Tomato / Tomahto

No, this is not more in an endless debate about how to pronounce something like the word: PRESTIGIOUS

press-teej’-us –or– press-tij-us

It’s more about artist vs. artiste.

Now, I know there are minor deviations in spellings between Brits and Yanks (colour, checque, etc). And since India was for many years a British Colony, and they still speak the Queen’s English there…I guess I can chalk-up the spelling ‘artiste’ to that influence.

I’ve been trying to get some straight answers to easy questions about the website “Voice Artistes” from the person I suppose is the director/manager of the site: NEERAJ M. MEHRA.

“Voice Artiste” strikes me as a sort-of Vedic V123, I guess. (heh)

I wanted to know whether there might be value in authentic American English voices submitting for auditions to their (what appears to be) busy enterprise. Do their clients need, say, a midwest accent, or a Southern drawl?

I wanted to better understand his business model.

I sent my request about 10:30pm PST, which is probably — I dunno — 3 in the afternoon tomorrow in India. I got an almost immediate response. And while it wasn’t quite what I was looking for, it did provide some basic information, and I appreciate him taking time out of his busy day to write.

Here’s Neeraj’s e-mail response:

Dear Dave

Being on the voice artistes roster gives the talent more mileage in the Asian region. These day lot of work in econtent is being done in India and Asian region for US & European or UK clients. Many people have hired talent from other USA or Europe for their projects. By listing on the website your contact details are transparent with phone no. Your website URL will also be there in the listing. Your details will be listed globally with your website URL and anybody can offer you assignments or jobs from anywhere. These listings will give you additional mileage. You will also receive Audition Leads as and when somebody refers me for Voice Talent. One can get registered on http://www.voiceartistes.com/register.html

Film/TV Producers, Radio/ FM Programme Producers, Sound Studious, Audio
Programme Producers Event Management Companies and anybody searching for any
type of Voice Artistes/Translators can log on to http://www.VoiceArtistes.com and search for required talent according to gender, location and category. You never know somebody may be searching for your voice.

Sincerely

NEERAJ M. MEHRA

Visit voiceartistes.com and I think you’ll agree…it tries to be alot of things…whether it succeeds in this prestigious endeavour is your decision.

CourVO