Simply the finest actor organization I have ever seen. I have been a guest speaker many times and have found talented actors who have eventually become clients of mine.

– David Ziff (V.P. Commerical Department – CESD, LA)

“I recorded my demo, and I’ve been auditioning for a year, and I haven’t booked anything yet!  What gives???”

“I used to book all the time, but now it’s been a year since I booked my last spot.  Am I just rusty or has my luck run out?”

Oof.  These questions are locked and loaded, so allow me to implore you to do a very proactive thing to turn your luck around.  If you haven’t booked in quite some time, then I say yes, something is wrong.

Get with a well-respected, well-versed coach immediately and brush up.  Learn some new skills, sharpen the saw, and if your coach has access, listen to other people’s auditions so you can hear how you stack up

Start attending a VO work-out group led by a qualified coach or engineer.  Or you could even collect your last 5 auditions and pay a coach for an hour of his time to give you feedback to find out what you can improve.   Auditioning from home is extremely empowering, but it could also cause you to develop some bad habits that need to be sussed out.

Make absolutely certain that the sound quality of your home studio is as yummy as possible.  Be easy on your clients ears.  Crappy sound quality makes it too easy for a client to skip your audition without giving you a fair chance.  Your agent may not have time to tell you to stop popping your P sounds or that your mic levels are so low compared to everyone else’s.  Your agent is listening to a 100 auditions a day (a complete mental drain) to pick her top 3 voices to submit.  If yours has bad sound quality, it just gets submitted at the end of the pack (if at all).  Then when the agency meets to decide who to drop that year, and they see that you haven’t booked for them, they could drop you.  They don’t have time to care why you haven’t booked, they just see that you haven’t booked.

Don’t wait for your agent to drop you to finally figure out what’s missing.  Nuture your career by nurturing your performance and your sound quality, and you’ll find your luck turning around faster than you can say “non-announcery.”

Anna Vocino

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