This was a three day event in The Netherlands organised by BMW Group the Netherlands. It’s part of their strategy of repositioning the BMW brand as a “supplier of mobility rather than a automotive supplier”.

Not quite sure how that works, or how it’s different, when the exhibits from the the company still look suspiciously like “automotive” cars – and as you might expect very cool, expensive looking ones too – albeit that some of them are powered by electricity.

Check out this great image from the event by Luuk Van Kaathoven.

Earlier on, in an ISDN session connecting to the studios of BKP, I was once again the voice of an “announcer” in my second radio ad voiceover for the Roads and Transport Authority in the UAE.  So quite varied really.

Recently during a voice-over for a new piece of software for higher education establishments my client apologised for the script being boring – he normally makes TV shows so maybe it was to him – but actually I wasn’t bored – I really love the breadth and variety of work that comes my way!  It certainly makes sitting in a sound proof Esmono metal box all day talking into a microphone more interesting and informative.

As mentioned in a recent post this is the third year I’ve been chosen as the voiceover for the radio ads for this Festival. Last time we recorded two ads.  This ISDN session was a bit tougher though -  because this time it was decided that a total of 9 ads would be recorded in a single session. I don’t mind long voiceover recording session – but the only problem with this one was that because of the time difference ( I think Abu Dhabi is 4 hours ahead) I was starting at 8.30am.

As someone who used to have to do breakfast shifts on radio I’m easily ready to work for that time – my voice on the other hand is less keen. It’s never quite as warmed up and ready to go as I’d like at that time in the morning – though luckily it warms up quite quickly.

The radio ads are being produced by BKP.

One of the areas covered by the video is working in cold storage and freezer areas in the factory.
For example if you were working in a freezer where the temperature is minus 25 celsius and you were using a grinder – if you put it down for a moment it would freeze – then when  you came to use it again it would heat up so quickly through friction that  the disc might explode!
It seems the low temperatures in the freezers were also a worry for the guys filming for the production company too – apparently if it gets too cold the memory on the camera can get wiped and you lose all your footage. Seems that their cameras are pretty robust as there was no problem.

The videos are being produced by Bretby Media.

It’s a nice gig and one of the few times I get to provide voiceovers which run over music that is orchestral and classical rather than the usual production music.

The festival organisers seem to pride themselves on booking a wide range of artists and musicians from around the world – and can be the downside – trying to get your tongue around the pronunciation of some tricky names!  Not too bad this time though – only Maxim Vengerovl and Yuri Temirkanov to contend with.

The radio ads are being produced by BKP

This more recent script once again had two voices.  I was Man 2 with these conversational interjections to say: “and?”, “and?”, “and??”, “and??” and “ok”.

I guess if I was a proper trained actor those words would give me enough for some kind of proper fully rounded characterisation.  As it was I used my years of radio presentation and VO experience to do the best I could with a kind of rising exasperated intonation.

Must have been ok because after only a few takes the producer at BKP confirmed that we were done. Wonder if I could get a reputation for doing these kind of scripts?

The radio ad is being produced by BKP in Dubai

Today we were bringing up to date the information on the courses available from the School of Life and Health Sciences.  The script seemed to involve far too many medical and technical terms with far too many syllables.
Luckily I didn’t trip up too much – I even managed to cope with “magnetoencephalography”.   But I did  get really stuck on “microposcopy”. For some reason had a real blank with it – that took quite a few takes to sort out!
Still an interesting and informative 3 hour session with plenty to exercise my tongue and lip muscles!
The new versions of my voiceovers aren’t on line yet but you can see the video and hear an example by clicking here >>

“Who is the voice-over on Planet Rock?”  Its one of the regular questions that I’ve noticed keeps coming up in the key word search terms section of my Google analytics for this website.

Well the first thing to say is it’s not me!  Google searches probably show you my site because I’m a voiceover  artist – and because I mention on the website that I used to be a presenter on Planet Rock (I did the first show when it launched and then did 4 years full time from 1999 to 2003).  But I can understand why people would be searching for the identity of the digital radio rock station’s voice over: he’s got a great voice!

He’s been the voice for Planet Rock since day one and I’ve always felt his voice helped to create an identifiable brand personality for the station.  The voice artist in question has a great, deep, really distinctive and full of character voice. Coupled with great lines like : “you used to frighten your parents – now your music scares your kids” and “its where the blues met blue suede shoes” the distinctive voice helps to sum up where the audience are (mostly aging dad rockers who still love their Motorhead and AC/DC) as well as giving great imagery to the shared heritage of “good ol’ rock’n’roll” that listeners can identify with.

I’ve never met the voice artist in question – but I’m pretty sure a while ago I was up against him for a car ad I was asked to voice for a production company in the Dubai.  I got sent the script and it was clear the voice for the ad needed to be like one of those massive, deep, movie promo voices (like the late Don La Fontaine  used to do).

So I cleared my throat and went as deep as I could go.   The producer said to me “can you get it deeper, bigger, with more bass?”.  So I expanded my chest and got really close to the mic to get the benefit of the proximity effect (which boosts the bass end). Still not really what they wanted.  We spent half an hour with me trying desperately to get “a really deep, low, thundery bass sound” and all the time I was wondering which demo of mine they’d played to the client that had led to me being cast for the gig.

Eventually we had to give up  – I just couldn’t get my voice resonant and deep enough .  Afterwards I phoned the person who’d booked me – only to discover that there had been a mix up – the client had heard a demo from a VO called Chris (not me) but the production company had booked the wrong Chris – me.  To this day I’m sure the guy they needed was the guy who does the Planet Rock idents – Chris Grant – you  can hear him here here

Firstly I recorded the voiceover for a health and safety training video for external contractors working in factories supplying Asda. The script was quite long – several thousand words and running to several pages of script.  Just as I finished editing that voiceover another job came in this time for a radio ad.
The health and safety narration script ran to thousands words but this second job was barely more than 5 words!  Even for a radio ad this was a short script.

The scenario was two guys talking about a great new mobile phone deal from Du.  In the dialogue one man is holding forth with the details on the deal while the other is struggling to get a word in edgeways.

I was MVO2 and my part in the dialogue consisted of the following:  “What?”, “If…”, “But..”,”I…” and “Er…”
Apart from an initial run through with the other already recorded voiceover for reference all the other takes were in isolation. It was quite hard to give each of these solitary syllables the correct inflection and emotion to help tell the story. But at least I had a bit of an idea of what was happening to go on: at least I’d heard the other guy’s voice part.  Fortunately there were also some directorial suggestions from the client (“Can you sound more surprised?”) and after we did 3 or 4 takes the client was happy.

In a similar vein there’s a video clip I like that radio guru Dan O’Day posted on his blog site.  It shows American voice trainer Nancy Wolfson demonstrating the difficulties of delivering a VO for a script with only 3 syllables – in this case a tag for a TV ad – when there’s no direction on offer.

I like this clip because a) it shows a difficulty voiceovers frequently encounter (ie not having much in the script to go on and often no real direction from the client) and b) I love Nancy Wolfson’s stance – she stands like she’s fronting a rock band – she looks like she needs needs wedge monitors on the stage to put her foot on.

She’s pretty cool I think. Voiceover work boring?  Not according to Nancy – she definitely rocks!

The video for IPL Asda is produced by Bretby Media.
The radio ad for Du is produced by BKP (UAE)

As you can imagine there’s a fair bit on Health and Safety. Some people seem to think the whole Health and Safety culture has gone too far – but I’ve got no complaints – as long as staff need training videos to explain an organisation’s Health and Safety procedures it keeps me in voiceover work!

This elearning project is being produced by Knowledgefront.