This year, the buzz about new rates for Voice Overs really brought the members in to the nice venue at the WIM building in TTDI. All in all, we had 46 attendees, which is something of a record for us. I guess people really wanted a say as to how they wanted to charge as an industry.
Discussions were unexpectedly animated, and as a result, we received some amazing feedback to our originally proposed rates, which we'll be posting up once I get the full confirmed list.
We also received a list of studios that talents should watch out for, listed below. This list is basically comprised of studios that have been known to treat talents oddly, or delay payments excessively. Once again, I will publish this list once it's up and confirmed at our next Exco meeting.
On top of this, we also discussed the current state of our website. Needless to say, we would like to revamp it and bring it into the 21st century. Here are some of the key features that we're thinking of bringing into the new site.
- Control - Instead of us uploading your samples to your accounts and changing your details, we allow you to upload your own samples, change your own details and even upload a nice (non-IC) picture of yourself to let the world know a little bit more about you
- Convenience - Both for us and for you. For you, having complete control of your account, and functions to easily message the Exco, or other members. We also plan to have watchdog lists for errant studios as well as a section that highlights Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) from members and the public. On our side, we plan to link the news section to our blog, meaning that it will be easier, and more convenient for us to update news, as well as send messages to all members if necessary.
- Discoverability - We plan to fully revamp the search engine, allowing you to search for talents in a more intuitive manner. We also plan to include tags that you can attribute to yourself, e.g. British, Manglish, young, old, teenager, surfer - things like that to help agents, creatives and sound people to find exactly what they're looking for.
This is basically just a taster of the new features we're planning for the site. We would love your feedback as to what other features you would like to see on the site before we start work in proper! Send all suggestions to chakster@gmail.com and I'll be sure to answer them as soon as I can.
