Category Archives: asheville voice talent

Advertising Agencies Still Growing

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Thankfully, 2009 and 2010 are long past and we in the ad biz have seen some positive turnarounds. In the voiceover production and voice talent agent business we’ve experienced double digit growth within SunSpots Productions Studios in North Carolina and Florida. Many of the agencies with whom we collaborate are pushing along well too. Profits are down, but we’re all keeping busy. This story from Sageworks written by Mary Ellen Biery explains the details…

Ad, PR agencies grow despite slowing U.S. ad spending growth
Mary Ellen Biery, Contributor

U.S. ad spending growth might be looking tepid this year and next, but private companies in the advertising services business are experiencing their second year of double-digit sales growth, according to an analysis of financial statements by Sageworks Inc.

Ad agencies, public relations agencies, media buyers and other businesses that work in that space between advertisers and media owners have seen an average sales increase of more than 11 percent in the last 12 months , Sageworks’ data shows. It’s the second year of a recovery for the industry after an average drop in sales of nearly 7 percent in 2009 as advertisers clamped down on spending during the recession.

Indeed, advertising and other service-sector industries were among the top sales performers when Sageworks recently looked at the state of all privately held companies for the last 12 months.

Strategic consulting firm Kantar Media has reported that ad spending in the first half of 2011 was up 3.2 percent, driven by Internet media and cable television ad expenditures. But the biggest advertisers’ spending stalled in the second quarter, putting ad markets more dependent on mid-sized advertisers, Kantar said. And fresh concerns about the economy have prompted some forecasters to cut estimates for 2012 ad spending despite expected boosts from political ads and the Summer Olympics in London.

Media services firm MagnaGlobal, a division of advertising and marketing giant Interpublic Group (NYSE: IPG), recently lowered its 2012 forecast for total ad spending growth to 2.9 percent from 4.8 percent, pointing to a slowdown in manufacturing, consumer spending and ongoing problems in the labor and housing markets. The firm maintained its forecast for 1.6 percent growth this year. Online advertising and digital direct media are expected to outperform local media, according to the firm.

Some smaller, independent firms, however, are planning for another solid year in 2012 despite the outlook for lackluster ad spending overall.

“We’re bullish, in particular with our clients and the opportunity for new clients,” said Steve Luquire, founder and CEO of Charlotte, North Carolina-based advertising, marketing, and PR firm Luquire George Andrews. (Just a couple hours away from SunSpots Productions studios near Asheville.)

He expects the roughly 50-person firm’s sales could be up about 10 percent this year, and he’s added seven new hires since July in anticipation that business will remain good.

By the way, outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas on Wednesday said job cuts across all industries in the U.S. have already topped cuts in 2010, with one month left. But layoffs announced by advertising services companies have tapered off in recent months.

You can read the entire article at Forbes/Sageworks.

SunSpots Productions

SunSpots Productions provides professional voice talent and creative audio production to agencies, web designers, networks, theme parks, radio, tv, film and wherever quality audio production is needed. If it makes a sound or needs a voiceover SunSpots makes it happen. Plus we offer our ISDN sound booths to voice talent who are visiting the Orlando or Asheville areas.

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SunSpots Productions Youngest Voice Talent

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Voiceover Talent Alexandra SpazianiI want to welcome a new voiceover talent, Alexandra Spaziani. She’s on her way to becoming a pro and at only 4 years old (she’ll be 5 in December) she’s currently the youngest voice talent on our EZcast™ voiceover talent roster. Thankfully, she and her parents live close to our Asheville, North Carolina studio so it’s no hassle to come in for auditions or spots.

Earlier this week I spoke with her mom, Suzanne, about Alexandra’s career as a voiceover talent.
Suzanne said Alexandra got started voicing by, “Practicing at home, imitating commercials and cartoons. One day an audition came along where the line was, “I have to go to the bathroom.” and she nailed it!”
I wondered if she could already read or if the lines had to be fed to her. “She’s close to reading”, Suzanne says, “she just repeats the lines for now. She memorizes things incredibly quick. She’s mimicked reading since she was 2. She would open the book and “read” it word for word. I was always amazed when I wanted to hurry a bedtime story along and she would point out every word I skipped.”
Her mom says that she goes into the voice booth with her and helps feed her the lines. She’s getting comfortable with the headphones and mic position. “I think she’s pretty close to being comfortable enough to take direction with the headphones on. I want to make sure she is having fun and not get intimidated by it. After every time she goes in the voice booth, I ask her did she have fun and did she love it. I want her to want to do it more then me wanting her to do it.”
At 4 years old Alexandra enjoys doing voiceovers, but also loves gymnastics, soccer and even horseback riding (she must be using a tiny horse). As far as a career in the voice business her mom Suzanne says, “She’s mentioned she wants to be an actor, but also has talked about being an astronaut,  a teacher and a cheerleader.”
We love having her on our roster and hope she has fun and enjoys being a voice talent for as long as she wants.
Thanks to Suzanne for taking the time to speak with me about her daughter, Alexandra Spaziani. In the coming weeks, once school is over for me…(4 classes, never again), I want to focus on every one of our voice over talent so we can all get to the know them better.
How old were you when you started voicing? I didn’t do anything professional till I got into radio at age 18, which is now over (BLANK) years ago. I did record crazy voices and little audio shows with my friend Bob Feeley back in Pompano Beach, Florida when we were 12. When I was at Cardinal Gibbons High School in Fort Lauderdale, Bob, Tracy Clahan and I made up a fake news presentation for the high school’s morning announcements. That’s pretty common these days, but was fun and new to us at the time. Bob’s now a comedy writer in Connecticut and Tracy teaches theater at LaGrange College in Georgia.
Did you “do voices” as a kid or have early theater or even broadcast experience?
Like I’ve mentioned in other posts, please keep me informed about what things you’re doing as a voiceover talent. If you have a head shot and want us to use that in our promotion of you please email me.
Hope you’re having a beautiful Sunday! It’s cold, but beautiful here in the North Carolina mountains.
Tom

