Season 2 Episode 8 - Game Face
🚨🚨 NEW EPISODE🚨🚨
Cant believe we’ve got here already, the final episode of Season 2!
But what a way to end the season by having 2 amazing people well known in the VO world, Hugh Edwards and Gina Thompson, who are highly involved in Video games Casting!
In this episode we hear of Michael’s VOX late night voice-note shenanigans for the podcast and Hugh tells us about the state of the Voiceover industry from his perspective and where it’s headed with new and improved technologies
We learn why Gina loves casting and why she’s always listening out for new voices to catch her ear.
Jen can’t stop interrupting Michael with her many questions for their guests, And we announce our final voiceover performance of the week for the series Lizzie Jobling!
A banger of a finale, not to be missed.
A huge thank you to our esteemed guests Gina Thompson and Hugh Edwards for generously sharing their time and experience with us.
Thankyou also to everyone else who was involved in this Season including our amazing guests, those of you who contributed via DM’s and voice notes and of course those we have met in real life that tell us how much you enjoy the pod
See you soon…….
Transcript
ladies and gents welcome to episode 8 devastatingly the season finale iore
doing this my name of course is Michael and I’m Jen and talk about going out
with the bang we have two fantastic people who have shared uh their time with us this morning to uh yeah to help
us finish the season off and of course Mr Hugh Edwards and Gina Thompson uh synonymous with gra for the brain and
the voiceover industry so than thank you so much to both of you for uh taking the time out and uh yeah we tremendously
appreciate absolutely well I also feel like feel like I need to do a little bit of damage control as well because last
week at Vox I think that was quite possibly the most drunk of been in a large period of
time so I there was quite a few times I was like [ __ ] it’s 3:00 in the morning I was like all right I just have another
one then it’s like it’s 4:00 in the morning and I I have heard some voice notes and it was an absolute mess
Michael before we get on to that I think it’ be great I do want to go on to it but Hugh
and Gina would you mind just taking like 30 seconds of just introducing yourself so anybody who might not know you is that
okay of course yeah um so uh I’m Q Edwards um I run gravy for the brain um
which I started with Peter Dixon in around about 2006 2007 um I’ve been um
voice directing and casting since 2002 2003 uh I’ve worked on I don’t know
somewhere between 350 and 400 projects something like that it goes up quite a lot um and um on a positive note um this
has been by far the busiest period we’ve had in the last two years um we are
spending literally millions on voice artists at the moment and I’m not that’s not a superlative I mean actually over
millions uh on voice artists aming around the world is good news we should have ended that come fact let’s St there
yeah we can go back to that um but yes so um the second I there’s another one
uh gravy not gravy but called reattendance which we use at some conferences which some of you might know
um but the third company that we have um is now called off the page um that was um 20 years it’s anniversary this year
and so we decided to rename it it used to be called high schore Productions but no one could say it and every time I
rang up companies I’d say High School what and so yeah we decided to change the name um so off the page is now where
it is um which employs Gina Thompson oh yes Gina hi I’m Gina I um I’ve been
working for off the page as a casting um voice director since September last year
so I’m still quite fresh to it uh but I feel like I’ve uh really found my Niche within the voiceover industry but I
started working for gravy covid I believe it was um uh we’re
working remotely um just as customer support and I kind of worked my way up through there did a little bit of events
managing put on one of the two of The One Voices um so I’ve been a bit been about for a short amount of time uh but
I think it’s um really probably one of the best times to have joined um within the the whole industry to be honest um
and I’m really enjoying it I found my Niche for sure that’s amazing that’s really nice to hear it’s a good feeling
that as well when when you found like like I’ve done that many times over the years you sort of do different things and you find some think yes this I love
it yeah and the thing is as well there’s a different level of um I say effort effort is not the right
word but I don’t know when you when you’re passionate about something it’s it all encompasses everything you do and the way you approach it Etc it’s like me
with Voice work since I started doing this seven years ago I was like I couldn’t imagine doing anything else now and I put that much more time and effort
into it because I care so much yeah you know what I mean so uh so yeah that’s fantastic news so okay so we’ll come
back to some of these things cuz I think that’s a really interesting story to look at because obious yeah and there’s
a perspective of it that I think will be really interesting so but yeah so post Vox one week later is
everyone yeah how are you guys feeling how I think I left you all up when I went to
bed yeah I don’t know I mean I I think I think we went to our various separate
rooms at about half 7 in the morning or something oh my God I mean to sleep you went to sleep right you weren’t still
well a couple of hours um worth of sleep and then how you do it I genuinely don’t know how you do it we just don’t get let
out much I I don’t get let out I just can’t have it I just can can’t do it oh
my God you have to remember though that for I mean for the whole day everyone’s having fun and rry and all that kind of
stuff um the team doesn’t actually start drinking until the work is done so we we didn’t even touch our first drop till
near 11:00 p.m. where you guys were you know four or five six hours in at that point so that was when our night just
started I’m winding down 11 I’m like oh this is getting a bit like sleepy now
cup of tea yes I always want a cup of tea after I don’t well when I got there I don’t know why I felt a little bit
overwhelmed at first slightly on edge so I thought I have just a cheeky Little Beard to take the edge away oh yeah God
you that was really ear it was like 12 was like well not not that early Sor it was no shame I was just 7 730 yeah it
just it just helped me sort of relax and settle in and um and then obviously yeah the talks everything was it was really
insightful I really enjoyed the talks actually I really enjoyed the workshops and it was great that you managed to get
I mean I was one of them so I’m lucky but so many people up to do a reading and stuff and get that feedback because sometimes you might only get like a
couple or something so yeah thanks for the I regret not doing that did you not put your name in no I skipped it and I
thought then when people start doing like what a mistake that yeah you didn’t arrive till L did you um my favorite bit
of that was when perita like her name was pulled out of the hat and she literally yelped like she front of
scared the [ __ ] out of me so funny and the guy next to her just fell on the floor
sh she actually full-on screamed it was it was a strong re action yeah it was
good it was it was excellent I it was just I thought the whole masquerade idea was fantastic like the new setting I’m
so glad I didn’t find out there was stories about being haunted until after the fact cuz I went to bed I I I saw my
thing uh my phone it was quarter past 4 when I went to bed had I known it was haunted my brain would have like you’re
not going to sleep and then what notice when you walk past all the tombs like literally everybody was like talking
about that like everybody I met was like did you know I you know from my point of
view the the one of my favorite games that I’m playing at the moment um cuz we play a lot of games obviously to uh to
keep ourselves in check and just cuz it’s you know LS but one of my favorite games at the moment is the Hogwarts
Legacy game and that’s just so cool but you’re you’re walking around the the castle in Hogwarts Legacy and it was Kum
Abby it was so similar all this kind of like Gothic architecture and yeah it’s absolutely brilliant yeah look i’ read
this reading in it it’s like from uh the I think it’s the I think it was built in the 13th century so I started reading all the stories about the the ghost but
I to go back to my room about4 4 passed out my bed like a corpse and then my battery died on my phone and I just it
one of those I was like and then the fear of not knowing what time it was and then looked at my watch it was 10:35 and
I was like oh check out probably 11: so I rang reception and went oh sorry I’ve just woken up what time’s reception he went 5 minutes ago I was like right so
he said I’ll give you to 11 so got myself ready ran down I was in no fit state to leave that hotel room at 11:00
in the morning I can tell you did you drive no no God no did no no I got the train yeah that was oh yeah I knew that
