Great discussion
I finished reading all the comments and listening to all the thoughts posted here on this discussion thread a couple days ago (few more trickled in), and it really blew me away how passionate everyone here is.
I have a few updates to share.
1. The moderator who was at the center of all this has decided to take some time to focus on his voice acting, so he is no longer with us.
2. I've updated the audio mod tool to be more granular: https://i.imgur.com/Yzw5j8u.png . You can see in this example that it tells me that I have plosives in my audio, and I need to add a demo reel. But wait? How do I fix my plosives? Now there is a handy dandy Youtube link in the email that gets you started with the right setup. 9 minutes but invaluable.
In addition, I also put which moderator reviewed your profile so now you can reach out directly to clear up any confusion. This also keeps the mods accountable so they provide good feedback.
3. I've re-verified everyone who was stripped of verification. If I missed you, email me directly and I'll have a look at the database.
4. It's clear that the audio badge is a point of confusion. Some people want it to mean:
A) I'm not a troll
B) I've got good audio quality
C) I want to be considered professional
Or all of the above.
I've got a few ideas on how to fix the badge, so I'll be reaching out to a few of you directly to clarify a few things and general canvassing.
5. It's also clear to me that the Pro area isn't very successful as is. There are lots of things wrong with it:
A) Pro paid projects are hard to find.
B) Simply not enough volume yet.
C) Not all Pro casting calls are the highest quality
D) It's relatively buried under the rest of the site (people don't know about it)
There is no solid path to making Pro work. The bottom line is I want CCC to attract more professional casting directors. Getting to that goal is the fun part. It's going to be experimental and adventurous. Really, I'm counting on all of you to be the voice. The unique ideas like what Razzle said about just renaming it to something that it already is, or Voicedubz said about creating almost a mentorship program are all incredibly helpful. Thank you so much. Everyone of those ideas gets put into a Trello board and it gets mulled over.
CCC's current strategy is influencer and content marketing, which is great for organic growth of the current status quo, but not the best for Pro. This week we will begin ad spend targeting casting directors exclusively.
Who knows, maybe Voices.com will forever be the place that professional casting directors go to find VAs and we're all stuck paying a lot to audition there. I really hope we can make online VA marketplaces more transparent. I hope we can change the industry together.
