I couldn’t quite tick the box marked, “voice of a spaceship computer” but it came very close.

I thought the script didn’t look quite right. The messages seemed… a bit scifi, to be honest. One of them directed callers to a website, so I thought I’d take a look. There, I found and watched a video of a vaguely-familiar man giving a presentation, Steve Jobs style, to a huge arena, filmed by floating cameras. Still not entirely sure what was going on, I turned to Google.

Oh…

The man giving the talk is Peter Weyland (played by Guy Pearce, that’s why he looked so familiar, dammit) founder of Weyland Industries, and the company behind Project Prometheus. Prometheus is Ridley Scott’s latest film, an Alien prequel/reboot and one of the most hotly anticipated films due this summer, with a huge promotional campaign already running which includes interactive websites, videos, SMS and tantalisingly vague references sending the geek online communities into a frenzy.

The messages I recorded, as the voice on-hold for Weyland Industries, were part of this promotional onslaught. Excited? Just a bit. I can’t share or use the audio in my demos until the film is released; but you can find a poor quality recording of it online made by a fan if you fancy doing a bit of hunting, or if you are in the US, dial **WEYLAND from your mobile (sorry cell) and there I am. You’ll get a movie-related titbit in return for the call, too.

And in an actually mildly relevant bit of trivia: Like me, Ridley Scott grew up in Hartlepool. He attended the local Art College. I went to the Sixth Form. We’ve never met.

Soundstreak: The Internet Recording Studio

Sounds like Source Connect, but simpler.

Left to right, in rehearsal: Lyle (Vicky), Sam Weinberg (John), Daniel Kaffee (Ben), Capt. Whitaker (me)

and Jo Galloway, (Kelly). Photo by Craig Greenslade

I’ve been at it again with a couple of local theatre productions. Theatre At Baddow’s major January production was Aaron Sorkin’s A Few Good Men, a huge challenge for its first time director, Pat Willis, not just because it’s a long, wordy play and full of legalese, but finding the necessary fifteen or so male characters required is a challenge for any amateur group. Somehow Pat did it, but still kindly made a few concessions for the women in the group by gender reassigning a couple of roles. I played Captain Whitaker, the exposition stick who appears in the first twelve minutes of the play with a detailed explanation of what’s happened, who all these people are and what’s going to happen next. The play was extremely well received with some absolutely cracking performances and fine American accents and a triumph for Pat.

The couple of bits of American accent coaching helped for my few pages – At least, no-one laughed as far as I could tell! I was also loathe to part with my lovely, high-ranking stripes at the end of the run. As costumes go, that was a good one!

What’s For Pudding? 21st January 2012

Mary (Jo Ghent), Dennis (John Mabey), Jack (Roger Saddington) and Maureen (me).

Photo by Will Jackson

The other play was a half hour comedy by David Tristram, What’s For Pudding? staged as a one-off private performance for Baddow Council’s annual dinner and attended by the mayor of Chelmsford. Two couples and an oddball trouser hunter bicker their way through a Saturday evening, a bottle of whiskey and a tale about the demise of Maureen’s budgie. It’s amazing any of us made it through the performance as rehearsals were generally full of giggling and accidental destruction of household furniture. It’s amazing what fear of failure can do to your desire to laugh and a  bottle of iced tea can do to your bladder.

This post is a rather contrite follow up to my “Favourite Voice Over Performances” post I wrote a few weeks ago, which upon reading, the Other Half pointed out that I’d missed one of the most iconic and distinctive Voiceovers EVAH – Richard Burton’s portentous and charismatic narration on Jeff Wayne’s “War Of The Worlds” musical concept album, based on the HG Wells novel.

Whoops. So it’s now belatedly included in a post all of its own, plus bonus shock horror ending.

Burton died long before Wayne created the touring stage show of the album in 2006, so a visual representation of the actor was built using CGI – well, his head was anyway.  A floating, talking, moderately creepy MASSIVE HEAD. Not ideal obviously, but pretty effective; with That Voice attached to it, you could pretty much get away with anything. I was somewhat distracted by the CGI Burton during the 2010 touring show that I saw, as in my opinion he bore an uncanny resemblance to Seth Macfarlane. (Another great voice for a number of reasons, but I’ll save him for another post and another day.)

It was impressive stuff. However technology moves on and an eleven foot high CGI face is, well, a bit meh nowadays really, isn’t it? We’re the iPad generation. We want 3D. We want High Definition. We don’t just want a talking head, we want the rest of him as well. Preferably naked. Um. It’s time for a change:

Liam Neeson joins War Of The Worlds musical as hologram

Wait… what? Liam Neeson? Well, OK, he did a good Aslan in “The Chronicles Of Narnia”. But he’s no Burton. And he’s Irish. Wasn’t Patrick Stewart available? Or Jim Carter, Carson off of Downton Abbey? He’d be BRILLIANT.