actually um it was like the inside of a cow though there’s rooms it was so dark was you what to say yeah yeah we they
they kind of spoil the event payers a little bit and so they give us like sweets and stuff just free of charge
because we’ve booked a big event with them and that one that one was weird it had like a big for poost of bed but it
also had this like rotation sort of curly staircase that went up to a bath did it it was really weird just in the
middle there there was a bath yeah but it was like it was but old school it was they said that we were in the new bit in
the new right okay and it was clearly you know still pretty old yeah they were dinosaur bones in the walls and this oh
well for for for those listening AB Kum Abby Hall or Abby Kum Hall I can’t know which way around it is but Kum Abby it
is a spectacle you have to it’s just excit to see it’s interesting definitely but I mean there was like a lot of baths
in the middle of rooms in there I feel like there was some stuff going down like who designed that at what period I
don’t know to talk about that yeah sorry okay yeah but no it was it was AB secret
passade for the bath or what for the no the room the room we had a secret
knock no we didn’t really no cuz that’d be cool I was going around I was I was
like um I said to you before the day started like you okay if I take like some little voice notes of people to be part of the podcast yeah yeah fine so
obviously doing that much later on in the evening when everyone’s drunk I started listen b was like I am not playing any of this drunk garbled I
remember you in uh sort of interviewing Us in the courtyard bar it must have been 4 in the morning and I mean by that
point I was quite Tiddly when I remember thinking you’re really drunk and like I was I was really drunk so you must have
been really drunk absolutely your last note at the last note yeah so just so
you know yeah well you should burn those they will never see the light of day so
yeah so quite sober actually Hugh but yeah Michael just got more and more drunk didn’t you I think you were pretty
pissed when I left like half one so to be fair to you mate though you’re a very happy drunk like you’re a very Smiley
cudly drunk so oh yeah there’s not an aggressive bone body I just and I think it’s what it’s because I said before
because I love this industry so much and like how we Forge connections largely through social media but when you see people in real life they don’t feel like
strangers if and it’s and I was saying coming off Vox and for those who don’t go to these events this is one of the
reasons why I think they’re so important because you really do feel like part of a community and I came away from Vox
well done thank you guys for creating that 100% and I’m not just saying that because you’re both here I’d say if you weren’t because it’s and I I really did
feel like an overwhelming sense of community if you look at the pictures how we’re all gathered together everyone’s smiling there’s nothing false
about that whatsoever so hats off to you cuz you were you put on a fantastic event all of you it’s really fantastic
well thank you very much the Vox was actually um inherited um before us it was run by posie Brewer and it was run
by quite a few other organizations um throughout its time started of course by Peter and his friends but um yeah I
think it was 2017 Maybe maybe I’ve got that wrong um where we first took it back on yeah I can’t exactly remember
what it was but that was the 30th the 30th year so all of those other conferences out there that say they’re the longest running poo poo to them
because they’re not yeah it’s really good it was really fun I want to do organize one quite soon
oh sorry I remember saying to you Michael um that I’ve seen your name so many nominations crop up over the years
that we’ve been doing this and I think the first thing I said to you was how do you pronounce your last name um cuz I
see you about but we never actually had a conversation so I think definitely a connection with you um was made I always
there’s always one person at a particular conference that I’ll always um not gravitate towards but become
there’s like a new vo to me if that makes sense because I am still new to it because it is very much everyone knows
everybody which I really like but um still making friends after all these years which is what I really like and uh
my follow account goes up on Instagram which is quite good
but yeah exactly likewise you know when we go to these shows and stuff and you know obviously see on stage but again it’s someone I never spoken to so just to finally have those conversations get
to know someone better it’s just it’s what it’s all about and I just love it I think it’s fantastic I really do roll on
me speaking of uh of seeing you at various places and things one of my favorite events of this Vox was um that
Chris tester won the male of the Year award and it turns out afterwards that him and Anthony Houston have this little
thing together kind of like no no no seen it before you I mean those guys are
nominated every single year and have been since we’ been doing it and neither I I I remember saying to to Houston once
a few years back in the bar you know your time’s going to come you’re going to win that at some point and and yet
never has and I think it’s the same for Chris and a few other people on there as well but yeah um so um Chris winning it
and Nonny of course who’s been nominated every other time and the one year she can’t make it she wins it I it’s a real
shame I’d be gusted I think if it wasn’t there one yeah they both did really well yeah the room erupting for Chris was
amazing and I think you need to catch up on all the the social drama that goes on all the skits that they both do it’s
hilarious it’s like there’s some vo East Enders that I haven’t been tuning into because everyone seems to know it you
know yeah you need to it’s amazing but what I will say is what what was so beautiful was um when Chris did win it
was because obviously a lot of us who are aware of this like back and forth they have like a bit of Baner um when Chris did win there was an overwhelming
sort of of happiness for him but Anthony came over and just gave him a massive hug cuz there’s no competition there’s
just love there and you know they both you know they both love what they do and obviously Chris won it first and it was just a beautiful thing you know what I
mean I I can’t I don’t I came away from that Vox feeling so overwhelmingly just
great it was just brilliant for so many different reasons yeah yeah yeah yeah absolutely so very good okay so um let’s
move it forward you talked to both you about casting so let’s maybe start there then yeah can I I’m just interrupting
you Michael but like how did you get into it like obviously gie you said a little bit but Hugh how did you start doing
this well um it was a long time ago when I had music then a long time ago yes
that’s right you need to F some in no it I mean it literally was back um I don’t know 20 years ago um I well originally I
mean I had a sort of theatrical B and I had um in my youth trod the boards with my parents they they used to run uh my
stepfather ran a um a local Arts Center we have here in bamry called The Mill Art Center which was always putting on
Productions and you know I was either in them or we were you know managing the stage wings and whatever we were doing
um and so it was always kind of part of my blood and um I one of my best friends
we used to hang around together here and his name was Tim plester and he he went to University to do drama in fact he
you’d know him he was the guy who did the throat slitting at the Red Wedding on uh Game of Thrones that that that
amazing scene but we sort of went all the way through that together and then our paths diverged um I wanted to be a
rockar as a kid as you do um and ended up typically falling into Investment
Banking nothing to do with e yeah yeah yeah did that for nearly 10 years and
they have this these things on you which they called the golden handcuffs and they basically like they’ll give you a big bonus in January and then they’ll
give you a big pay raise in June and you can never leave because you’re always wanting to to get to the next financial thing but you get to this point where
it’s like you know you’re just Building Systems to move money for people who have got money to make money and it’s just sold D stry so um but I’ve been
writing music um constantly um through my teens and my 20s um and I called up
just randomly one day I called up Electronic Arts and said I write music for computer games do you have anything
that uh that you can do they were like yeah yeah we’re doing the uh the second Harry Potter game you want to quote for it I was like yes I do oh my God what an
intro I didn’t actually get that gig but what I did was um um I did get down to
the short list where we were talking about money and and this is part of the negotiation um course at gravy for the
brain of course which I learned from the majority of it from the investment banking time they uh they said well how
much can you do an hours worth of orchestral for and I said well what’s your budget and they immediately came
