About Emma
Emma Clarke is a leading female voiceover and comedy/drama writer. She voices all kinds of things from advertisements to radio identity packages – but is best known as the ‘voice of the London Underground’.
Archives
2007
It’s the season of the sofa ad!
Friday Dec 28 2007
It’s that festive time of year when we’re bombarded with ads for sale price sofas, kitchens, holidays and slimming club membership. Emma wobbles on about post-Christmas ads.
Party time!
Friday Dec 21 2007
Emma tells us how she and Rich Sweetman (her friend, muse and colleague) spent the last working afternoon of the year.
Can’t sleeeeeeep!!!
Wednesday Dec 19 2007
Emma wrestles fruitlessly with insomnia.
Pre-Christmas nerves
Monday Dec 17 2007
Emma risks mentioning the ‘c’ word and explains why she’s concerned that her Yuletide preparations have gone awry...
Me and the Marzipan Taco comedy podcast
Monday Dec 10 2007
Seth and Pablo from the Marzipan Taco comedy podcast asked me if I’d like to do more “evil speaking roles.” Have a listen to the guys pitching a mega-blockbuster to Working Title Films...with me as the voice of a killer train...
All change please!
Thursday Dec 6 2007
Today I’ve signed a new contract to be the new voice of CoPilot® Live™ mobile phone satellite navigation. So now I’m underground, overground wandering free…with some new car-based spoofs too!
Down under-ground?
Tuesday Dec 4 2007
Emma’s readers are sharing the love. Hear some transport spoofs fresh from Australia!
And this is normality?
Monday Dec 3 2007
Emma tells us what it’s like to start a new week after a media frenzy.
Up close and personal
Friday Nov 30 2007
Emma gives us a peek-round-the-door look into the impact this week’s media coverage has had on her everyday life.
Should I do a show at next year’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe?
Thursday Nov 29 2007
Emma’s weighing up her options...
Emma on the George Lamb Show on BBC 6 Music, 30th November
Thursday Nov 29 2007
Listeners of the George Lamb Show have voted her Don of the Day. Emma’s proud, pleased yet coy, all at the same time. Tune in and hear the interview!
Thanks for the support
Wednesday Nov 28 2007
Now that the Web site is back up, I’m being inundated with e-mails – almost all of support. I’d like to share some of those with you.
Expect the unexpected
Wednesday Nov 28 2007
Everyone wants their Web site to be successful, but sometimes you can have too much of a good thing. When your Web site hits jump from a few hundred to well over 330,000 in just a day, you better hang on to your hat.
What yesterday was like for me
Tuesday Nov 27 2007
Emma explains what it was like living through a pan-global media storm
Stylised v Natural – the battle of the voiceover style rages on!
Sunday Nov 25 2007
Emma discusses the evolving style of commercial voicing. Are media-savvy consumers demanding a more subtle approach?
How to make reading credit examples fun!
Thursday Nov 22 2007
Credit examples, like lozenges, are a staple part of a voiceover’s daily diet. Emma explains how reading credit examples can be fun!
“When it comes to...”
Wednesday Nov 21 2007
How many times have you heard these immortal words in a commercial? And what does it MEAN?
The truth about working alone
Monday Nov 19 2007
Emma explains the pitfalls of being a lone worker – and how sharing her space has changed her life
How to cast the best voiceover for your radio ad
Friday Nov 16 2007
Emma wrote this article for utalkmarketing.com. In it, she gives some basic pointers to help ensure your ad doesn’t sound rubbish because you hired the wrong voice.
My sedentary lifestyle
Thursday Nov 15 2007
The life of a voiceover involves lots of sitting down. Emma fears it’s turning her into a lardbucket.
“Could you do it in the style of the M & S food commercials?”
Wednesday Nov 14 2007
An overview of the M & S food campaign’s appeal and why a ‘borrowed’ style might not be such a good creative choice for a roofing company’s radio ad.
More Poetry Please
Wednesday Nov 14 2007
An homage to poetry in commercials, written by a blog reader.
The two women talking sketch
Friday Nov 9 2007
Emma investigates the all-too-common phenomenon of the ‘two women talking sketch’ found in radio commercials.
Voxpops – why sounding normal is so very hard...
Tuesday Nov 6 2007
Voiceovers are often asked to sound like real people. But how real does the client really want it? Emma examines the subtle art of acting like a normal human being.
