Banks Blog

You’re sitting in the middle row, a group of Voiceoverists are looking captivated by top expert Zebedee Florence from Magic Roundabout Studios. Let’s be clear about this, Zebedee is one of the greats, it says so on his website.

“By marking in bold the focus points on the copy you will easily see where the client needs lifts and calls to action.” There are nods of approval, a ripple of applause and lots of note taking. Be honest, you have no idea. To be honest nobody else attending has a clue either.

STOP – ENOUGH

What you do next takes courage. You raise your hand. Zeb looks at you.

“Zeb, I believe I’ve just missed a valuable point. If it’s ok with everyone else would you please explain in detail what you mean and give a few examples?” You look around the room, waiting for groans and accusing stares but rather than an attack of the negs you see smiles and people with pens poised waiting to expand their, so far, meaningless notes. At this point there is more danger of the speaker looking dumb than you.

How do you determine whether your question or the answer is dumb? Simple! Listen. Apologies, that’s unfair because for the majority of Voiceoverists listening to anything other than something they want to hear is extremely difficult; you need to move beyond that trait and move on quickly. Listen. In the example I’ve used you’re listening for a clear explanation of what the concept means and how to apply it. Think of your most recent job or audition and when your host has stopped talking ask yourself how you could have applied the technique. If you can then Zeb is on to something, if you can’t then there is a chance he is talking garbage. Good or bad, you need to know as it’s your money, your time and your career.

One word of caution; check with friends who will be honest enough to tell you if you really are dumb.

Anyone who underestimates the Chinese nation has obviously never tried Kung Po chicken or seen the size of it (the country not the aforementioned dish). HUGE! What’s more I would guess that the human population is in excess of 25 million!! Yes, really! I am not joking.

What did you think of the above? Bollocks wasn’t it? Welcome to the world of blogging! It’s a license for people like me to parade their ignorance to the world or for so-called entrepreneurs (business-speak describing someone between bankruptcies) to get their lame product/service related websites “top o’ the search engine”.  The latter in particular is a waste of time. All you need to do is include the phrase “heavily lubricated teenager” and you’ll get so much traffic to your web site the server will turn into an onion, pickle itself and then leap onto the plate of a passing Ploughman to supplement his lunch.  Having posted a photo of the newly oiled 17 year old camshaft of my Lotus Cortina I know this to be true.

Should anyone read this, be warned - I’m going to try and blog every day.