A Voice Over MASS EXODUS? Will 80% of Voice Actors Be OUT?
So Music Radio Creative’s Izabela Russell recently said on their YouTube channel that she sees a mass revolution coming to the voice over industry.
Here's a clip:
“I think that moving forward, we are going to have an enormous exodus of voice over artist people, people who want to be voice over artists. And we are going to see only the top remain because the sad reality is, as the sample you've played is good enough for most of the kind of, you know, budget friendly projects and those really incredible voice artists will be still used perhaps for more premium projects, but the selection will be incredibly harsh. So out of the hundred, maybe five will remain. So yes, we are on the cusp of a massive voice over artist revolution, and I don't think there is anything stopping it.”
And while Isabella's is take is blunt and stark, it's not new.
Do I agree with her? Yes.
And no. I'll get to that in a minute.
I do agree, and I've said this for years, that AI will obliterate the entire bottom end of this industry where price is and always has been the primary driver.
And I think that's a good thing because in large part, it's going to for those of us that have taken the time to train, to build our businesses, to command pro rates, it's going to take the clients for whom quality has never been a concern, it’s going to take those clients and that garbage work right off the table for human voice actors. And that's a good thing.
And at the same time, it will give those clients a better solution to their problem. It will be cheaper. They will have less interaction with human voice actors. Everybody should be happy.
But for those who haven't taken the time, to get the training, to build your business, to get really good and command pro rates, there's a reckoning coming.
AI will beat up and take the lunch money of untrained and undertrained voice actors. AI is good right now and it's getting better all the time. And part of the slowdown that we're seeing now in 2023 in the voiceover industry is due to the advances of artificial intelligence and synthetic voices.
So, what do we do as voice actors?
What do we do now that push is, in fact, coming to shove, now that the robots can do what most voice actors can do? Again, most voice actors, being untrained or under trained.
Well, the truth is we have the same choice now that we have always had. Except now, the stakes are higher than they ever have been before.
The choice is train. Get better, improve, hone your craft. Learn to be a great voice actor. Invest in yourself.
Go all-in, go big, go huge. Or go home.
Now, some say people like me and Paul Strikwerda and J. Michael Collins are elitists and gatekeepers because we dare tell people to get trained and get really good at the craft, to treat the craft and business like a craft and a business. That we're dinosaurs and that Fiverr and Upwork, etc., are the future of the voiceover industry.
Yet we insisted. Train, get better, improve, work the craft.
We begged, we pleaded. We still do.
The fact is really good voice actors will continue book work, but the work that we used to do to get really good in this business, the e-learning, the corporate training, the YouTube narration… A lot of that work is not going to be around.
So, the gap between the well-trained, experienced voice actor and the untrained or undertrained, inexperienced voice actor, that gap will become a chasm because without that work around, it's going to be a lot harder to get really good in this business.
Does that mean that voiceover and voice acting will die altogether? No, it does not.
Does it mean that there will be a mass exodus of 80% of all the talent in this business? Absolutely not.
Look, we're all being sold AI as a timesaver. But is it really is it really a timesaver for you to check yourself out at the Kroger? Is it really faster to get your burger and fries from a kiosk than it is from a real human? Heck, does it saved you any time to pump your own gas. No, it does not. And New Jersey is the only state in America that gets that.
But all three of those solutions are cheaper for the corporations that put them into place. They save the corporations money, but they make the client experience, the customer experience shittier and more time expensive for you.
I'm scanning my own kumquats, but I'm not saving any time.
[You can use that, by the way. If somebody says, “Hey, how's Walter and his new girlfriend?” You can go, “Not good. He's back to scanning his own kumquats.”]
And in the same way, corporations will see AI and synthetic voices as a cost savings. But is it really cheaper to have a producer muck around with an AI voice interface for 2 hours to call in a pro voice actor to knock out that copy in 2 to 3 takes, maybe 15 or 20 minutes.
Jamie Muffett, who hosts the VO School Podcast… And by the way, if you're new in this business and you're not listening to the VO School Podcast, you should be… Jamie brought up a great point. He said, you know what? We've had 4K cameras in iPhones for almost a decade now. Is that what production companies use to shoot movies and national TV commercials?
No, it's not.
There will always be clients to whom quality matters. There will always be people and yes, companies who value relationships and want to work with flesh and blood people and who put their money where their mouth is.
There will always be people who not only value relationships, but who will insist on working with human beings to create authentic and, yes, authentically imperfect creative work.
So, let's be clear. This insistence upon training and getting better and treating the craft and business like a craft and a business is not and never has been about gatekeeping and keeping people out of this business. It is about keeping people who love this business and who invest in themselves and who are willing to do the hard work in this business.
Technology made it possible for so many great people to get into voiceover and that has been a fantastic thing for them as individuals and for us as an industry. And ironically, it will be because of technology that only the best and the strongest will survive and endure.
Look, I hope that everyone who loves voiceover and voice acting can practice this art at whatever level they choose to do so. But the fact is, because of the way the world has changed, that's going to be harder for all of us moving forward, especially for hobbyists and part timers.
But this world needs more people who love what they do and who make the world a better place by doing it. And this business needs people who love to be great voice actors who invest in themselves, commit to themselves, try to get better every single day, and try to become the best voice actors and collaborators and people that they can be.
So, if you love this business and you're committed to being the best you can be, then train, improve, hone your craft, be as authentically human as possible, be a great voice actor, go all in, go big.
But if you just want to coast, not invest in yourself, be mediocre at best, and work for $50 a holler…
…Then please, go home.
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