Poetry in commercials – why poetry should be handled with care...
Monday Nov 5 2007
Emma discusses the use of poetry in radio ads – where it turns up, why (arguably) it shouldn’t, and why the rhyming couplet is the copywriter’s favourite friend.
Secretly, I want to be a local radio newsreader...
Monday Nov 5 2007
Emma explains why she so admires the unique vocal style of local radio newsreaders in a homage to their special talents. Have a listen to her podast ‘audition’ – do you think she has a future as a radio newsreader??
The power and prejudices of received pronunciation
Friday Nov 2 2007
When I first started voicing, I felt embarrassed to use Received Pronunciation (RP). It felt false, fake, as if I was ‘putting it on’…and I was. The RP accent was nothing like my normal northern-accented speaking voice and it didn’t feel comfortable, it didn’t feel ‘me.’ I found it really awkward to say ‘ah’ instead of a hard ‘a’ sound, a cutesy ‘u’ instead of a flat ‘oo’ as in ‘book’ in words like ‘cut’ and so on. But I knew that any hang-ups I had about my personal identity being challenged by becoming a confident RP speaker were largely irrelevant – the choice was stark: get used to doing RP or forget being a voiceover.
One of the most bizarre ads I’ve ever voiced
Tuesday Oct 30 2007
Today I had to voice one of the most bizarre ads I’ve ever done, ever.
The girl In the office
Thursday Oct 25 2007
Here’s a glimpse into a conversation I have many, many times a month.
Scams
Tuesday Oct 16 2007
Today I was asked to record something for a ‘mystic phone line.’ I declined to record it.
Dodgy translations
Wednesday Oct 10 2007
My overseas customers are great. They’re a fab, (mainly) easy-going bunch of people to work for who send me scripts with clear pronunciation guides and plenty of lead-time. But sometimes, just sometimes, they send me some really dodgy English translations.
Sound effects
Thursday Oct 4 2007
Radio copywriters – don’t we just love ‘em! – really, really like sound effects. And who can blame them? After all, radio’s the theatre of the mind. But sometimes copywriters forget they’re writing for radio, or seem to. Here are some of my very favourite sound effects, as suggested by copywriters.
Why I’ll never do porn
Monday Oct 1 2007
Why I won’t do voiceovers or audio for porn. Ever.
After the Vox conference
Sunday Sep 30 2007
Well, the Alka Seltzer has now settled after the Vox conference. For those not in the know, this is an annual event when (mostly) UK voiceovers and their colleagues in the world of production collide in a hotel in the midlands for a night of dinner and debauchery. And this year was no exception, only this time, karaoke was involved...
The Unsaid Word
Saturday Sep 22 2007
When we do ISDN sessions everything’s recorded remotely so I never get to see producers or customers: I never get to see the whites of their eyes… For customers who aren’t used to recording like this, it can be a pretty weird experience.
“I really want to be a voiceover, can you help me?”
Tuesday Sep 18 2007
I get hundreds and hundreds – count ‘em! – of emails from wannabe voiceovers who contact me for advice. While I’m flattered that anybody thinks that what I have to say about the business is interesting and even worth listening to, it does rankle when people want to bleed me dry of info and contacts.
Why I love my computer
Thursday Sep 13 2007
Now don’t get me wrong, there are times when I’d cheerfully chuck my PC in a skip, or at a passing computer helpline adviser but honestly, without my computer I couldn’t do my job.
Over-written scripts
Tuesday Sep 11 2007
If there’s one thing that’s going to kill the success of a radio commercial it’s an over-written script. Many’s the time I get sent a fax with gazillions of words and the legend “30 seconds” at the top of the script. Now I know, and the producer knows, that there’s no way on God’s good earth that that’ll fit into thirty seconds.
Why I sound different in real life
Friday Sep 7 2007
In my everyday life, I don’t sound like a voiceover. At all. My natural voice is that of a Cheshire girl, born and bred. When clients hear my flat Manc vowels, they usually panic.
Emma’s very first blog
Sunday Sep 2 2007
Well, this is it, the very first entry into my very first blog! How exciting. Now…to find the right tone, the right ‘voice’ that conveys who I am and what I do, yet also manages to find the subtle balance between smugness, that awful self-deprecation thing that people do and the appropriate level of professionalism to convince would-be customers that I’m reassuringly credible… Hmmm…