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Observations, musings and rubbish from the mind of an IVO (International Voice Over)

February 8, 2021 2:24 pm

Passive Aggressive Voiceover – AEOLUS Tyres

For this online ad, the concept was for the voice-over to be tough, a little cynical, tongue in cheek and to convey an attitude of “if you like wasting money, don’t buy these tyres!”. The passive/aggressive approach sometimes works in advertising – if done correctly – and, in this case, it apparently did…

February 8, 2021 11:01 am

Explainer Video Voiceover – SmartCharge

Every now and then, I’m offered the opportunity to stretch my vocal capabilities and deliver something other than a corporate, documentary, e-learning, or commercial narrative, such as I did for my client “Geotab” as the voice of both the “Smartcharge Homes” and “Wattson” characters in this amusing short presentation about EV (Electrical Vehicle) Charging. It’s an online explainer used on Geotab’s website to show and inform people using EV Charging how... View Article

June 27, 2019 1:53 pm

Where does my voice ‘go’ – and why can’t I remember the scripts I’ve read?!

Feel free to read the full blog below or let Greg, the best male voiceover artist in the UK (probably), read it to you…   I sometimes have no idea where anything I’ve voiced might eventually end up. Which sounds really odd considering that usually, at the very least, there’s the name of the client, product or service on the script somewhere (but not always), maybe some dates, times, places, a catchphrase, strap-line,... View Article

June 12, 2019 2:22 pm

So, your voice-over is about to read your script…

You may have been writing, crafting and editing the documentary, narrative, e-learning module, on-hold messages/IVR’s (Interactive Voice Responses), explainer or commercial for the voice-over you’ve booked for some time. You’ve probably ‘lived’ with the idea, concept, format and content for perhaps days, weeks or even months, going over and over it to ensure the text says just what you want it say, whether it’s to sell, explain, entertain or extol... View Article

May 23, 2019 7:42 am

You’ve found your voice-over – now what?

You know what you want to say. You’ve located the definitive voice-over artist you need to read your text, and you’ve decided you want to book them. Should you do so via an online agency they might be registered with? Or is it better to deal direct? There are several different schools of thought for clients wishing to engage a voice-over to read their script… Online Agency Most online agencies... View Article

May 15, 2019 7:36 am

Am I any good?

    Well, am I? I often ask myself, how do I actually know that all the scripts and words I voice for clients – from the likes of the BBC to Fred’s Fish Shop – make me a “good” voice-over? In my 30+ years’ experience in this biz, rarely has any agency person, booking person or client contacted me post-session/recording to say they “really liked what I did”. Or... View Article

April 25, 2019 10:07 am

What does a voice-over require from a client?

    So, you’ve potentially hired a voice-over to promote/inform people about your product or service. You have also probably discussed and agreed a price, talked about a deadline and have an idea as to how you want the v/o to sound when they’re voicing your script. Now, you need a decent script! If you don’t have the necessary skills to write a good script containing the correct number of... View Article

April 3, 2019 4:20 pm

I must get out more

April 1st – I’m standing here at my uppy-downy desk in an endeavour to persuade my phalanges to fly across a wireless keyboard and write this first episode in a new series of blogs, telling tales, tall and true, of my 30 something years worth of experience in the broadcasting and, more specifically, voice-over industry.   Speaking of ‘episodes’, to coin a phrase used at the beginning of many instalments... View Article

March 21, 2019 1:25 pm

We want it read with style and grace

The phrase from the title of this blog, ladies and gentlemen, is one which often falls from the lips of many an agency executive, copywriter, writer-writer, client and any number of other people who might gather in a recording studio to direct, brief and/or produce a commercial or narrative, the script for which I’m usually given about two seconds before standing in front of the mike.   Sometimes, the script... View Article

March 21, 2019 1:15 pm

Sounding British…

“Sounding British”… One of the main reasons clients book me for a variety of different reads – from radio and TV commercials to audio/visual narrations, documentaries, corporates, online v/o’s and on-hold messages – is because I do “good neutral”. That is, I have a non-offensive (as opposed to inoffensive), non-discernible “accent”. No recognisable dialect or curious inflections are to be found in a quintessential  Greg Marston delivery in the beginning,... View Article