After all the madness of a One Voice Conference, one of our favourite moments to round off the entire event is to take a moment to show some honest thanks to the individuals who make our industry so amazing to be part of. The Inspiration Award is our small way of trying to pay back the incalculable charity and humanity that so many pour into our community day in, day out.
Every year, this award goes to a purely community-picked voiceover artist, where hundreds of creatives from across our industry write a short piece (sometimes a long piece if they really want their pick to win) about why this individual deserves to be recognised.
Away from the colossal social media followings and big personalities, this Inspiration Award allows the often unnoticed champions of our industry, who invisibly inspire and support so many voiceover artists, to have their chance to be rewarded for just being simply incredible people.
In a twist to previous years however, it wasn’t an individual whose name was peppered generously among the submissions, but for the first time, a whole organisation.
We couldn’t ignore this fact, so along with our usual Inspiration Award, we also had to commend and award the entire organisation of Equity for their amazing service to our industry throughout the past year.
This new category wasn’t selected by a series of judges trying to reward a close industry friend, but was instead created through the sheer outpouring of praise from the greater voiceover community that we work with at Gravy For The Brain and One Voice.
This was just a taster of the dozens and dozens of submissions that people took time from their day to write in and praise the Equity team…
I know it’s not one person, but there’s a whole bunch of folks working tirelessly behind the scenes at Equity doing essential work to help with the AI dramas and I really think they’re worth the praise.
…And many, many submissions later, they still poured in…
The Equity Audio Committee’s work in identifying issues with the use of AI in the voiceover industry is extre important. Their efforts have shed light on the potential dangers of using AI-generated voices in media and entertainment, highlighting the importance of protecting the rights and livelihoods of voice actors.
So it is with our great pleasure, that we can praise the entire team at Equity. Their award is well on the way to them and we can only hope it takes pride of place in the offices as a symbol that their work is truly changing lives and giving voiceovers and creatives across the industry the freedom to live their art and build a life knowing that the entire Equity team is protecting their right to do so.
But no one can say it in better words than lifelong Equity member Peter Dickson, so we’ll let him round this one out as he accepted the award on Equity’s behalf.
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