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Hellena Taylor (Voice of Bayonetta) Describes How She was Offered only $4,000 USD to Voice Her Again in Bayonetta 3.

Fake

Member
This thread is aging like wine ... at a record pace.

Stick Around Bob Ross GIF by Originals


Actors are, almost without fail, egomaniacal morons. I feel sorry for anyone who has to negotiate with these self aggrandizing dummies.

I might just buy this game because she is NOT in it now. What a tone deaf liar.

Funfact: Twitter folks still trying to damage control with 'but but but, VA are not payed enough'.

I guess people really give the word SIMP a more deserve use.
 

F0rneus

Tears in the rain
This is quite the clusterfuck of a situation. 15k might be a little low, but 6 figures? And she lied on at least two really important things? Not a good look for her.
 

Buggy Loop

Member
Am I getting this right?
  • Broke NDA
  • Lied about her former employee offer and started a smear campaign
  • Tried to turn fans against Hale
  • After we see that the offer she said she got is false, she’s doubling down on the boycott?
  • Pulled franchise worth out of her ass, or does not understand that 450 million YEN is a mere $3.2M USD 😂
  • Claims that Bayonetta exists because of her
  • Wanted 6 figures salary + royalties, something akin to a Simpson VA at their peak for the amount of work required for an action game..
  • Claims that Jason Schreier is in Platinum’s pocket
Holy crap, how to ruin your career 101. No fucking sane company would hire her after that, especially when she started this smear campaign and is not giving up. She’s a crackpot.

How Dare You Reaction GIF by Bounce
 
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StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
Am I getting this right?
  • Broke NDA
  • Lied about her former employee offer and started a smear campaign
  • Tried to turn fans against Hale
  • After we see that the offer she said she got is false, she’s doubling down on the boycott?
  • Pulled franchise worth out of her ass, or does not understand that 450 million YEN is a mere $3.2M USD 😂
  • Claims that Bayonetta exists because of her
  • Wanted 6 figures salary + royalties, something akin to a Simpson VA at their peak for the amount of work required for an action game..
  • Claims that Jason Schreier is in Platinum’s pocket
Holy crap, how to ruin your career 101. No fucking sane company would hire her after that, especially when she started this smear campaign and is not giving up. She’s a crackpot.

How Dare You Reaction GIF by Bounce
Spot on, except the $450M part. According to a tweet, she might had got that number by adding up all copies sold according to VG Chartz and x by $60. It calculates pretty spot on. Problem is not all games are sold at full price and VG's sales chart for the series includes a subtotal row which she included which doubled her sales count.

So not only is she a liar going on social media with out of context tweets, but she cant even read a sales chart right. Also, retail $$$ means nothing anyway. Whatever the true number is, you can chop off 30% due to the retail cut. The remaining amount is what Nintendo/Platinum's sales are to wheel and deal with.

Feel bad for Nintendo. Imagine negotiating with this kind of person.
 
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Am I getting this right?
  • Broke NDA
  • Lied about her former employee offer and started a smear campaign
  • Tried to turn fans against Hale
  • After we see that the offer she said she got is false, she’s doubling down on the boycott?
  • Pulled franchise worth out of her ass, or does not understand that 450 million YEN is a mere $3.2M USD 😂
  • Claims that Bayonetta exists because of her
  • Wanted 6 figures salary + royalties, something akin to a Simpson VA at their peak for the amount of work required for an action game..
  • Claims that Jason Schreier is in Platinum’s pocket
Holy crap, how to ruin your career 101. No fucking sane company would hire her after that, especially when she started this smear campaign and is not giving up. She’s a crackpot.

How Dare You Reaction GIF by Bounce

That person was full o crap since the beginning...
 

Cyberpunkd

Gold Member
Spot on, except the $450M part. According to a tweet, she might had got that number by adding up all copies sold according to VG Chartz and x by $60. It calculates pretty spot on. Problem is not all games are sold at full price and VG's sales chart for the series includes a subtotal row which she included which doubled her sales count.

So not only is she a liar going on social media with out of context tweets, but she cant even read a sales chart right. Also, retail $$$ means nothing anyway. Whatever the true number is, you can chop off 30% due to the retail cut. The remaining amount is what Nintendo/Platinum's sales are to wheel and deal with.

Feel bad for Nintendo. Imagine negotiating with this kind of person.
Two things here:

1. The value of any IP is not just a number of copies sold times any arbitrary price. It also includes projected future earnings, grow potential, engagement, stickiness, etc. Usual stuff you use to value companies. So no matter what number she takes the calculation is wrong, and the value is larger. However...