Any other thoughts? Who do you think should do it? Who has the gravitas and presence to pull this off?

If you’d you’d like to listen (and Chris really is very good) you can acquire it via iTunes or here: Earshot Creative Review: December 2011

I will apologise for the ma-hoosive picture of my face on the main page. Sorry.

So I went looking for voiceover inspiration. It’s harder than it sounds. So many voices you hear nowadays are selling something – so is it the product that impresses you or the VO’s performance? And when is an voiceover just an acting role?

I won’t reveal what I chose until after the podcast is released, though I ‘m sure anyone who has ever been near this blog before could probably guess. In the meantime, I have decided to list a few personal favourite performances. Some are actors, others aren’t, but they all do a bloomin’ good job.

5. The Cadbury’s Caramel Bunny – Miriam Margolyes

4. Jessica Rabbit – Kathleen Turner

(What is it with these sexy rabbits? I know it’s her married name, but still…)

3. Jack FM Oxfordshire, Imaging – Paul Darrow

Yes I’ve had a crush on him since I was 6 and addicted to Blake’s 7. Yes, I met him aged 30-something and recording session and dissolved in a puddle of squee. But as radio station imaging goes, he’s still my all time favourite voice.

2. Rob Brydon infer Ken Bruce, BBC Radio 2, 1st April 2011

A friend recently reminded me of this and it makes it into the list for several reasons. Being able to sustain a vocal impression, on a live show and essentially improvising for two and a half hours is pretty impressive. Obviously I can’t post the whole thing, but here’s a taster.

1. Watch this space!

If you want comedy Northern/Irish/Brummie I can do that; most people can. But to actually speak convincingly with an accent as if I was born in that part of the country is something I can’t do easily. I am quite good at animals, however. My llama impression is particularly impressive – just ask Greg Davies.*

As far as voiceover work goes, I don’t do accents or characters and plenty of voices don’t and get plenty of work. I’m not looking to specialise in either of these areas my self but I feel as a “Voice Professional” I should broaden my skills base and anyway. It might be fun – which is a good enough reason by itself for me!

To get me started I thought I’d try American, an accent so many British English speakers get horribly, horribly wrong. We might laugh at Dick Van Dyke, but there are plenty of equally disastrous British actors marmalising the various American accents. (Don’t you dare point a finger at Hugh Laurie. I love him. He can do no wrong.) Like British RP, American has an equivalent, the appropriately military sounding General American. (Can we have Major British, please?) I have been occasionally asked to if I would voice scripts with an American accent. I can only assume that it’s easier for the client – and potentially cheaper – to get the same voice, with the same delivery and similar inflections to voice one script for two different markets, but there are dozens of excellent native American Voice Artists out there, it can’t be that much of a stretch to hire one of those…

Anyway, I digress. Because everybody knows somebody I got in touch with a friend of a friend, Sarah Shepherd, an Accent and Dialect Coach based in Covent Garden. Serendipitously, we both have skills that the other is interested in so while she teaches me an accent or two, I’ll be taking her through recording scripts and setting up as a Voice Over at home.

So now I have some genuine tongue chewing phrases and exercises to work on. And wow, doing an American accent properly is HARD. My previous efforts had me slipping into a not-very-good Deep South sound, which Sarah explained is something women commonly do. Men tend to drift north to New York with their first attempts, which on its own is a Fascinating Fact, Folks. And GenAm only has one ‘L’ sound. In British English we have two. I had no idea.

After just one session, I’m already much better at it than I was and if you were to listen in to me pottering around the house most days you’d think me a madwoman, muttering one of the many phrases Sarah has provided me with to practice.

*Ah yes, Greg Davies. During his stint writing and voicing continuity scripts for Paramount Comedy, he introduced a number of extra characters into his links, played variously by me, Jane (my fellow Continuity Producer) and Toby the Sound Engineer.

They’re free, personalised and entirely unique to each user. I’ve never been more pleased with this bit of kit. No installation required; mine started working as soon as they came out of the packaging and are still working today. With good maintenance and a bit of luck, they should last a lifetime.

Because a voiceover has no voice without a Pair of Lungs.

