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
September
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…