Great Article from Edge Studios

We have casted and hired, we estimate, just over 7,000 talent.
Some we will NEVER hire back. Following are things that we,
unfortunately, say EVERY DAY aloud in our office which explain why:

MARKETING MISTAKES

John mailed us his demo CD, but that’s weird - there’s no contact
information anywhere on it. Funny, we couldn’t hire him even if
we wanted to.

Mary emailed her MP3s to us with the file name “commercial demo”
well that sucks, if our clients want to hear her demo later,
we’ll need to remember to look under “c” for “commercial demo”.”
(An hour later) “Look Marty emailed his MP3 to us with the file
name “commercial demo”, just like Mary did, but when I saved it,
it over-wrote Mary’s demo. (Folks, I have been preaching this for
years!!!! Your Demos SHOULD be named, “Mary Smith - commercial voice
over demo”… NOT “commercial demo” or “demo A” and “demo B” or
“John demo” (well, this last one is okay if you are certain you are
the only John in the voice over industry)…

CASTING MISTAKES

Oh, don’t call Charles, he takes too long to get back to us about
his availability. Hire Frank instead, he always gets back to us
right away.

Kim always needs to re-schedule - don’t even bother calling her
about this job.

We called Jane to let her know we wanted to hire for that job,
but someone else answered her phone and said, “Jane’s not available
- call back after 6.” So lets call the next talent on the list,
since our office closes at 5pm today.

Lisa didn’t send the audition when she says she would and now
WE look bad in front of OUR client. Let’s not cast her anymore.

STUDIO ETIQUETTE MISTAKES

James wore WAY too much cologne to his recording session
today. Mark, the talent for the next session, is highly allergic
and can’t record now because of the residual scent in the booth.
Let’s not bring James in again.

Jill showed up for a session without telling us about her nasty
head cold that affected the sound of her voice. Now there’s no time
to replace her, and Jill can’t produce the sound that got her cast
in the first place. Grrrrr .

Ed committed the cardinal voice over sin - he touched the mic
and tried to adjust it himself! He could have avoided an engineer
meltdown by just asking Sam to do it for him.

Bob is a great talent, but he just wouldn’t stop talking. The
session ended up going way over and the client was concerned about
paying for extra time.

Why wouldn’t Vicki stop mentioning her credits! The client
doesn’t want to hire her again.

I know Larry had questions when reviewing the script, but he
didn’t ask them. Then, in the midst of the recording, he had
to stop abruptly because he didn’t know how to pronounce a word.
I wish he’d just ask up front like the pros do. BUT worse, Lauren
asked how to pronounce some words, but she didn’t write them
out phonetically in her script, so when she got to the word, she
mispronounced it anyway. AND EVEN WORSE, we gave a tough script
to a voice talent the other day and asked him to prepare for it
(as there was difficult jargon). But he was totally unprepared.
I don’t think we’ll be hiring any of these guys again

Bruce walked in late for a session today with his Starbucks coffee
in one hand and blackberry in the other. The client commented that
clearly his coffee break was more important that being on time for
this job.

Natalie forgot to put on headphones, didn’t stand on axis,
didn’t know how to turn pages… now the client thinks that we
hire non-professional talent plus we won’t hire her ever again.

When Billy made a mistake, he spent the next 2 minutes of recording
time apologizing profusely and looking frustrated. Worse, he didn’t
know what it mean when the engineer asked him to do a pick-up.

Dan really had it in his head that the copy should be narrated
his way. He didn’t seem to care to realize that it should be read
the way the client wants it. Now the client doesn’t want us to hire
him again!

Alison asked the client, “Who wrote this copy anyway? There are
a ton of mistakes…” she had the humbling experience of having
the client reply “I did. Now the client doesn’t want us to hire
her again!

INVOICING MISTAKES

Amy did a fantastic job in her last session, but never invoiced
us! When Morgan finally did get the invoice, all sorts of information
was missing. Morgan spent a good part of her day exchanging emails
with Amy until we finally had the necessary information to pay her
for the work she did! Maybe we’ll hire Lanette next time.

During discussions about an upcoming job, Laura never asked what
the job was about . she just agreed to do it. After the recording,
when the casting agent said, “Send us a bill for the $175″ she was
upset and said that she needed more money. WELL SHE SHOULD HAVE
ASKED UP FRONT WHAT THE RATE WAS LIKE PROS DO! Let’s not bring
her back in again.