The raw materials do require some initial adjustment. Volume levels can be a bit high and sound quality unrefined in the early years, but that settles down with use and control. Some may find the treble a bit overpowering at first, but after twelve or thirteen years this will broaden out depending on the user. Although not easily damaged by movement or daily wear and tear, smoke and fumes can have a drastic effect on sound quality. Lungs do not come with a guarantee and smoking will invalidate your warranty.

You may find yourself surprised by the quietness and efficiency of a Pair of Lungs. Most of them time you barely notice them running, as they operate constantly in a background, energy efficient mode. There is no need to power down or switch off your lungs and this is definitely not recommended by the manufacturer. It is possible for one of the pair to operate singly, however usually only urgent repair or maintenance requires it. Also, Lungs are not very ecological and generate large amounts of Carbon Dioxide.

Lungs are self-powering and can run almost indefinitely by drawing fuel from the environment. It helps if this environment is clean and dust-free. Despite their low maintenance, oxygen must be available at all times or your Lungs will cease to function. Lack of oxygen will also invalidate your warranty.

I’ve always been very pleased with my Lungs. So far they’ve never failed to work and if they weren’t part of my studio set up I wouldn’t be able to do what I do. In fact, I’d go as far to say that I can’t live without them…

I talk. I blog. Why it never occurred to me to put the two together I don’t know, but I have blatantly stolen the concept of speaking my blog posts from CreativeRadio.com’s  Steve Campen. He told me to do it guvnor, honest. To diminish my guilt, go and have a look at his website.

I thought this first multi-media version of the blog should have audio clips, so I’m taking this opportunity to share my favourite type of voiceover performance. Rarely acknowledged, occasionally frustrating, vitally important and frequently totally insane: It’s the Computer Voice.

I’ve always had a bit of soft spot for computer voices, not least because I REALLY want to be one. I dreamed of being the voice of the Tardis until Neil Gaiman and Stephen Moffatt knocked that on the head with their “Doctor’s Wife” episode, good as it was. Honestly, I’m not bitter.

So that leaves starships, supercomputers and robots in everything from video games to films,  most of which eventually turn completely and utterly bonkers and attempt to wipe out their creators, their planet, or pretty much everything really. Usually they’re cool, emotionless, sexy, female voices, especially in computer games. You can guess who designs and builds these machines can’t you? For example EDI, the computer from the video game Mass Effect 2.

But maybe you’d like something a bit older, with a bit more authority perhaps – how about the ultimate starship computer, Majel Barrett-Roddenberry as the voice of the USS Enterprise…

But then it’s a short and slippery slope to something more inane, which if your ship is about to blow itself to bits this announcement from the ship’s computer in Spaceballs might actually be exactly what you need.

Or worse, you’ve gone from building a sexy, husky, dominatrix, foxy voxy computer to a machine that sounds like your mother. Especially if like Big and Little Howard you CALL it Mother…

And then the slope gets positively slick with WD40 and your inane but obedient computer starts going insane. It refuses to answer you. You know it’s lying to you.  It’s making changes to your flight plan/communications/breakfast without telling you. Its gently soothing voice starts sounding creepy and that clever acronym which made a rather handy nickname doesn’t seem quite so cute now, does it? …

Moon's GERTY

From I Robot’s VIKI  and Moon’s GERTY, inevitably of course we come to the most batshit crazy computer of them all: HAL in 2001: A Space Odyssey. He was supposed to be calm, reassuring and gently persuasive.  Then slowly, gradually he becomes dreamily, utterly mad as a bottle of chips until Dave has no option but to hit control, alt, delete….

Now come on. What voice actor wouldn’t want to play a role like that? 

That’s why I want to be a computer voice.

Next month I am attending a conference/networking event/social occasion specifically for VOs and audio producers in glamorous Leicestershire and was advised to take some sort of advertising material. From amongst the myriad mousemats, flashdrives, dongles and gizmos, I chose trolley coins – little pound coin sized discs for use in supermarket trollies and lockers. Or, simply, as a nice keyring. I also liked that they resemble a dog tag, which is why Brian now has one as part of his collar-wear (Collar: model’s own)

The reverse side includes my web address and a line of nonsense Latin – “vox elegans domina velox”. And before any highbrow Classical scholars get their pants in a knot about its accuracy, I KNOW it’s not correct. It’s not meant to be. If you can roughly translate each of the individual words then you can have a stab at the intended phrase, but it’s entirely for fun. Please don’t send the Roman Legion after me.

Hound Pounds (groan) are limited edition (couldn’t afford hundreds of them) and intended for people and companies I’ve worked for or may hire me in future. *Hopeful face* They’ll be with me at VOX next month, or you can request one by emailing me.

Hound Pounds were made by Dan UK with assistance from the very helpful Carl