2. The value should not determine your salary. You are offered an amount, it's either above or below market, you take it or not. Unless you are in a position to directly influence final product (a VA is not one, unless you are someone easily recognisable ; a producer or a director is one, which is why often they have contracts structured to give them % of gross profit a movie makes as royalties).
 

supernova8

Banned
It looks like they even threw her a bone for $4,000 for one recording session as a cameo appearance and she balked at it as a personal insult.
I think based on what (seems to have) happened, they should have known it would be seen as an insult but yeah she definitely fucked up by: 1) trying to win by twitter mob justice and 2) more or less lying by omission and (I guess intentionally) moving pieces of the puzzle around to paint herself in a better light.

Only thing I could pick up on as a semi (not even semi, like quarter)-plus to her side of the story is that they offered her 10k and then bumped it up to 15k (ie raised it by 50% in one go). It's a pretty big jump and if they genuinely thought 10k was fair to start with, one would expect them to offer something like 11k (ie a 10% bump).

Also if they ended up paying Jennifer Hale like 20k (or whatever, who knows unless someone discloses it) then I suppose they may have be willing to go that high for Taylor. Then like you say, she probably fucked herself by countering with an astronomical amount. Maybe she thought they would counter with at least something better than 15k and didn't expect them to say "OK then no.. bye".
 
A little, I said. Not super duper extra low. I mean, I'd do the job for 1000$

But low based on what? A pilot for Emirates airlines gets $10-15k per month for 120 flying hours. A doctor gets a bit more for who knows how many more hours...200 in a month? She is getting paid by the hour for her 15-20 hours of works and its well paid. You can't ask for more if your logic is that since its not consistent, then I must get paid quadruple than usual. Thats not the developers problem, there's an hourly rate and that's what you get. Troy Baker, do you think he is only working on TLOU series and that's all the cash he gets? He would be broke in a few years, that why he works on many other games as well as a VA for cartoons/anime to get that paycheck. Also does mocap acting which Im pretty sure besides giving her voice, she never actually acted out a scene in a mocap suit. Developers supposed to be sorry for her not looking for other gigs for TWELVE years?

It doesn't matter how much the brand/company makes, everyone has their own salary. I worked for EK and before covid their profits were 2-3 billion dollars in a year. Do you think my salary jumped triple in size? No, that's my job that I signed a contract to get paid and its expected I do well. I can't consider how much I should be paid just because the company is balling in cash.
 
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wondermega

Member
It may have been mentioned elsewhere, but i haven't caught it if so - and just as my brain it's trying to make a little sense of the course of events beyond "she is just crazy" to begin with or something. Has there been any mention of the recasting as far as this timeline has been concerned? Do we know for a fact that PG offered her X dollars for the role, she denied, and then they went to recast? Or did they perhaps go in bad faith (perhaps) and try to lowball salary negotiations with her, intending to recast anyway?

That's the only thing that sticks out to me a little - "we can continue to pay her on the lower end, as she is a no-name otherwise.. but hopefully she will refuse and we can get there higher-profile actress we'd prefer, instead of her." This is an oversimplification and certainly there could be a bit more politics behind that (she does no other VO work of note, for a reason perhaps?) I am just trying to fill in the blanks what may have gone on behind the scenes that caused her to go off the rails like this.
 

Cyberpunkd

Gold Member
Only thing I could pick up on as a semi (not even semi, like quarter)-plus to her side of the story is that they offered her 10k and then bumped it up to 15k (ie raised it by 50% in one go). It's a pretty big jump and if they genuinely thought 10k was fair to start with, one would expect them to offer something like 11k (ie a 10% bump).
It's price negotiation, same thing all the time. Companies lowball by habit, you go the other way, you meet in the middle. If they offered her 10K to start with they had it penciled between 20-30K.
 
Haven’t really been following this news because I don’t really care at all who voices Bayonetta, but it’s p.funny that this lady lied about her wages.
 
$15k is too low for a few hours of work?
It’s not just about hours , that determines what someone is worth, considering amount of potential profit that can be made, and that most VA’s are lucky to get 1 job a year, 15k is nothing, I’m not the only one is saying this, many in the industry, have been complaining for years, 15k plus plus a small royalty on profits made, would have been more fair.
 

gradient

Resident Cheap Arse
It’s not just about hours , that determines what someone is worth, considering amount of potential profit that can be made, and that most VA’s are lucky to get 1 job a year, 15k is nothing, I’m not the only one is saying this, many in the industry, have been complaining for years, 15k plus plus a small royalty on profits made, would have been more fair.

There is no way that a VA is entitled to or should be getting royalties. That's crazy thinking put out by self-proclaimed "creative" types who are delusional enough to believe that their work holds significantly higher value and draw than the work put in by all of the designers, artists, developers and sound techs who contribute far more over a far greater period of time.
 

