While ACTRA insists on continuance letters, producers will take battle into the courts for unlawful conduct.

You've heard from the union, now it's time to hear from the producers associations.

Backstage.com and Hollywood Reporter journalist Etan Vlessing gleaned the following:

Stephen Waddell, chief negotiator for ACTRA, which represents 21,000 domestic performers, said Canada faces a prolonged actors strike because dozens of producers have signed continuance letters that will guarantee their projects will remain in production, with ACTRA members working on them, despite any industry shutdown.

"We expect that a great deal of production will continue, because of the continuance letters," Waddell said. "We'll continue to sign companies, and we're feeling confident as more letters are coming in today."

Canadian and U.S. producer associations have urged their members not to sign the continuance letters on offer from ACTRA. The letters promise producers no disruption by ACTRA picket lines if they guarantee performers a 5% wage increase.

John Barrack, chief negotiator for the Canadian Film and Television Production Assn., representing English-language Canadian producers, on Thursday said that ACTRA's continuance letters were "unlawful," and will provoke a legal battle in the event of an industry shutdown.

"This will end up in the courts pretty quickly," Barrack promised.

Any comments?

Stephanie

To follow this breaking story, read this article!

ACTRA, the Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists, said January 3rd that they were going to strike on January 8th, 2007 if their demands were not met by producers.

As you may have guessed, things didn't go as ACTRA had hoped and now a random array of made-for-tv-movie and drama actors are walking the picket lines while their commercial counterparts are shooting in the studios.

Actors who are in productions affected by the strike were told not to go to work, even though the union was in midst of negotiations.

On January 7th, 2007, ACTRA posted the following strike conditions for members on their site:

"In the event of an ACTRA strike, performers are not to report to work, auditions or ADR on any IPA production that has not signed a continuation letter with ACTRA.

If ACTRA does go on strike, performers can still do work under other ACTRA contracts: UBCP, commercials, student films, broadcast agreements.

ACTRA By-Laws set out the rules for the conduct of ACTRA members during a strike. ACTRA members - including Full, Apprentice and ACTRA Extras - must not work for struck engagers during an ACTRA strike. Members are expected to know the strike rules and regulations, and are expected to uphold the strike. Any member who fails to adhere to the strike rules is subject to disciplinary action."

Some programs have special permission to keep filming, including the Rick Mercer Report and Royal Canadian Air Farce.

According to the CBC, ACTRA may get into hot water over this "wild cat" strike. This strike is grounds to take the union to court, sources say.

Now, you might be wondering what this is all about, eh?

ACTRA is striking over 2 issues.

First, they want a pay increase. Currently, ACTRA is 32% behind their American counterpart, the Screen Actors Guild (SAG). ACTRA aims to get a wage increase between 10% - 15%.

Secondly, there's something about new media that needs to be taken care of. ACTRA is very concerned with how talent are to be compensated for the use of their work on the Internet which includes coverage on websites, podcasts and the like.

Talks actually broke while discussing this sensitive issue at 6:20 a.m. this morning.

Remember when DVDs came on the market? ACTRA does, and the organization is not prepared to see what happened to them back then repeat itself in 2007.

When DVDs first came out, there was significant doubt about the staying power and influence of the product with consumers. ACTRA was lead to believe that the reach of the DVD would not be great, so they agreed upon lower rates than would be expected if negotiated today.

Retrospective vision is 20/20 after all and history does repeat itself, hence the concern from ACTRA over the 'new media' phenomenon, a form of media consumption that is quickly becoming a standard means for PC users and owners of portable media players to enjoy their content.

Provinces that are affected by the ACTRA strike include Ontario, Manitoba and Saskatchewan. ACTRA will be on strike in Quebec on Wednesday, January 10, 2007. Other provinces will follow shortly after.

For more information, check the ACTRA website.

Best,

Stephanie

Sources: CBC News, ACTRA

P.S. Click to read a personal message from ACTRA's National President Richard Hardacre.

If you hire ACTRA talent in Canada, you may want to read this.

ACTRA sent out a press release on January 3rd announcing their strike deadline of January 8th, 2007.

ACTRA is the Alliance of Canadian Cinema and Television and Radio Artists, similar to the American union AFTRA.

January 3, 2007 - TORONTO - In a unanimous vote, ACTRA's negotiating committee has set a strike deadline of 12:01 a.m. Monday, January 8, 2007.