back and said well we can’t do it for any more than like 45,000 and I was going to put in like three grand you
know what I mean and I just couldn’t believe it and even though I didn’t get the job it proved to me that there was
was a living to be made through music so um started um high score with my friend
Jeremy and um it very very soon came to the point where we were asked to do um
uh Speech recording monologues and dialogues and and whatever um and um and then I just sort of fell in love with it
and at the same time fell out of love with the music be it became very much sort of painting by numbers right but
with with voice um I could really connect and even though I wasn’t doing the acting myself I could help sh shape
their performances in the way that I knew the games wanted to be or that the games developers wanted and the more I
did it the more I enjoyed it the more uh better I got at it the the better contacts I got the more good feedback we
got and it just kind of snowball snowball sorry and um yeah and and then that that morphed into so many other
things um in all the corporate jobs we do in the advertising um I think you
know in our second year we made a really good contact UM and we did something
like 50 commercials for ITV which was just unprecedented but it it really set
us up for our our CV our resume and uh and from that point on just everything
came in and yeah it’s I’ve been I’ve been very lucky but I think that that old adage is true is that you do put
yourself in a position where luck can find you yeah um and so yeah it’s been a it’s been a joy and there’s there’s
never a day where we get behind the mic or on the other side of the glass and think right here we go again you know
it’s it’s just never like that there’s always something interesting and something that’s um that’s human about
it which is which is I suppose topical Point absolutely and we’ve seen both of you sorry Michael again um jetting all
over the world on Facebook I don’t use Facebook off God yeah yeah you’re everywhere and casting and I’m assuming
you can’t tell us what it’s for correct okay is it is it a game
though I can’t tell you anything about it what I can tell you is that um that it’s it’s not just me and Gina um uh
well in fact there’s one lady I can’t say um but um there’s a lady who works with us called Hannah as well and she’s hi Hannah uh she’s yeah she’s around in
fact she’s just sitting over there shout out Hannah um but yeah so so we are we
are casting we are finding actors um we are recording actors um for different
types of work different types of jobs um and it’s not just one type of job there’s multiple different styles of
jobs and it seems to it seems to have just all uh come to one particular head
where at the moment we’re just traveling all the time yeah and um yeah Gina and I worked out the other day that I think
we’ve done 23 return flights this year which is which is going some that’s mad what month are we in October October
that’s a lot well we’ve stopped for this quarter thank God thank the [ __ ] Lord that we’re not actually flying till at
least January I think IIT jealous though it is very cool how are you finding
Gina um I mean it’s um it’s a lot of things for me the job um obviously it’s
quite a it’s quite intense I don’t travel very well so prior to prior to
putting on one voice Texas uh during covid which I flew out and did on my own
uh which I was fresh to the industry really fresh um prior to that I really by fire isn’t it yeah um me well it was
me and Harry it wasn’t just me Harry quarantined in Mexico for um it got we found a loophole in the uh in the rules
and I’ve got your nationality so um when on my American passport um so yeah um
but yeah I really really hate flying um it’s not it’s not my favorite thing I am
getting better and I’ve actually done loads of solo trips as well um so it’s helped my confidence massively um more
than anything I’d say um but the job itself in the travel is also it’s just
so strange to me that I’m doing it um because it’s a proper job I’ve always worked in Hospitality which I don’t
really consider a proper job but um because you don’t get paid very much um so yeah when I fell into this um you
know like I said before it just really feels like I found my Niche um you know
the voice voicing is interesting to me but not to be doing it myself I just it’s just not for me I get asked all the
time and I’m like nah um it’s it’s like you said it’s knowing what to pull out of actors and knowing what the vision is
of the client or whoever it is or your own Vision or just having fun with it and being able to just like play around
with two creatives in a room or more or more than that um yeah yeah that is
really cool I should just say that um I mean the if you go back in time a long
time before all the training courses and whatever the way that the world worked was um you would have an actor and they
would basically have an understudy and that person would hand the Baton on to them and give them all of their training
and all of their it was like a one-on-one thing but permanent um like an apprenticeship I suppose um and
that’s what we’re doing um here and but the what’s crucial about it is that I I don’t think everyone who wants to can
act and I don’t think everyone who wants to can direct and I think certain people have aptitudes for the certain things um
and I mean Gina and Hannah definitely have those qualities where they they’re so interested in the human condition
that they they look into what’s happening in real time and and outside
with that person with that character and they always seem to ask the right questions and bring the right things out of the people so that that there’s a
very good reason why um you know why why they were offered those roles and to to
learn on the job because because they’ve got that aptitude at the beginning and they’ve got the right mindset for it that’s amazing and I think you see when
we’re at these workshops and you did I interrupt you again I I’m really sorry I’m very keen I’m
very keen you had your time on your voice notes your dunen voice notes um I’m just
going to say I think it’s amazing when you are in a space like a workshop and there is nothing better to me than
working with other actors and a director alongside in that collaborative process but when you’re in a workshop and you see a to redirect another actor and it
completely changed their performance or they pull something out and there’s such a skill in that and it is I love watching that as well it’s um yeah well
done both of you it’s a what I was going to say was you made an interesting point there here about um people who think
they can act but can’t what like how like how far off are some
people in terms of like what’s like cuz I I don’t where do I start with this now my brain’s like you know what you’re trying to say about where you going with
this so some people are like they have an idea that can embody your character but it’s just missing something and you
can sometimes hear it can you find that missing piece of the puzzle both of you or is it like it’s just not there try
something else well um I mean it’s perhaps not fair to say that that not all people can
act and not all people can direct um because I think with effort people can but I do think that there is a natural
kind of aptitude yeah um that people tend to have the ones that are successful um All actors from my opinion
or my experience sorry are different and some actors you can have a conversation with at the beginning and you just kind
of push the boat in One Direction and then you don’t talk to them again for another three hours and at the end of it you go yeah that was great and they went
really you didn’t say anything it’s like I know it was just brilliant um and then some need to be directed line by line
and it doesn’t really matter um which one’s right that there is no right or wrong to it yeah but that said there are
some people who just don’t do as well as others some people who just naturally seem to just get everything and it’s
unclear about how much of that is um is work and how much of that is effort and
how much of that is natural skill but I will give you one story about a chap and I won’t give you his name um but he came
on to a gaming Workshop we did in7 I think it was maybe 2008 and Peter
and I um used to run these things together and uh we had you know like a a liquid dinner that evening as you do um
discussing the day and um we we used to sort of like you know comment on on everybody and how they’d done and there
was this one Chap and it was like you know it was an immediate no chance that person has not got a chance and then four years later or something uh he rang
me up and he said listen I’ve done this demo can you have a listen and it was just mind-blowingly good and I was
thinking well someone’s clearly done a really good job on that demo cuz that guy you know just wasn’t with there at
all and so I called him up and we did just like a little session and I you know was just asking him about it and he
was just so into it and he just done put so much work in and so I fired a couple of scripts at him and he was just