Rykan

Member
It’s not just about hours , that determines what someone is worth, considering amount of potential profit that can be made, and that most VA’s are lucky to get 1 job a year, 15k is nothing, I’m not the only one is saying this, many in the industry, have been complaining for years, 15k plus plus a small royalty on profits made, would have been more fair.
And you think it's reasonable that a VA should be able to make enough money for an entire year based on just 1 job that typically lasts just a few days? Really?
 

midnightAI

Member
It’s not just about hours , that determines what someone is worth, considering amount of potential profit that can be made, and that most VA’s are lucky to get 1 job a year, 15k is nothing, I’m not the only one is saying this, many in the industry, have been complaining for years, 15k plus plus a small royalty on profits made, would have been more fair.
If they only plan on relying on that 1 job a year (one weeks work) then I dont know what to tell you, that's on them, but as an add on for a full time job then $15k for a one off 1 week gig is a lot of money
 
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Ev1L AuRoN

Member
I could smell the BS from a mile away. But I never fought, she admitted her omission, after that I don't know how anyone can defend her. As for the offer, it sounds pretty good to me, if 15 grand for a week's work isn't a living wage, IDK what else is, and for the argument she only gets one gig a year, frankly, if you can't make money consistently with your "talent" then go do something else. It's not up to the industry to pay a year's worth of salary for a VA who can't get enough gigs.

Bayonetta was his only role in the industry, even at that I can argue that it's not a stellar, easily replaceable job. The fact that she called for a boycott and grossly overestimated the value of the franchise shows me that either she is suffering from some mental breakdown or she is just a sociopath lying to get attention.
 
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Topher

Gold Member
It’s not just about hours , that determines what someone is worth, considering amount of potential profit that can be made, and that most VA’s are lucky to get 1 job a year, 15k is nothing, I’m not the only one is saying this, many in the industry, have been complaining for years, 15k plus plus a small royalty on profits made, would have been more fair.

I'm going to pick a game and find a random voice actor. Astral Chain on Switch. Let's find a side character. Marie Wentz voiced by Cassandra Lee Morris. Never heard of her? Me either.

Here is her resume...


She did 19 jobs in 2021. If she only got $5000 per job then she made $95k. Now if Hellana Taylor did the same amount of work as Morris and got paid $15k per job then she would have been paid $285,000 last year.

Tell us again how 15k is "nothing"?
 

-Zelda-

Banned
This whole thing has left a bad taste in my mouth. Had she been telling the truth, I would have been on her side. I would not have boycotted the game but I would have got it used I guess. It's sad that she did what she did and will likely never work in VA again at best, and may even be sued at worse. At the very least I will give her some benefit of the doubt because at least she did not go all straw feminist lets blame men, like some other women might have. Unless she did that as well, in which case, forget I said anything.
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
This whole thing has left a bad taste in my mouth. Had she been telling the truth, I would have been on her side. I would not have boycotted the game but I would have got it used I guess. It's sad that she did what she did and will likely never work in VA again at best, and may even be sued at worse. At the very least I will give her some benefit of the doubt because at least she did not go all straw feminist lets blame men, like some other women might have. Unless she did that as well, in which case, forget I said anything.
My advice is just buy what you want at the price you feel is right (you feel comfortable with the purchase at a good value).

Don’t worry about ethics so much especially from social media whores as they will likely just be looking out for themselves, not you.

In this case it was an idiot who lost out on a VA gig trying her best to lie and sabotage the company. Other times it’s people baiting for clicks and followers. Pay no attention to them except laugh at their idiocy.
 
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This whole thing has left a bad taste in my mouth. Had she been telling the truth, I would have been on her side. I would not have boycotted the game but I would have got it used I guess. It's sad that she did what she did and will likely never work in VA again at best, and may even be sued at worse. At the very least I will give her some benefit of the doubt because at least she did not go all straw feminist lets blame men, like some other women might have. Unless she did that as well, in which case, forget I said anything.

What stands out to me is, has someone been advising her throughout all this or has she had a lack of advice, no one to tell her this might not be the best way to go about things or if someone did advise her to go this way then they have played a part in making her look disingenuous to say the least.
 

Kenpachii

Member
4k and 15k is pathetic low amounts.

She's right, she should be getting way more for the role but gets cucked by other va voice idiots that take her spot and basically grind all the value of there own shit down while at it.

Look, u can think 1000 a hour is a lot and don't get me wrong it is. But if you only get hired out of 8 years for 16 hours, its a pathetisch low amount specially if you voice the main character of the game and its the 3th installment. Her 450m claim can be laughed at, but the reality is websites on the internet show that number and that's where she went off with, so its based at least on something even if its entirely wrong, she should point her error out here atleast. But that mistake can be easily made because of no clue what u are looking at information.

