The internet is not, repeat not how voice talent is cast for national media!
"Wait a minute", you protest, "are there not hundreds of voiceover web sites and web pages of individual voiceover performers all over the internet?" Well, yes. And they are not used to cast national work. Some small market advertising agencies and providers of voice mail greetings might use the internet to find bargain basement talent, but it is simply NOT a factor in the world of national media. There are smaller jobs now being cast through some voice talent database websites that make you the talent compete with other actors for jobs, not based on your audtion, but who will do the job for the lowest price! This is a horrible business model! Participate at your own risk!
National casting is done through the top SAG/AFTRA talent agencies, not random web searches. Sure, search engine queries will bring up a list of the VO demos of many of the thousands of medium market radio talent laid off by Clear Channel and former TV weathermen from Poughkeepsie, but not the legitimate pool of professional voice actors.
I have had this voiceover web site up since 1995. Since then, it has been responsible for a small handful of jobs. Of the nearly ten thousand professional voiceover actors in Los Angeles, less than a hundred of them have personal web sites. But these are, (including this one) pretty much just vanity projects, useful mostly for helping the folks back home to understand what the hell it is that we do for a living. For me, putting up the website was a way to teach myself to write HTML. The site's most useful function is as an FTP site, where my clients to download finished digital audio files.
There are just a couple of exceptions: Voicebank.net provides access to the house reels of SAG/AFTRA franchised agents in LA / NY and a few other major markets. Voicebank offers an audition and finished audio delivery system, in addition to the complete house reels of top commercial agents.
With these exceptions, save your money. Unless your demo is on the web page of one of the top LA or NY SAG/AFTRA talent agencies, the internet is not goint to generate work for you in the national arena.
I'm sorry guys, but this is the truth.
Beau Weaver Los Angeles, 2005