SAG says "Check Your Backside" to it's union members

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Good morning!
I just saw this article in Variety online…

With the resumption of SAG’s contract talks in limbo, the guild’s toughening up its ban on members working for nonunion producers. The Screen Actors Guild recently notified its 120,000 members in a “Check Your Backside” message that, starting on Jan. 1, it will “vigorously” enforce the ban on nonunion work for new-media productions.

“Rule One states that ‘no member shall work for a producer who is not signatory to the appropriate SAG agreement,’” SAG said in the missive. “Rule One is printed on the back of every SAG membership card. SAG members may also work on new-media projects if they are covered under an AFTRA collective bargaining agreement.”

SAG’s master contract expired June 30 — the same day the majors made their final offer — and members currently work under the expired contract’s terms in features, primetime and new media. SAG’s negotiating committee met Wednesday with federal mediator Juan Carlos Gonzalez about its stalled contract negotiations, but no date’s been set for restarting talks between SAG and the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers.

Earlier this year, SAG’s national board unanimously OKd the move to launch the Rule One campaign. “The goal is to make sure that members insist on basic protections when they work in new media,” national director of organizing Todd Amorde told Daily Variety.

Guild leaders have become increasingly concerned in recent years over actors circumventing discipline under Rule One. SAG announced last year that members filing for “financial core” status — under which a member resigns SAG membership and withholds dues spent by the guild on political activities but can still work on union jobs — generally won’t be allowed back into the guild.

Aside from expulsion, Rule One violators can be fined or suspended after a trial board hearing.

With SAG and the majors awaiting the next step in the mediation process, the Intl. Alliance of Theatrical and Stage Employees and the AMPTP will return to the bargaining table today — seven months after they concluded three days of negotiations without reaching a deal. Both sides have set aside three days for the talks.

The current IATSE deal expires in August and covers about 25,000 West Coast workers in 18 locals. If the AMPTP can make a deal with IATSE, it will mark the sixth such pact signed by the majors this year, following deals with the DGA, WGA and casting directors plus two TV agreements with AFTRA.

Before turning to mediation, SAG unsuccessfully attempted to restart negotiations Sept. 30 by announcing a trio of “threshold” issues: new-media jurisdiction for all productions, rather than the $15,000-per-minute budget threshold the majors propose; securing residual fees for made-for-Internet productions when those productions are reused on new-media platforms; and continuing force majeure protections for actors, which the majors have sought to eliminate.

For its part, the AMPTP’s insisted it won’t change the final offer to SAG and stressed that its terms are similar to those in the WGA, DGA and AFTRA deals.

It’s going to be very interesting to see how the voiceover and acting unions survive the economic mess we’re currently in.

Speaking of professional voice talent, if you’re a voice talent with SunSpots Productions please make sure we have your latest voiceover demo in hand so we can keep your best in front of our clients. Please send it to:
Jen Stevens
SunSpots Productions
821 Marhall Farms Road
Ocoee, Florida
34761

Cheers-
Tom

Happy Anniversary Google!

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Google, no longer just “search engine” Google, is celebrating their 10th anniversary this week. Can you believe it’s been 10 years? Can you believe what it was like BEFORE Google hit the web? Can you believe so many of us passed up buying Google stock at $80 a share? lol I did on that one. Thought they wouldn’t be around long. OUCH!

What a massive player and global powerhouse they’ve become. They stuck with their dreams, focused on excellence and became much more than just successful. Their name even became a verb!

I wonder how so many of us would never be found without Google being on the web. A few years ago, after a technically savvy employee left us, we were absolutely lost in Google’s results. We were ranking in the 800′s or worse.

Through three years of effort we (SunSpots Productions) now show up at least in the Top 20 results in Google’s search engine or mostly on their front page. For example search for “voice talent agent“, “spanish voice talent“, “creative audio production“, “voice talent“, “audio production“, “asheville voice talent“, “orlando voice talent” and there we are on the front page or number one out of millions of pages. It was all done while wearing a white hat too! (SEO peeps know what I mean.)

So thank you and congratulations Google! You’ve inspired and changed our world. I hope the next 10 are full of positive innovations and useful products for us all.