BLOG

A long time ago, in February 2003, I was booked, through a recording studio, to participate in a number of VoiceOver sessions spanning several days for IBM (International Business Machines – the irony of that last word will become apparent). 20 years on, in April 2023, a client I only occasionally work for in the UK, sent a message and a link to a website I’d never heard of before,... View Article

Given it’s the year-end/start of a new one (and my birthday – today!), my SEO guy said that maybe I should write something to keep the bots and meta-thingys talking nicely to each other, Google and the entire world wide web, favourably, on my behalf. For this, I’m told, is how it’s done in SEO-Land. The thing is, if I were to write declaring what a great year it’s been,... View Article

As 2022 draws to a close, so does something I’ve been working on for the past few years. In 2008, author Helen S Michaelsen began writing what was to become a 73,000-word original Christmas tale, inspired by a book and some of the characters therein, which was written in the 1930s. Helen’s novel was published as an eBook several years ago but, as happens sometimes, the platform where it resided... View Article

United Heavy Industries – a very technologically driven voice-over put together by OD Media, providing, for the client “a video that showcases steel manufacturing and the uses of steel which their company focusses on. [OD Media] worked extensively with the team to source the correct footage, drawing on a large stock library and sourcing an international voice over artist based in the UK” – that’s me!

Smartlog Maasvlakte – to quote from the website’s written introduction, this voice-over talks about the fact that “Smartlog Maasvlakte is located at the Distripark Maasvlakte West. In the immediate vicinity is Europe’s largest container hub with state-of-the-art deep-sea, barge and rail terminals and container depots. The strong Rotterdam chemical and freezer clusters are also nearby. Distripark Maasvlakte West has excellent connections to the European hinterland via high-frequency multimodal connections”. Often, I... View Article

KPN & The Talpa Network, Netherlands – an interesting voice-over for a video which sets out to explain “Targeted Television Advertising”. The subject matter contains information as to how data-driven digital targeting works, referring to how often a specific ad can be ‘served’ to a specific audience in a specific context. Ultimately, delivering the right advertisement to the right household at the right time. 21st technology becomes more and more... View Article

SABB: this is something I did quite a lot when I was based in Dubai and working with UAE and Saudi clients some years ago. The Saudi British Bank as it was first named, merged with the Alawwal Bank, making it one of the largest Saudi Banks with, as of March 2021, over eighty branches across Saudi Arabia. To voice an “explainer” such as this, I have to walk a fine line between... View Article

ROLEX: a nice, thirty-second online commercial for the famous watch brand, voiced some years ago and probably on the web for a few months at the time of the promotion. I cannot remember how this project came about. Such is the nature of being a voice-over! Occasionally, I receive an email completely out-of-the-blue asking me to audition part of a script – and then hear nothing. Other times, it turns... View Article

Sometimes, I get to voice something quite technological but which looks and ‘feels’ almost beautiful when viewing the footage – even though I don’t usually get to see the vision before (and, mostly, after) I’ve supplied the audio! Here’s another classic example. I wasn’t really sure what this script was all about, apart from the fact that it was talking about ’safety’. When I saw the finished product, it all came together. Again, lovely footage, beautiful backing... View Article

Quite frequently, I get to voice what’s known as an “Explainer”, which is me explaining something to an often specific potential audience by way of a video clip, posted on a client’s website, YouTube and other social media platforms. This is me ‘explaining’ how a new game, about to be launched, not only works but the ethos and origins behind it. Unusually perhaps, this is a board game as opposed... View Article