excellent and the the transition that he had made was um was proof to me when we
actually started gravy for the brain and and at the time the early days we got a little bit of criticism people saying well you’re taking advantage of people
you know you’re giving them false hope it’s like that’s not true at all if you put the effort in you’re going to get there um there’s just on that there’s an
excellent book by um a lady called Angela Duckworth it’s called grits she’s a psychologist but what she essentially
sets out to do is to prove or find if um Talent is orate or if if essentially you
can get better through passion and that’s essentially what she discovers that there are some people who they
might not have the same abilities as some people seem to be naturally good at something but they’re so determined they’re so passionate they’re so
dedicated and they practice and practice and practice that they do become excellent and I think that story is true
of that yeah some people are just born Psychopaths like Elon Musk you know what can you do
yeah but I think well Gina for you so from the casting point of view like this is new to you like what are you like how
are you finding the experience what are you seeing in people are the things that you know you quickly picking up on things that you do differently with them
to get more out of them Etc um it’s a tough one to answer for me
because I don’t know anything about casting you see so it’s all quite new to me right so I guess my my process would
be I don’t know I feel like I possess this thing where I just I either get
someone in my head that I know will be really good at it from either voice actors I already know but I do I really enjoy because it’s new to me still going
on to um we’ve got a select few agents that we um like to use and I like to I
really enjoy listening to um people’s reals on um on the websites just to cuz
and then getting them into the booth and then going wow that’s really what you can do on your real as opposed to what
you can do in person um it’s kind of like I’m a bit of a kid in a sweet shop at the minute still because um there’s
so many different jobs that we do and you have to get so many different types of people and what works for one person
can be really excelling one thing that I definitely wouldn’t choose to use for something else um and on the note of um
practicing your art I mean the events over the years when we see the same
people coming which is great but those you always pick out one and you go they’re going to in the next couple of
years they’re just going to skyro rocket but it’s always the people that you see that are just doing the best in the um
industry I feel because you’re coming to the events you’re going to the workshops you’re you’re learning in all corners of
what you can learn um and you it we really see that in the results of you
know nominations for the awards um just watching people Excel is really uh makes
me really happy also oh that’s really nice I should say as well that and giving people work that’s that makes
also really nice that must be great yeah um one of the things I was going to say is that um I’ve noticed that Gina casts
slightly different to me which is great because you know nobody wants to make like carbon copies um and and it’s
interesting because sometimes like she she’s got a real thirst for it a real hunger for it that I may have had but
I’m now sort of like a little bit older and a bit more jaded and she’ll say to me listen there’s something it’s like a
have Skip Along to like 2 minutes 15 and there’s something on it it’s like oh yeah yeah that’s Prett good actually
whereas you know I just haven’t had the time to to go and do that and really don’t have that kind of uh yeah I’m just
too long in the tooth I think there’s a lot of casting directors nowadays who’ve been working a long time it’s like you
got to you got to show me pretty quick otherwise I’m I’ve got another 70 to listen to well that can just sorry to
interrupt you but just on that because I was going to come straight to demos I think demos is like the the backbone of
people trying to get booked for work in both your experience what is like a typical IAL I always say red flag cuz it
expresses what I’m trying to say best but it might be a bit harsh but what is a general like no no when it comes to so
because I I we normally hear that you’ve only got like 5 10 seconds to capture someone’s attention or thereabouts and
that might not be strictly true in your in your cases but generally you get a demo what do you find is makes you make
a quick assumption um for me I think the thing
that that’s most obvious is that um
you can hear when people aren’t getting accents right yeah and so if you’re going to do an American and you’re
British or vice versa just make sure it’s on the money you know get someone else to listen to it before you put it
out there and it’s all in the vowels you you can hear it um you can hear it pretty pretty obviously and that then
gives me a little less confidence in them as an actor so I would have I would have preferred them to not put the
accent on if it wasn’t perfect and then do the stuff that I know they can do really really well um
you know what it’s like it’s like because I mean the process of casting is not that I make the decision and I was
trying to sort of ask people of about this at Voice Ask the other casting directors to see what they thought but
the process in general is that I or or we will go and create a short list from
the very large funnel that we get and then we’ll discuss it and we’ll say okay well actually we think for this
particular role these three people are great I want that one but we’re going to put these three in and then we’ll put
them back and you know 80% of the time we’ll get the one we want yeah maybe a
proportion we will’ll get one of the other two and sometimes they turn around and say actually we don’t think this those three right so we we’ll go back
but I think because people think that we make the decisions uh well we sort of do I suppose we are filtering to such an
extent but because they think that we make the decisions um it’s all about impressing us so quickly you got to
remember that we have to believe in what you do because we give it to the client and the Cent on the line yeah and if
they take that person and then that g that person’s crap in game well that reflects on us because we’ve put those
people there um which is what another reason I don’t particularly like
um working on projects where I’m not doing the directing and the casting because if I’m casting it and handing
over to someone else okay that’s also another you’re in control if you’re doing the direction as well yeah the
majority of the times when that happens I I try and maintain a really close relationship with the actual director um
we we’ve just done a uh an animated feature um this summer um where that was
the case and he’s a brilliant director so I was just making sure as much as possible that we were really talking and I was pointing out why these people
should be good and actually it was a it was a much more uh uh it was a much
longer casting process because of that because we kept going backwards and forwards and I think we ended up with
three or four leads before we settled on the final ones that we actually really wanted you know so people will kill us
if we don’t ask a bit more about how you find your voices like how did you casting obviously Genie you said you’ve got a few preferred agencies that you go
to if just talk us through the process how do you find people can people reach out that kind of
stuff you want to tell that g um yeah um so I I mean I’m always open
to I mean we did we did develop um the gaming conference I don’t know if you guys have heard of that um and we took
off the page there um and it was just a hub of voice actors essentially just at our um at our booth which uh was really
really nice to see and everyone ask you know do you mind if you I’m a voice actor or a lot of moap actors as well um
I collect I collect business cards all the time and um like you said we we both
do yeah um I love them they’re like goodies to me um I love branding as well
I’m a sucker I’m a sucker for Branding I for that as well actually yeah I’ll buy a bottle of water because it’s in a pink
bottle it’s like four qu but um uh yeah but like H said we are very different um
but I think I I’m there to kind of push give you a nudge like oh have you
thought about this person um that’s how the dynamic works at the minute I obviously don’t make I don’t make all
the big decisions um and I guess I still have other no not yet um and I I guess
I’ve got I still got more to learn about how it’s done and different ways of doing it um Hugh you could probably
inight uh be give me a bit more insight now to be honest sure um so there are
are definitely people that I have who are kind of ringers uh in my head so if
I if I if we get a game I mean we did we did one this summer which was it was
massive I was it like a 140 different characters or something like that and then we did it in multiple languages so
