Maria Pendolino Delivers Keynote Address At NAVA’s Virtual Fundraising Gala

This past week, NAVA – the National Association of Voice Actors – celebrated their first ever fundraising gala in Los Angeles and I had the privilege of delivering the keynote address at the virtual gala, which was hosted by my friends Jamie Muffett and Scott Chambers on Zoom.

I am so pleased that NAVA chose to offer a virtual option. It solidified their position that they are working day in and day out for all voice actors – regardless of what geography folks are located in. While I would have loved to hob knob in LA with my voice acting friends (and, icon honoree Seth Green, ‘natch), I was delighted to still be able to participate safely from my home and cheer on the award winners AND auction winners.

Both events raised over $60,000 for the NAVA Foundation, which supports a lot of work, including:which provides critical services and advocacy on behalf of our rich and diverse community, including:National Association of Voice Actors (NAVA) provides critical services and advocacy on behalf of our rich and diverse community, including:

✅ A Legal Defense Fund
✅ Access to scholarships, classes, and events
✅ Members-only and community-wide information and events
✅ Resources like the AI/Synthetic Voice Contract Rider
✅ An emergency fund for community members in need
✅ Critical advocacy work around consent, control, and compensation for voice actors in regards to AI, including lobbying and influencing legislation on Capitol Hill.
✅ And, so much more!

If you’d like to listen to my keynote address, the audio MP3 is available here and I’ve also copied the transcription below for easy reading. If you’d like to learn more about NAVA or make a donation that is tax deductible, please visit navavoices.org.

And, if you’d prefer to read the speech while listening to your favorite Spotify playlist instead, here is the transcript:

To NAVA

Written by Maria Pendolino, Delivered Live on Wednesday, December 6th 2024

Hello NAVA Virtual Gala!

Do we think these are the most dramatic sleeves ever?? To be clear, I am not wearing Spanx and I have fuzzy slippers on. After all, I’m still a voice actor, right?!?

I want to welcome everyone to the very first National Association of Voice Actors – NAVA – Virtual Gala. I am truly thrilled and honored to be here this year and to be serving as your virtual keynote speaker. I have to be honest – sometimes I still feel like I’ve just begun building my voiceover career and business. Then I look back at over a decade of hard-work, dedication, hustle and drive and I’m really proud to stand before you today as a member of NAVA’s board of directors and your virtaul keynote speaker tonight.

I’d first like to say a big thank you to Tim Friedlander, Carin Gilfry and my fellow NAVA board members. I’d also like to send a big thank you to all of our NAVA members! Thank you for coming along on this journey with us in our first year of existence. It’s because of you that we work tirelessly to advocate and fight for our craft and our industry. And of course, I want to say thank you to Jamie Muffet and Scott Chambers for joining me on the virtual stage this evening to be our hosts with the mosts!

For those of you that don’t know me, I’m proud that I’ll be entering my fourteenth year as a voice actor in 2024. I was one of those very annoying children who performed at any opportunity – even if it wasn’t a performance opportunity – and I dragged my parents to several auditions for community theatre productions of The Sound of Music. I also starred in a probably-illegal summer production of Aladdin, well before Disney Theatricals had a stage version of the movie ready. I began my professional career as an actor working in TV, theatre, and film, and was fortunate to add voice acting as another avenue in my acting career. Whether it’s commercials, pop culture documentaries, telephone systems or corporate training programs: I do it all, and I love it all.

When I was 22 I was diagnosed with psoriatic arthritis. What started out as weird knee pain and a little bit of swelling, ballooned into a full blown mobility disability by the time I entered my thirties. And here I thought it was just my cheap old navy flip flops? Suddenly, the prospect of being on stage for eight shows a week or getting picked up for hair and makeup in a vam at 3AM to be on set for 18 hours seemed like a total impossibility. Enter: my voice acting career. I could walk into a studio and say “Hey, can I have a stool?” and no one would bat an eye. And as the home studio revolution took over, I can now totally control my working space and my environment so that I am safe, comfortable, and effective in my work. In addition to serving on NAVA’s board, I am also proud to serve as a leader on the steering committee of the first-ever Disabled Voice Actors Database.

NAVA’s mission is simple: to advocate and promote the advancement of the voice acting industry through action, education, inclusion, and benefits.

And I want to be clear that NAVA is here for all voice actors. Whether you’re a well-known voice acting celebrity or you’ve just enrolled in your first voiceover coaching session or class: NAVA is here for you. Working for you. Championing you. And celebrating you and all of your diverse and authentic selves.

I also want to acknowledge partners in this work like the Voices of Global Majority and QueerVox who, like NAVA, believe in the power of advocacy, elevating underrepresented voices and authenticity in casting and our work.

I thought a lot about what I wanted to say to you all this evening. It is truly a wild time to be working in a creative field and working as an actor. Our industry and many of the industries that we collaborate with are in a period of disruption and paving new and difficult roads every day.

It’s hard to focus on yourself, your craft, your industry, and growing your business, when the headlines sensationalize everything and it sometimes can feel like everything is hopeless and we are screaming into the void.

I won’t lie and say that it’s all sunshine and rainbows out there. We’re living through a period of record inflation – it’s hard to find housing, pay your bills, feed your family, and even consider having a budget for enjoyment and travel. I want to acknowledge that sometimes it feels like it’s almost too much to manage.

We’re living through a tumultuous global climate, with devastating images on the news and social media swirling around.

Let’s not forget that we have survived a massive global pandemic and historic lockdown and quarantine period, the likes of which that have not previously been seen in our lifetimes and that I hope we won’t see again this century. Shout out to my fellow autoimmune warriors who have been reminding people that even if the lockdowns are over, it doesn’t mean that COVID is gone and not still an incredibly scary and dangerous virus that can wreak havoc on immunocompromised folks and people with disabilities.

