In the course of the last couple of years I seem to have ended up providing quite a few voiceover narrations or Health and Safety videos and training programmes.
I now know quite a bit more than I really need to about safely working at heights and not using ladders (unless you’re desperate) in industrial environments. I’m pretty familiar with the procedures for outside contractors working on the maintenance of equipment in a frozen food factory. I’m up to speed on food hygiene in a plant producing a range of cooked food for a major supermarket chain. I know the policy on what kinds of tools are acceptable (ones with wooden handles aren’t!) when working in the bakery plants of a national bakery company.
I can tell you quite a lot about dust in certain food production settings (it can explode!) And now: I know what to do should I find myself behind the wheel of a milk float in the forthcoming winter.
My latest voiceover narration was all about effective use and control of milk delivery vehicles – especially in snow and ice. Those electric floats may not go fast but apparently on ice if you take your foot off the accelerator of course the wheels just stop – but on ice the milk float doesn’t – it just skids onwards.
There’s also quite a bit about choosing the best way to make the actual delivery – it seems bottles should ideally be in some kind of hand crate. After all falling on broken glass after a bottle slips through your fingers is not nice! All in all very timely advice for the milk delivery people round my way. They’ll need to make sure they are delivering in the safest way possible now that the local council have decided to turn off street lights after midnight. My milkman usual delivers at around half past four. Hmmm…. driving a milk float and making deliveries of glass milk bottles and groceries… on icy streets and roads….. in the dark.
I think I’ve just remembered why I prefer a job that keeps me in my nice warm well lit voiceover booth.
The voiceover for Dairy Crest is for a video produced by Bretby Media