Producers were given notices to this effect as last-ditch talks resumed this morning.

"ACTRA wants to avoid a strike. We're going to try hard this week to negotiate a new agreement. But the producers' associations must not underestimate our determination to ensure that it is a fair agreement," stated Stephen Waddell, ACTRA's National Executive Director and Chief Negotiator.

ACTRA received an overwhelming 97.6% strike mandate from its membership in December.

"Canadian performers will not see their wages eroded and will not be giving away their work on the internet for free," said Waddell.

If no agreement is arrived at this week, ACTRA will be striking against producers in most of Canada except British Columbia. The many producers who have signed continuation letters with ACTRA will not be involved in this action.

ACTRA (Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists) is a national organization of professional performers working in the English-language recorded media in Canada. ACTRA represents the interests of 21,000 members across Canada - the foundation of Canada's highly acclaimed professional performing community.

Additional Information

Some important items to note regarding IPA negotiations include:

- ACTRA has set a strike deadline of 12:01 a.m. Monday, January 8, 2007.
- Negotiations will be taking place this week.
- Only work under the IPA will be affected by a strike (including CIPIP and TIP).
- Performers will still be able to do commercial work, student films, etc., should ACTRA go on strike.

Please stay tuned to ACTRA and watch for emails from ACTRA.

Source: ACTRA

Did you known that you can have the best of both worlds without all the paperwork?

How many voice talents have you had to turn down for a job because they were members of a union?

Usually, it's the paperwork that keeps companies from working with union talent, not the fee for the work itself.

If you offer a job to a union member and state that it is a 'non-union' voiceover job, the union member will still be able to accept your job offer by following a new formula, deemed kosher by the union.

Pat Fraley, a professional voice actor, instructor, and union member is one such example.

A client offered him a job to voice a talking parrot. The job itself looked like it could cost about $500 to do, perhaps less as quote "non-union" job.

Pat quoted $1000 and the client was fine with that, but insisted that the job he was offering to Pat was still non-union. Would that still be OK with Pat?

No problem, says Mr. Fraley.

And why was it not a problem for Pat?

Although the fee was increased for the work, the client in question did not have to go through any hoops or do paperwork that would usually deter working with union talent.

When you work with a union talent and offer them a non-union job, the talent, according to the union ruling should do the following to accept the job:

By union ruling, members can turn a non-union job into a union job by taking the fee appropriate to a payroll company who tells them how much it's going to be and the payroll company act as a union signator. The job is thus unionized. The union gets paid, the agent gets paid, medicare gets paid, etc.

* These steps made by the talent save you time and the hassle of filling out forms.

Granted, not every job can be turned into a union job. The budget has to be high enough in order to qualify.

Here's a rule of thumb: The fee needs to be 40% more than the AFTRA or SAG minimum for this formula to work. In other words, non-union jobs that pay lower may not qualify to be 'turned' into union jobs.

Has paperwork ever stopped you from working with a union talent?

Let us know your thoughts and if this article was useful to you.

Cheers,

Stephanie

How does Voices.com work? What can you do for me? Discover the answer to these questions and more by watching our new video.

Ever wondered how our service works?

Watch this video to find out!

Looking forward to serving you,

Stephanie

2007 is going to be an amazing year - keep yourself in the loop by subscribing to VOX Talk, the official podcast of your voice marketplace, Voices.com.

We are very excited about this!

I'd like to share a bit with you about VOX Talk, our new podcast.

VOX Talk is your connection to the voice industry covering news about voice-overs and voice actors, hot tips on how to grow your voice-over business, technology, and Q&A with the experts at Voices.com.

Episode 1, which was published on January 2nd, 2007, already has over 54 subscribers tuning in and we'd love to have you as a member of our audience.

VOX Talk is about you. It's about people, companies, events, technology, and success stories... all key ingredients that contribute to a vibrant and progressive voice industry.

Segments include:

The Loop

The Loop is a voice-over newscast. If something noteworthy is going on in the industry, you'll hear about it in this segment.

The Biz

The Biz focuses on tips for growing your business through marketing, customer relations, management and more.

Tech Talk

Tech Talk is exactly what it looks like! Reviews of recording studio equipment, tutorials, and production ideas will be discussed in this segment.

VOX Box

This is where you get your say! Send in your MP3 feedback and have your questions answered on the show. Commentary on past shows or blog posts are also welcome.