something like that there there are people that I know I’m going to pull in just because you know I know that
they’re good I I know I can rely on them I know I’m going to get some some good Basse characters in there and also
alongside that there are people that I have worked with before who something will just remind you and it’s like oh
that’s a kind of like 50-year American uh guy with a really deep Gruff for I’m
going to get Glenn in for that you know or at least get him to test in for it or whatever um then um I we we we’re trying
as much as we possibly can to be as diverse as possible and there there’s a
very wide net that you can go down and for a while back there end of last year
we decided to start casting on Spotlight and Spotlight is a good platform but it is hugely hugely
subscribed and for the animated feature that we were casting uh I
mean it it was beyond a joke you know we we we had sort of like whatever it was eight main roles we were doing and we
were getting 2,000 submissions per role you know and it was what we noticed was
that it was so impersonal uh and they’ it works slightly different in the acting side than voiceover because they
don’t often do self tapes unless it’s something quite big and what they do is they on Spotlight they do this thing
called suggesting so you’ve got your profile photo and agents will just suggest it so all of a sudden people
without agents on it which I do yeah or people yeah they just suggest themselves or whatever but what that means is that
you’ve then got um 2,000 head shots to look at and it’s the the onus is then on
me or Gina to then go through 2,000 head shots and try and find an actor for a role which is the opposite of how we do
it in the vo world but that’s kind of how it works in on the acting side so it’s um that can be very very timec
consuming and you can burn a month doing that yeah because and not find someone or or theater you are the initial thing
is do they look like what I’m going casting but for you guys it doesn’t matter what someone looks like at all does it so then you’ve got to go through
an extra stage haven’t you to then click on and do it is it also as well with I’ll thought about that for people who
want to uh I I’m a big gamer as well so he actually put a note down that you’re a big fan of The Last of Us oh my God
yeah so we share a common love there absolutely it’s just the most perfect
embodiment of across between Cinema and gameplay and free world and excellent
acting amazing Graphics they’ve thought everything out out so well it’s not that it’s the only game in the world but it’s
just it’s just perfect and then the second one comes along and it’s better it’s like yeah well I I’d
had that game I’m just a quick side quest just to explain this book I’ll tell I’m going about two um voices in a
minute but I had that game originally for about 3 years it came as a bundle never well I tried to play it I thought it was just a bit clunky couldn’t get
into it and then the series came out in HBO and I loved the first episode I thought you know what I’ll give it a go and
I battered it in a weekend just couldn’t put it down loved it and I just felt and then the second one and it was exact
like you said I was just mesmerized but this Le to what I was going to say about voices so one thing I love like we
talked earlier on about people who like some people just have a knack for something some things they can’t do I can’t do accents just not my thing and
I’m okay with that I will try but I ultimately accept that that is not my skill set in any way shape or form but I
do love and what I’m always developing is human performances realistic performance emotion drama all those
sorts of things so when you look at something like the last of us that would that that idea that type of style would
fit right into my REM of what I do but that what I’m asking is if you want to try and get casting games is that enough
do you need to be able to offer much more or is it good enough to be good at something and that be all you’re known
for well um I the truth is I think you
can boil it down to oh you’re a really good actor if we’re talking about gaming it’s really just about acting but you
know game acting is a different skill to theater acting and to television acting
and film acting whatever ever you know if you think about theater you got to reach the people at the back of the room
even a whisper has to be hugely projected so that everyone can hear it and the you know where you might have a
closeup in a film that’s just like a a slightly quizzical eyebrow raised in the way that I’m doing on this video now um
the you you can’t see that in theater at the back of the room the expression has to be different and in the same way with
voice acting you know if you have some kind of film thing where someone’s
there’s a there’s I don’t know a call and response and the person says well why did you do that and the person
says well I did you know what I was just doing there we’re all on video at this
point um when this is being recorded and I I just made a little facial um I don’t know movement which highlighted whatever
emotion I was feeling and there’s just a gap in space but if you do that in vo then you get what did you do to do that
why did you do that and you just get what I wanted to or whatever it was and so that that doesn’t make sense and so
you have to portray the emotion through the voice yeah but not overdo it because that’s going to be put onto a game
Avatar at some point and then it’ll look weird when they try and do some you know some some movement
dancing some movement to cover that you know so it really is a skill and um and
moap just as much if not more so especially if you’re doing performance capture I think that’s why one of the reasons I really like performance
capture as well because it justes feel like it’s all those worlds brought into one space and it does feel it’s an
exciting place to be Jen and I did a um say Jen and I did a scene that
wouldn’t necessarily sound quite right know you mean see where your
mind’s going podcast one uh we um I got a a message of a guy
off X I’m used to saying it now but Twitter um can’t help but add that in and he’s from um the Manchester
Metropolitan at the map peap studio and and um he basic said are you able to come down to run a couple of scenes and
um we’ve got some students that want to see how it’s done and said absolutely no problem so um I said I’ve got another person that can come as well as he
needed to sent him Jen’s information say yeah 100% come down so yes please that
was one of the most exciting things cuz like you said it embodies everything like you just put this suit on and you you’re acting physically obviously but
oh my God it was just amazing it was absolutely fantastic it really was to
come back to the the end bit of your question there cuz we did go down a bit of a rabbit hole with my story welcome to the
podcast the the that’s a good name for a podcast isn’t it the rabbit hole um yeah the the the real answer to question it’s
really all about season two the rabit um it’s uh it’s it’s about acting but then there
are lots of different styles within gaming anyway and very often we’ll cast someone
for a role and there’ll be three or four lines at the end where we need to get them to do a different character and so
we get them to do that in a different accent um as much as possible we try not to um cross cross racial boundaries
there yeah um with the odd line or two it’s not always possible um depending on
the ACT the budget of the gaming or whatever but the point is that you are doing different characters so in those
instances having a background of characters that you can do that don’t sound all the same is quite useful but
if we know that you can’t do that and we’re just booking you for one main role anyway well then we’ll know that that’s
the case and so we just won’t assign you additional characters I was going to um basically say what you said here um I
would I wouldn’t say it necessarily stops you from um gaming but as long as you can differentiate between the clear
um different characters that you can do with within a game then I I don’t think that would necessarily stop you not it
doesn’t have to be about an accent I would say like you said as long as we can determine that you’re playing a completely separate character to some
say the main character that we’ve cast and we can you know Chuck you into a few lines with another one I wouldn’t say
it’s a complete stopper deal breaker yeah yeah but then the world’s changed you know I mean if you go back 10 15
years all voice actors did lots and lots of different characters and that was that was the job and you know you’d go
into a radio studio and they say right well we want this person to be from Newcastle and in Dixon would go and then
they’d do some Newcastle guy you know or whatever it would be um and it it’s it feels like it’s getting less than that
now um I think think because of the natural course of evolution about diversity and whatever which is
important but as a good example the other day we were casting for a Russian
