernandez-Peña as the voice of Spanish Buzz Lightyear in Toy Story 3 through Voice123! Other notable castings include the voice of iconic videogame character Duke Nukem, September Day Leach was cast to be the live announcer for the MTV Video Music Awards and the voice of Skynet in the "Terminator: Salvation" movie. Others: Samsung, Sotheby's for the auction of "The Scream," H&M, and many more....

Cubed3: Do you regularly take on-board feedback from users of the site to improve services, and can you provide examples of recent improvements?

Voice123: Of course! We are constantly getting suggestions and we read and evaluate every single one of them. We have a huge wish list of improvements and new features that we are working on. You may have noticed we recently revamped the homepage to make it a little more user friendly. Our goal is to be the number one place online for voice actors to find great jobs as well as a valuable resource for education, information, marketing, and running a voiceover business.

Cubed3: Can you explain how the My Stats page can be of benefit to voice talents?

Voice123: These stats can be very useful to help determine which projects your voice is best suited for. Having some objective feedback can be very useful in your voiceover career. Once you've gotten enough rankings (I would say 10 or more), look at which projects you were ranked highly for and determine why. Then audition for similar projects. For example, if you are rated highly for projects in the middle aged adult category and lower when you auditioned for young adult projects it's a better use of your time to audition for the middle aged projects. At the same time, there are cases where a client simply did not like your voice and even though your voice matched all the details, they give you a bad ranking. This is why it's important to look at the overall picture and not just one or two good or bad rankings.

Cubed3: What do free users get for signing up, and what sort of benefits can they expect from the various paid packages?

Voice123: Free members get a profile page they can use to host demos and market themselves. It can be used instead of having to build a personal voiceover website. Voice123 Premium members can audition for jobs posted on the site, but also get listed in our search feature and have their profile indexed by Google and other search engines. There is also a special, invite-only, Premium Platinum level that allows the voice talent to audition for the jobs they choose regardless of being invited.

Cubed3: Does Voice123 offer any free tutorials or online seminars/discussion groups to help both newcomers to the world of voice acting, as well as veterans?

Voice123: Yes, we encourage everyone, newcomers and veterans, to attend our free monthly webinars on using Voice123. Due to the way SmartCast works, it's important to have your profile filled out correctly, know what jobs to audition for, etc. We also have forums and a resource centre available to talents.

Cubed3: Do you have special plans to expand the reach of Voice123 over the next 12 months?

Voice123: We have a lot of plans that are still in the discussion board and therefore can't talk about them yet. But we promise it will be great for our VO talents!

Cubed3: Will there be any crossover between Voice123 and VoiceBunny, or are they being kept as completely different business models?

Voice123: VoiceBunny will continue to be a separate entity as it operates on a totally different business model and targets a different kind of client.

Cubed3: Finally, what 'first steps' tips would you give to those wanting to get into the voice industry?

Voice123: The first thing to do would be to get some training and advice from a reputable coach or company. We have several coaching partners that we work with here at Voice123. Second, don't believe everything you read online. Anyone with a blog can claim to be a voiceover expert. What worked for one person's career may not be the best route for you. You want to work with someone who has a proven track record of success and comes highly recommended. Investing in equipment and a demo reel is expensive. Exploring voiceover as a career before making those investments is a good idea.