To learn more about the podcast, you can visit the VOX Talk blog. At the VOX Talk blog, you'll be able to listen to the podcast and visit helpful links that are mentioned in the podcast recording.

If you'd like to subscribe directly, visit iTunes to subscribe to VOX Talk right away.

We're accepting voice feedback too in our VOX Box segment, so if you have a question or insight you'd like to share with your community, email an MP3 recording of your commentary to media@voices.com.

Let us know what you think by leaving a comment or sending in some audio feedback :)

Have a great day,

Stephanie

Ever heard of Google AdWords? Some people run their own campaigns while others hire specialists to create and manage their pay-per-click advertising through search engines. Meet a crew of budding advertising managers and media buyers here at Casting Voices.

Fanshawe College is set to become one of just three Canadian colleges to offer the Google Advertising Professionals program with the support of the world's leading search engine company.

The pitch:

All participants in the program at Fanshawe would receive a Google AdWords (TM) campaign created for them, including keywords, ad copy and $50 US worth of sponsored listings.

The campaign would be executed by a team of 3rd year Fanshawe Business Administration - Marketing students for a day, testing out how the largest search engine in the world could bring traffic to your website.

The students would gain experience developing and managing campaigns as well as the practical application of those campaigns on the web. A hands-on learning experience for the students and a day of free promotion and advertising campaigns to keep for businesses selected to participate.

Sounds like a plan, doesn't it?

Well, we were one of the 30 companies who participated in Fall of 2006 and it was a wonderful experience.

Interesting fact: According to the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO), Canadian and US advertisers spent $5.75 billion US on search engine marketing in 2005.

"Being found on the internet should be a top priority in any e-commerce strategy," says Fanshawe's Liz Gray, the course instructor. She adds: "Seventy percent of online transactions originate from a search query."

Liz Gray's students learned about keywords, what they cost, and how they enhance a client's chance of being found. They wrote ads for their clients and bid on keywords they gathered from the client's website, through the client's competitors' websites and through Wordtracker, another course sponsor.

"Wordtracker suggests derivatives and alternate words and phrases based on the terminology that searchers are currently entering into search engines," Gray said.

Wordtracker, based in the UK, helps website owners and search engine marketers identify keywords and phrases relevant to their client's business and most likely to be used as queries by search engine visitors. Wordtracker's database, which is updated weekly, contains more than 330 million search terms.

Through AdWords, Google allows advertisers to bid on keywords that are relevant to what they are selling. Google then displays text ads on its search engine results pages to connect advertisers to users interested in their products or services. These ads appear in the sponsored link areas at the top or on the right of the screen when you perform a Google search. An advertiser only pays when someone clicks on the ad which opens the client's website or landing page.

"For a company spending money on a Search Engine Marketing (SEM) campaign, a click is only the beginning," says Gray. "You must then convince the searcher to perform the desired action, whether that be to purchase something online, sign up for a newsletter, or visit your store."

Each student had to develop a list of keywords for their client. Then, they set up a Google AdWords account on behalf of the client, set up a Google AdWords campaign, bid on the keyword list approved by the client and ran the campaign until the $50 coupon was depleted.

Students realize that they must manage their $50 voucher carefully. The speed at which it will be depleted depends on the popularity of the keywords they bid on. Students were taught to take advantage of keywords and phrases that may be searched less often but still generate qualified leads.

Participating source: Fanshawe College

Photo courtesy Fanshawe College

It's a new year and we've got new service options for you to check out for 2007. Ready to find out what they are?

As of January 1st 2007, Voices.com introduced monthly billing options for clients who need to hire voice over talents throughout the year to complete their projects.

There are two new monthly billing service offerings that you can choose from, starting as low as $19.00 per month to access premium services provided by Voices.com and our team of professional voice over talents.

The Enterprise Edition, priced at $99 per month, is the perfect solution for world-class organizations with a high volume of activity, multiple users and the need to manage unlimited voiceover projects each year.

The Business Edition, offered at $19 per month, is appropriate for small and medium-sized businesses that need to efficiently manage unlimited voiceover projects each year.

When chatting with Voices CEO David Ciccarelli, he mentioned that “These new options provide more flexibility and choice to companies needing to hire voice talents for their projects online.”

If you're interested, compare service options here or contact Jay Kowlessar for more information by dialing toll-free 1-888-359-3472 or by emailing him here: jay (at) voices.com.

Happy New Year!

Cheers,

Stephanie