Okay, before I go into details I was going to make a post about a service I use on a daily basis. Because of the importance of this topic, however, I'm going to have to postpone it until the next post.
Now then, onto the main event. I was on my Twitter account looking for pages and people to follow. As I was doing so, two hashtags caught my eye. They were #PerformanceMatters and #iAmOnBoard2015. I had a hard time figuring the two out and it wasn't until I dug further into various Twitter accounts and did a search on them did I learn the nature of them. I even took the liberty of spreading the word and mentioning two voice actors that I follow.
The voice actors I follow and am fans of are typically part of a labor union, which is an organization representing people part of a trade. In the case of these voice actors, they're part of two unions; the SAG, or Screen Actors Guild, and the AFTRA, or the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. These unions, in addition to providing benefits associated with other trade unions, make it possible for voice actors to provide their talents in anything that requires voice work.
Primarily it applies to video games and animation, but there are other mediums that the SAG-AFTRA covers, such as commercials; news reports; and even sound recordings. In the case of this topic, it's about video games and voice work in them. It's also about the treatment and payment of voice actors as well.
Relating to the hashtags and the unions, the SAG-AFTRA has been negotiating with employers to provide bonuses for a number of sales, downloads and subscriptions in games; stunt pay for stressful recordings; stunt coordinators for safer motion capture; and transparency of what union members were getting into in terms of their work. Employers, on the other hand, have not only rejected these negotiations but even had proposals of their own.
These proposals consist of letting producers charge $2,500 fines for actors being late or even any reason they can think of; fining agents large sums of money for not sending out voice actors to specified auditions; revoking SAG-AFTRA union franchises from agents for refusal
of submission to said aformentioned auditions; hiring their own workers to do motion capture work without dealing with unions to save money; and other proposals reducing fees and rolling back gains from SAG-AFTRA contracts. In short, cutting costs and punishing actors and agents for petty
reasons.
The agent franchise revoking set me off the most because of how agents would have to force voice actors to certain auditions or the agents in question lose their rights to send voice actors on union work. Some of this union work covered happens to be audiobooks, and that would affect potential authors such as myself hiring talent for audiobooks. While the topic is voice work in video games and the treatment of voice actors, the SAG-AFTRA union happens to cover audiobooks so this movement bears importance to me.
What I really want to say is that these voice actors are not just voice actors. They're hard working human beings like you and me, trying their damndest to earn an honest living in a world where work is a dime a dozen. I took this for granted in my younger years when I watched specific animations and played certain games, but as I got older I learned that the voices in those works weren't magic or artificial. They were the result of actual living beings doing what they love. While I won't go into details, I know of people struggling to earn a living because of powers beyond their control, such as careless corporations; self-centered politicians; and other groups and people that want to make things harder for everyone else. It's enough that a family member; friend or next door neighbor is having hard times working in the modern world, but when I hear of voice actors going through this trouble as well, that's a personal problem. This is especially taking in to consideration that most of the credentials of these voice actors consists of video games, and there's quite a few that I own that had the talents of these people.
Speaking of games and voice actors, here's my confessions. I may not buy every work that a certain voice actor has been in. I'm not into fighting games like BlazBlue or Mortal Kombat. I never liked Role Playing Games like Final Fantasy and Persona. I avoided the Silent Hill, Resident Evil and Metal Gear franchises despite being the owner of PlayStation video game consoles. I also admit that I buy video games and other voice heavy works based on what I enjoy, because they're hobbies to me.
Do I still support these voice actors despite these facts? Yes, greatly. If there's a medium or work that I like and if I hear a certain voice actor's voice or see a voice actor's name pop up on the credits of works that I like, that puts a smile on my face knowing that a work I like has been given life by people that I'm fans of. If these voice actors also like interests that I and any of their fans like, that also makes me happy and gives me incentive to support them even more.
The voice actors part of this union are voting to go on strike as we speak. While I myself cannot vote, support for this action is strong amongst readers and fans alike whether they play video games or not. Notice for this action has attracted the likes of Moviepilot and Variety, both of which are notable and reputable sources. Even Wil Wheaton and Jon Bailey, the former a Star Trek cast member and TV show host while the latter being the Honest Trailers voice person, are on the #PerformanceMatters bandwagon. It's only a matter of time before the strike happens and these major gaming companies wake up and learn that voice actors are not just people behind a microphone. It's time that these voice actors get the treatment they deserve.
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