Honestly if i was her i would want to be blacklisted from that shit, waste of fucking time as a profession.
 
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4k and 15k is pathetic low amounts.

She's right, she should be getting way more for the role but gets cucked by other va voice idiots that take her spot and basically grind all the value of there own shit down while at it.

Look, u can think 1000 a hour is a lot and don't get me wrong it is. But if you only get hired out of 8 years for 16 hours, its a pathetisch low amount specially if you voice the main character of the game and its the 3th installment. Her 450m claim can be laughed at, but the reality is websites on the internet show that number and that's where she went off with, so its based at least on something even if its entirely wrong, she should point her error out here atleast. But that mistake can be easily made because of no clue what u are looking at information.

Honestly if i was her i would want to be blacklisted from that shit, waste of fucking time as a profession.
This is a bad take. Read the thread for the details of what went down here and revise it.
 

TheInfamousKira

Reseterror Resettler
4k and 15k is pathetic low amounts.

She's right, she should be getting way more for the role but gets cucked by other va voice idiots that take her spot and basically grind all the value of there own shit down while at it.

Look, u can think 1000 a hour is a lot and don't get me wrong it is. But if you only get hired out of 8 years for 16 hours, its a pathetisch low amount specially if you voice the main character of the game and its the 3th installment. Her 450m claim can be laughed at, but the reality is websites on the internet show that number and that's where she went off with, so its based at least on something even if its entirely wrong, she should point her error out here atleast. But that mistake can be easily made because of no clue what u are looking at information.

Honestly if i was her i would want to be blacklisted from that shit, waste of fucking time as a profession.

Even stripping all of the psyops out of this situation, no one is guaranteed a right to do WHATEVER they want AND get paid whatever they want. It is a low amount of money all things considered. Every VA would think so. Which is why most of them have reliable steady jobs and use VA to supplement until they know they've "made it," instead of quoting scripture into the ether until a comet made of diamonds impacts with the earth by her feet.
 
Oh come on! What a crybaby!

You got an offer, you said no, life moves on!

Nobody paid you less than agreed.
No one violated any written or unwritten agreement.
Nobody made you work in bad conditiones, or overworked you, or harassed you.

Imagine wanting to sell a car, have someone give you a bad offer and you talk crap on sosial media about him?!

Find another project and move on, lady. This move will mostly have other potensial employers to be wary about hiring you. Not to even say that you don't give any proof to your claims.
 
My advice is just buy what you want at the price you feel is right (you feel comfortable with the purchase at a good value).

Don’t worry about ethics so much especially from social media whores as they will likely just be looking out for themselves, not you.

In this case it was an idiot who lost out on a VA gig trying her best to lie and sabotage the company. Other times it’s people baiting for clicks and followers. Pay no attention to them except laugh at their idiocy.
If I worried about the ethics of every company I brought from, I would have nothing left to buy. There are some lines I would draw but I mostly judge my buying habits on the price and quality of products/services.
 
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4k and 15k is pathetic low amounts.

She's right, she should be getting way more for the role but gets cucked by other va voice idiots that take her spot and basically grind all the value of there own shit down while at it.

Look, u can think 1000 a hour is a lot and don't get me wrong it is. But if you only get hired out of 8 years for 16 hours, its a pathetisch low amount specially if you voice the main character of the game and its the 3th installment. Her 450m claim can be laughed at, but the reality is websites on the internet show that number and that's where she went off with, so its based at least on something even if its entirely wrong, she should point her error out here atleast. But that mistake can be easily made because of no clue what u are looking at information.

Honestly if i was her i would want to be blacklisted from that shit, waste of fucking time as a profession.
found the white knight simp

If you get very little job offers over that 8 year span, it's not the industry underpaying you. It's you having a low desirability.
 
4k and 15k is pathetic low amounts.

She's right, she should be getting way more for the role but gets cucked by other va voice idiots that take her spot and basically grind all the value of there own shit down while at it.

Look, u can think 1000 a hour is a lot and don't get me wrong it is. But if you only get hired out of 8 years for 16 hours, its a pathetisch low amount specially if you voice the main character of the game and its the 3th installment. Her 450m claim can be laughed at, but the reality is websites on the internet show that number and that's where she went off with, so its based at least on something even if its entirely wrong, she should point her error out here atleast. But that mistake can be easily made because of no clue what u are looking at information.

Honestly if i was her i would want to be blacklisted from that shit, waste of fucking time as a profession.
Meme You Suck GIF by Travis
 

MagiusNecros

Gilgamesh Fan Annoyance
Should of taken the 15k work week and then moved on to grow your voice acting career instead of burning bridges. I imagine their VA career is either over or forever stunted.
 
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