It’s a lovely Sunday night, I’ve washed up from the roast Chicken dinner my girlfriend and I have enjoyed and Man City vs Palace has completely lost my interest as I reflect on the day. So, sod it – I’m scribing my thoughts and inflicting you with them.
Today has been no ordinary Sunday. Because today, I’ve had my new website (yes, the one you’re on) presented to me. Frankly, I’m as Happy as Larry, Barry and Harry. Hopefully you like it too.
I’ve been dealing with Dave Wilks and his partner Lisa McNally from Team Marvel in Newcastle https://teammarvel.co.uk – and what has impressed me so much about these guys is the willingness and ability to question ‘what if?’. I don’t mean that to sound as philosophical as it probably first read, honestly – they don’t strike me as the type. What I mean is they’ve got this knack (or passion, desire, instinct – I don’t really know what it is) to think a little further in their ideas in order to maximise the impact these ideas have.
Hopefully you’ll see examples of this if you were to ever explore this website (little animations, clever copy, the pie webpage) – but I’ll give you an example of something you won’t have seen that I’ll probably remember forever. The Christmas card they sent last month wasn’t just personalised to me – which would have been fine and lovely, but they’d obviously tried to make the initial idea better without incurring more time and investment. So, picture an animated Santa, comic strip style, filling the page and giving it beans into a studio microphone. His little bobble at the end of his hat? They’d turned it into a Jazzy microphone instead – all with a personalised, funny title directed at me. Weird? Well, yeah it is I suppose. But to me who stares at a mic all day, it was an incredible touch. One that made me laugh and immediately shout out to my girlfriend to come and take a look at it.
That thought is probably so insignificant in terms of time or workload, but SO significant to me personally that I’m framing it in my studio. Seriously, I am.
Its reminded me of my old boss Tom Turner (now also a voiceover http://www.atomvoicing.co.uk ). In my early days as a radio copy-writer he championed taking a perfectly good idea and asking questions like ‘what if we turned it upside down or did something different with the audio?’: As much as that sounds a bit like media rubbish, it sometimes (not always) would make, for example, a funny radio ad, both funny and clever.
Stick with me, I’m nearly done.
What’s the link with voice over? Well, I think there’s a link here to anything you want. But in our line of work – I suppose when directing a VO in a session, or self-directing, we often try just a completely wildcard take on the read at the end of the session (the producer or creative will normally say something like ‘just so I’ve got the option’) but sometimes that option may be the award winner! No real effort or extra time invested, but potentially totally worth it.
Jack