character and we went to the games company and we said okay do you want actual Russian or do you want Hollywood Russian because they’re not the same
thing Hollywood Russian in films does not sound like Russian um but most people watching a production would say
well that accent’s a bit weird which is the actual Russian one and it you know because they’re not used to it um and they said okay we want Hollywood Russian
so the very first guy I thought of even though we didn’t use him in the end uh was a Welsh actor um who I just happened
to know does a really good Hollywood Russian accent so so that I don’t think you should be limited in any way and and
whatever your skills are just capitalize on all of them you know well I will say yeah focus on your strengths um sorry
yeah work on your focus on your strengths work on you I forgot me what I’m saying what do I say yeah
I every morning I [ __ ] this up my brain’s like come on come on where are
we going it’s in the somewhere we know what you mean we know what you mean yeah um focus on your weaknesses double down
on your strengths basically I think that’s a good thing to do um we have a little segment every week on our it’s
time these guys aren’t going to know what it is but I’m excited nice it’s time Jen it’s time it’s definitely
time for the [Music]
week okay so the bik looks are amazing I’m so sorry we didn’t warn you about this so um voiceover over of the week
but yeah so what we do is we add a little segment of the week yeah so we added a little thing in this for this season where we wanted to just throw
some light on other Vos who put some work out and just to we pick one that we
saw that follow the podcast for this week and we pick our favorite one and we just give it some praise and we just say
you know we like this piece of work and just give them a shout out it’s just purely just something positive uh so and
for this week this is the final for this week and this is uh by Lizzy
joblin who released a piece of work yesterday which she was incredibly proud of uh and when you watch I’ll play you a
quick clip which I’ve clipped a little bit because it it switches tone but when you watch the whole video on a social
media it just works so well with the sound that with the style that she’s doing the visuals it resonated so Lizzy
you’re my voiceover of the week for the end of season 2 uh here is a quick snip
a new Force has arrived born from the wind a revolution takes
flight what you believed was hindering your path now pushes you along it with
unstoppable momentum disruption becomes Direction resistance becomes rush and it
goes on it’s about hour about a minute long so well done Liz Lizzy that was performance of the week so okay um to
wrap up the casting thing is there anything think a quick couple of bullet points you would say to people who undoubtedly want to get in front of
casting people are there a couple of things you would just as a takeaway Point say to them uh don’t be a dick don’t be a dick
I think that’s a really good one though that very valid where you quite cliche
but uh I honestly just make an impression when you’re when we meet um whether it be in person in the studio or
via Zoom make I like people that make me laugh and that I’m going to remember that I want to work with again um um
because I mean the job’s supposed to be fun isn’t it so that’s it yeah just be
yourself yeah authenticity is massively important I think sometimes people try too hard just to make an impression just
to I don’t know just get in front of someone but sometimes you can see through like I said in last week’s episode if I if I know I’m being sold to
I know that person’s not being authentic I’m instantly disinterested because I know that when he goes home or he or she
goes home from work that Persona I was just given would probably completely drop i’ know who they really are when they’re out with the mates and stuff cuz
it’s more genuine exactly you know so yeah I would say um in addition to that
um try and be confident which I mean I know isn’t easy for some people um I
whatever this isn’t going to be a a trip into confidence but but confident reads just sound good and we just hear them
when we just know them um I mean you know it it takes a bit of confidence to
go and do uh an intimate whisper read like Lizzie just did there that was a really confident performance and it just
feels good there’s never any of that little thing at the back of your mind that subconsciously makes you think
they’re not right for it or they’re not ready for it they just completely own it um so yeah it was a good performance I
like that even if someone comes in confident it it makes you feel a bit more at ease that you could chuck
whatever Happ them it you know I’m not going to feel or we both now going to
start feeling nervous because I’m going to ask for something that I’m not necessarily going to get back and then it’s just kind of the wheels start
falling off and you just trying to scrape it back from the start so yeah starting on a really high confident note
from both parties you kind of feel like you can just get it get it done yeah I would agree um and um another little tip
is if you’re doing inperson auditions or live Bas auditions don’t over rehearse
because it’s uh it’s a bane of our life sometimes where someone’s they just know
how it goes and it goes like that and it’s like okay can we just change that yeah no problem I’ll do it in this St for you and here it is goes like that
and they’ve just got it so locked into their mind that they just can’t get out of it and it’s half the time we’ve got
you know another 105 people in the corridor so it’s like okay we’re going to move on thank you so it’s U yeah don’t over rehearse do you often do live
auditions yeah all the time in fact most of our traveling is doing live auditions
at the moment course that makes yeah we’ve been doing remote auditions in a in a first sense um from the UK and then
when we actually go everywhere that’s when we’re just meeting people and actors and I have to say I mean I know
that I I kind of when you travel in an awful lot like that you you often come
across as feeling as being tired or negative about it or whatever but we’re incredibly fortunate to be doing what
we’re doing because not only are we seeing a completely different variety of
voice artists but we’re seeing different cultures different foods yeah and you know for example would you as a British voice
artist naturally think that there’s a huge and flourishing Vibrant Community in Uganda probably not but there is and
there’s one in Cairo and there’s one in Tanzania and there’s one in Nairobi and Kenya and so on and so forth it’s it’s
all the way around the world this this little Global industry we live in um and just because we’re in our own Pockets
doesn’t mean that it’s not it’s not out there it’s massive what an amazing way to see the world as well gosh yeah oh
yeah be amazing well forunate you just saying about the industry that’s the only thing I was going to sort of just
Keen to sort of hear your thoughts on as well both of you about the industry as a whole now like we’re seeing so many changes I know those dreaded two letters
AI I’m fascinated on the AI subjects I talk about it quite a lot because I just think it’s really interesting but like
the industry as a whole like with with some changes coming in like there’s a lot of now obviously everyone’s got home Studios it was interested to say that
you do live casting because a lot of it is normally remote but where do you see
things going for voiceover industry like with the changes that are coming with things like AI I Hugh and I um we’ve
conversed briefly on this a while back you said about the lady that came to One Voice Was it Google she did a talk about
people saying that they’re really yeah the people are getting a bit too like getting too wrapped up in it for for no
well it’s okay to be concerned but people are worrying about something that isn’t quite there yet and I completely agree with that sentiment but AI part of
so I was just going to say her actual quote was that um and she she Monica Poler her name is she is the head of
research at Google and what she said at one voice when asked was no I don’t think we will ever fully be able to
replicate the human voice properly we can do it in a very short sentence and fool you but when it comes to anything
meaningful no we can’t and we won’t be able to yeah I think that’s true though I mean it’s at the end of the day we say
it all the time that you can’t direct an AI voice you can you can give it a piece of text and it will you know maybe do
its uh the emotions it’s prompted to do but it will never give you something brand new and unique cuz it just it
feeds off what it goes off what it’s been fed you know what I mean so it just it makes an interpretation of that well
before I before I go into my little rant about it Gina what do you think about the future of the industry um I think my
I mean I my stance is it it kind of goes hand in hand with what we were saying
about practicing your art I think if you if you’re really passionate about something and you’re really good at it
um people are always going to want the best of the best and AI isn’t going to be the best of the best um I look at it