All the more reason to celebrate that NAVA brought a health insurance option to the marketplace for our members . All you have to be is a NAVA member and you can enroll in health insurance for you and your family if you need it.

I am grateful that NAVA prioritizes educational opportunities not only for paying members – but also classes that are open to the voiceover community as a whole. Teachers graciously donated their time or discounted their fees to allow as many people the opportunity to learn and grow.

For those of us in creative fields, we are living through a period of enormous innovation – a sea-change of technology, tools, resources, and intelligence beyond our wildest dreams when some of us were feeding our Tamogotchis in the mid-90s. Some of it is great – automation helping us reduce admin burden of redundant tasks. And, some of it is scary as we see the proliferation of synthetic voice and the use of AI in Hollywood and across creative industries.

NAVA has been on the forefront of this sea-change in technology. We’ve known that we cannot sit idly by and wait for the creators to figure out how to communicate, regulate, or manage the effects of the changes in technology. Instead – we went head on to advocate for our industry, our members, and the voice acting community.

Enter the fAIr Voices campaign.

Consent.

Control.

Compensation.

The three Cs. The three critical aspects that inform how a voice actor can remain in the driving seat of their career.

Being able to consent to the use of your voice. Whether that is a live performance – for example, how your voice is being used in a commercial or industrial capacity, or consent on how a synthetic version of your voice is being used. The key here is: it’s your voice whether it’s coming out of your mouth or was made from your files and is coming out of machine.

Actors should have the right to decide whether or not they want their voice used for any purpose, including AI.

It’s your voice. Your likeness. Your persona. Your biometric data. You get one voice and it’s yours.

If you do have a synthetic model of your voice – and let’s be clear: synthetic voice models aren’t going anywhere. There *is* a place for them. There are jobs that a human being cannot do. For example, when a newspaper goes to bed to be printed, a human being would not be able to record the entire newspaper cover to cover by the time the early risers are up at 5:00 AM ready to read the headlines and articles. Is that when news articles hit the internet in the morning? I have cats, not kids, so I am still hitting snooze at 8:45 AM Eastern, so I am not the right person to ask.

I joke here – but the point is – there is a place for synthetic voice models and actors who help in making them should have control to ensure that it stays where it is supposed to and isn’t used beyond the scope of any agreement made between the actor, AI company, and end client. Any usage beyond the original agreement is to be cleared with the voice actor whose voice is being used.

And, finally, compensation. Actors should be paid fairly for the use of their voice print and the licensing of their voice and/or likeness.

I think it’s important to acknowledge that we aren’t in this fight alone. Creatives in all industries are having these conversations in their workplaces, their industry groups, and in the media. It really brings new meaning to being stronger together.

Legislation is literally being written on Capitol Hill as we speak around the privacy and protection of American’s biometric data. NAVA was proud to spend a day in meetings with senators and representatives to directly influence the language in these bills to support our industry and our livelihoods. Talk about building the plane while flying it – but we are doing it. NAVA is putting our money where our mouth is and working tirelessly to make it happen.

All right – enough about the robots.

Let’s talk about why we really got into this business!

Where else can you build an entire wardrobe of business casual pajama pants?

What other careers offer you the ability to work seamlessly while your cats lay across your desk providing a furry and vibrating wrist rest while you are editing?

Who else would open a breakout room called Room 5 creating friendships, traditions, and dance parties that go into the wee hours of the morning?

The voiceover community.

And that’s what we are. Truly. A community.

Whether it’s asking for advice on Facebook, sharing information over email, or actually seeing someone in person in studio or at a conference – there is a community, and a strong one.

I want you to hear this: There is more voiceover work than EVER before. We are living in a voice-forward world with smart devices, smart homes, smart speakers and talking cars. We are living in an audio renaissance with people rediscovering radio through streaming services, the explosion of the podcast space, with even corporations producing their own podcasts for employees, the rebirth of the radio / audio drama, narrative storytelling, audiobooks and more.

The work hasn’t dried up. I promise you. The robots have not taken all of our jobs and they won’t take all of our jobs. There is more voiceover work than ever and it’s waiting for us. And I’m proud to collaborate with clients every day who value the power of human expression and creativity that we bring to our work as voice performers.

Our acting and performance capabilities have value. The studio set-up that we’ve expertly crafted has value. Our ability to deliver audio files a hundred different ways has value. First Name Underscore Last Name dash Source Connect Underscore NO SLATES. Our knowledge of different genres and what standard performances need to be for those genres has value. Our emotions, feelings, nuance, and the ability to take direction has value.

It is imperative that you understand the intrinsic value you possess and offer to your clients and know what you are worth. And it’s more than just the dollar amount on the invoice that you send.

We are working actors.

We are a generation of voiceover professionals – more well-equipped to perform and deliver than any time in history.

There is work out there and I believe there is enough work for all of us.

I couldn’t be more proud to be a voice actor in 2023 and a member and board member of the National Association of Voice Actors, which is providing critical services to our industry, including:

✅ A Legal Defense Fund
✅ Access to scholarships, classes, and events
✅ Members-only and community-wide information and events
✅ Resources like the AI/Synthetic Voice Contract Rider
✅ An emergency fund for community members in need
✅ Critical advocacy work around consent, control, and compensation for voice actors in regards to AI, including lobbying and influencing legislation on Capitol Hill.
✅ And, so much more!

Let’s raise a glass and toast to NAVA’s first virtual gala and celebrate that we were all here at the beginning of this fantastic movement.

To NAVA!