in a sense of um tattoos like artwork EV that could probably be done by robots or
AI replicated in some some facility but we I you’re always going to pay for a
really good tattoo artist or the original person that’s done it because because that’s their art that’s their
thing um AI doesn’t own voice over it doesn’t own um people that do their own
drawings and people that want to let it take over they they just then then L it
but the people that feel really strongly about it and really love what they do um I mean you’re those people will always stay at
the top and be at the top that’s how I feel about it that’s really nice yeah I I totally
agree and from my point of view I think that a lot of people are being um uh maybe
understandably but inadvertently fooled by AI because they don’t actually understand what it is yeah um a lot of
people have got this are starting to understand it with uh oops a lot of people are starting to
understand it with um things like chat GPT and the million spin-offs that all
actually used chat GPT even though they’re pretending not to be excuse me
um but um so yeah I’ll start that again uh a lot of people I think are being fooled by um Ai and I think a lot of
people are starting to understand that’s AI saying listen let me explain myself you need to get it you get it no no no
they’re different FAL it was let you let me can I can I just B in here please this is AI let me
what let me tell you about now I think a lot of people are being fooled by Ai and I think they it’s
maybe understandable but the the they don’t understand what’s actually what it actually is and how it
actually works so they’re starting to understand things like chat GPT which um
you know it’s dressed up in lots of different versions but but you can get the fact that it can go and write you
something but if you want detail from it it’s just dog [ __ ] it just doesn’t work and it gets it wrong the majority of the
time and it has to spit out the same style of what it’s doing again and again
and again because it has to because it’s all it knows so if you go and say to it something like okay tell me the 10
different ways I could style Michael’s beard right it’s going to go and give you that but if you say give me another
10 they’re largely similar if you say Okay I want more give me another 10 largely similar until you give it a
different Viewpoint and say okay um styled it with a blond tint and then it will give you something else but it’s
because it can only do things in one way and when it comes to voice what’s really important to understand is that all a
learning model does is it it replicates what you put into it so if you do uh a
very sad and happy kind of voice that’s what’s going to come out of it and if you do a very positive and friendly and
confident voice that’s what’s going to come out cuz and it doesn’t understand what the words mean all it’s doing is
replicating a t h e is I I I put these things out and it says the that’s all it
does but then you go and listen to you know the David voice from 11 Labs on Tik Tok or something and people think oh my
God we’re [ __ ] our voice is going to completely be taken over all our jobs are going to go and yes there may be a
bit of EB and flow in the industry for a while but it’s not going to take over the world because as Gina said what we
want is human performances and quality and we know that is not real so things like the Google Voice like Alexa like
the new open AI voice like the David voice they’re all well and good but what they’re good at doing is doing mass
media updated by computer in real time that’s what it’s useful for it’s actually really good at that what it’s
not good for is taking that David 11 Labs voice and going and putting it on
um I don’t know a Tesco advert they wouldn’t do that in a million years because it sounds like everything else
and it sounds [ __ ] you know I was I I was going to say that’s why I was surprised Matalan did it Matalan have gone um AI with the
radio ads so and the reason why they said they’ve done it is because they they quickly churn out new offers new
lines so they want to be able I’m I’m really I am really intrigued by that and is that in the UK yeah yeah because the
in I think that makes sense I I think it’s a terrible idea because I think the way the reason why
I’m not worried about it is because AI produces subpar mediocrity and you’re
never going to get a a real performance that connects with somebody because it is just monotone garbage however I also
think that like you see a lot on LinkedIn for example there’s a lot of video editors that I follow and they keep posting about these videos that are
produced AI only they’re just tearing it apart and the common theme is that like if you take your professional hat off
for a second and just just be a consumer I don’t want to watch that crap it doesn’t do anything for me sure and I
think that’s I think there’ll come a point where I feel like it’ll go full full circle where people will think I’m
sick of this and when you see something real you see something whether it’s a voice or a piece of content that is real
it will resonate so much more that I think the desire for that will come back in my in my opinion anyway well so let
me give you a counterargument to that um I think if you the example you gave
about Matan install I haven’t heard it and it might well sound crap well yeah sure um whilst you’re looking the I I
think that’s a really good use of AI where for example you go and hire an actor to do a voice model and then you
get the voice model in there so you’re being paid for that but what’s important about it and the reason it would be good is that the guy who’s sat there with his
little terminal who’s boss of you know Milton keen’s Matalan can then sit there
and say on offer in aisle 3 we’ve got crumpets reduced down to 25p today and
they can just press go and it’ll mix that in with the music that’s playing that’s a really good use of AI you know
there’s no sense in paying a voice artist to go and do that at the granularity they need to do it cuz all
that’s happened previously is that you know dairy milk has said that they’ve got an offer for Easter well that’s not
granular enough for a company like that in a particular shop in a particular aisle so that’s that I think is where AI
can actually really work and I think that makes sense but I think you’re also right that on mass the the higher paid
jobs or the or the the jobs where we need some kind of human element then it’s just not going to work at all and that makes complete sense but there’s
also another job like in gaming we’re starting to do more AI models in gaming now because they’re character-based Ai
and that’s a really good thing because you pay the voice actor to do the AI job for that particular game and you can’t
then use that character Ai and anything else because they everyone knows that it’s from The Last of Us Part 19 and it
sounds like it or from GTA 7 or whatever it is right yeah yeah so but then you know and also what’s the benefit of you
doing that then Hugh sorry so you’ve used you’ve done the modeling of their voice for that game what’s the benefit
for you then then you can well the it benefits everyone because let’s say for
example um Grand Theft Auto that I just mentioned right you’ve got the little radio character on there right now
they’ll go and release GTA 6 or whatever it is and the radio messages and stuff is all plumbed in right so they’ve got
you know I don’t know and now is Jo Joyce from car wash or whatever it is that they’re saying but why shouldn’t
they have that voice character basically releasing all the new stuff that’s coming out day to day and using that as
a radio channel mid game that’s a good example of AI and you don’t want someone sat there day after day after day after
day you know just creating different sentences when they can just go and type it in what I’m saying is is that there
are still going to be wild and uh pre-recorded sentences from voice actors
traditionally but now there’s a different type of job for voice actors which is creating the character model so they’re still getting paid for it
they’ll still negotiate usage for it they’re just not doing every single line they’re a model so it’s just an
adaptation of an industry in that particular sense and that is a positive thing because when it comes to using
that model you can’t go and use that model in War Thunder that we’ve just done because it’s a totally different
game and it won’t work so I think that’s kind of from some of sorry no I was just
going to say I I think that um that one of the key aspects of the next 10 years is going to be accepting change and
moving with it and finding opportunity where there is opportunity and looking after your contracts as you go I think
trying to yeah what I was going to say was I’ve I’ve seen a common theme across social media like the fear of as soon as
I’ll play this m on now but the fear of when someone decides to you AI instead of a human voice that that is having
it’s going to have a Snowball Effect and it’s going to just wipe us out and I and I totally agree with your sentiment here with what he said that this is a
sensible case use of AI it doesn’t mean across the board that’s going to be that’s going to work for everybody so
there are going to be things where you have to just accept AI is probably going to be better for them because it’s cheap cheaper and they can get it done quicker
it just doesn’t make sense to use a human voice but there are so many other things that require a human to tell that
story well look at Lizzy’s um voice over the week that that’s a prime example of
what just couldn’t be done using AI yeah ABS but this is the Matalan one anyway so I have to play it through the
microphone at Matan the big sale is now on shop up to 50% off across thousands
of women’s men’s and kids Styles plus home wear too head to your nearest store today or shop via the app and online at
matalan.co.uk Tec supplies selected lines only so I
mean you know it’s not terrible you can still tell there’s some inflections in there that aren’t totally natural but on
the whole if they’re saying that’s the direction they’re going to go in because it makes sense then you kind of get it okay I’m going to say something
slightly controversial here um which is that there
are loads of really good voice artists out there who are hired regularly and
there are some voice artists who are not very good who are hired and end up on AirPlay who don’t perform as well as
that did if that’s an AI yeah that’s 100% AI I can’t really hear it because of the I wouldn’t have known through
this that that was AI through that yeah through that little speaker you’re holding up to the mic I couldn’t really hear it but um all you need to if you go
on Google and just tap in Matalan AI radio ads there’s a whole story about it and then they’ve got there as well but
again you know I mean what’s going to happen what’s going to going to happen is that their customers are going to vote with their feet and they’re going to realize that actually that didn’t
work and they tried it and it didn’t work or they tried it and it works you know but then you’re going to go and put
that next to you know they’re going to listen to what their customers are doing as well and and whoever it is I can’t
think of a uh an equivalent of mat I don’t know B&M or someone are going to go and do this big human campaign or
whatever and all of a sudden they’re going to go have you seen that that b& man that’s brilliant that is eyes as [ __ ] yeah because that’s just how the
world works yeah and that sort of that um Alin what was saying before I think when you when you hear the mediocrity and then you
hear something real the the the difference is going to be phenomenal and I think people will gravitate towards
that because it resonates more but I think also yeah I think a lot of people who aren’t working on their craft need
to really step it up because a a a poor a poor human vo is not as good as
the best AI That’s out there there is that slight shift where if you if you if you’re new to it you don’t work on it
get your coaching in because there are AI models coming out that are better than a a newly found vo that’s not
working on their craft you’ve got to I would say there was always going to be competition it’s your job to be better than it simple as that I’m the time and
before we let these guys go I just really don’t want to know what’s next what you excited about what gets you up in the morning what’s what’s next for
you guys you go that you can say uh can I say uh I don’t know it
depends WhatsApp me tell me what tell me what you’re talking about got my phone in here what were we were talking about
this morning oh yeah um so yes well we can talk about that um one of the things
we have to do is we have to go and um find specific hardware and Tech Studio
Solutions in specific countries um as well I mean we’re doing it anyway because we’re recording so and so many
other things so we were talking about planning a little um pre- Christmas trip to to nip off to the fares there and do
some studio hunting which should be fun oh right um currently that’s what’s getting me up in the morning I thought you weren’t flying
until January was it well breaking news that was an exception yeah but this one
is I I mean more of a jolly I think really than a than a proper work
trip um what gets me up in the morning well I mean do we do we we all have children on
this call do we yeah we all do I mean obviously our children do um like practically come and jump on you mine’s
uh 16 almost now so I’m I’m not the cool guy anymore so they still jump on you in the
morning oh I’m I’m left alone most of the time now I’m all right but good I
don’t know um for me it’s just it’s new challenges within the sphere that we work in um there’s there’s a few
projects that we’re working on that we are developing that I can’t tell you about yet um because they’re not fit for
market yet but I’m I’m really excited about those um and we’ve got a few gigs
coming up that um there’s a lot of koi face there’s a lot of there’s a lot of traveling going on next year if we get
if we get what we want which should be a lot of fun um and the I mean the only real downside to that whole Caper from
my point of view is that sometimes Child Care is a difficult thing to juggle with partners and ex partners and whatever
you know it’s it’s a tricky thing um that aside it’s you know more of the same please it’s been an absolute blast
of a year excellent oh that’s amazing yeah I was yeah I was going to go down
another whole just saying it has been a great year the loads of great stuff going on but um how are you guys finding
it how are you guys finding the market um and we talked a bit about well
it was quite quiet over the summer like I um I think for a lot of Vos it was quiet over the summer I think things
have picked up I kind of uh took a bit of a step of wave things a bit over the summer as well so bit quieted me for
different reasons but it feels exciting I mean maybe again because we’ve had the Vox as well which has kind of renewed
all our spirits but I feel really excited and I feel really determined to [ __ ] smash it um I’m working on my
branding at the moment and because there’s a lot of us out there and it just kind of work out how I be really
authentic and really sell my USPS and all that stuff so I’m excited about that as well L for me it’s been um yeah it’s
been a good year like I had a bit of a quiet slump in the summer but I just did all the other stuff just to uh get
prepared for when to come out the other side but what I’m liking is I’ve been working a lot on that human performance something emotive and I’m finding now
that I’m booking quite a bit of work that leans in that which is great cuz it means I can just keep enhancing it all the time but I feel like I’ve found a
little bit of a niche and I’m I’m getting booked for that work as well so like I’ve got some projects coming out I did the rugby final which came out two
weeks ago which went down so so well and then I’ve got some Christmas ones that are coming out in November which I’m looking forward to like getting out
there cuz again they’re just heartwarming they’re emotive so having that repertoire of work and building on
it it it’s a good feeling you know cuz I put a lot of work into try and do that so I mean it’s I’m in a good place all
right good good for you guys and full circle I mean I I have heard
occasionally some people saying that it’s been a bump year and some people saying that it’s been a bit of a shallow year for them um but as we said at the
beginning of this um it’s somewhere between a million and a milli 500,000
that we spent on vos’s this year and it I mean it I I can’t see it slowing down at all for me and for my sort of like
sphere of vision it is just getting more and more and more and more and the demand is bigger and bigger and we’re doing more and more casting and spending
more with agents and and whatever so um I for those of you who are in a bit of a temporary slump I would uh I would um
Keep Hope because yeah as from what we can see it’s uh it’s still a very buoyant industry amazing and what a
positive note to leave it on Absolut well Gina you got something to add to that no no no no just happy to be here
yeah we’re so happy thank you so much both of you it’s been that is of positive thing to end on in a time where
some people might feel a bit stressed out or Bleak or whatnot that is an incredibly positive takeaway really oh
you’re welcome and thank you for having us yeah thanks so much thank you so folks that is it for season two Jen
should we make can we get a picture with you guys well should we We we’ll do
after talk after I’ll stop talking I’ll stop talking um so yeah so thanks very
much folks that for all the new people that have found us uh for this season we hope you enjoyed the slightly new format
um it’s been great getting to know so many of you via the DMS in person for those that have contributed to the episodes we sincerely hope you enjoyed
it and uh I guess I’ll say watch the space for season 3 yeah thank you very much we’ll see you soon thanks very much
folks see you soon bye [Music]
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