With an ISDN line a company can do voiceovers from anywhere but most still choose to do it from London. Marylou Thistleton-Smith runs the Voiceover Gallery from her basement in a residential street in Chorlton, Manchester – and she’s a Londoner.
A former TV director – latterly directing inserts for Blind Date – she grew tired of moving around the country and indeed the world, and was casting around for a living she could make at her new Manchester home. Since her first customer in December 2004, the business has gone from strength to strength – now she has worked out how the technology works.
“I’m not big on the whole technology thing,” says Thistleton-Smith. “I spent a fortune on it but couldn’t plug it in. Fortunately a sound engineer lived next door.”
She has however been able to plug into a long list of voiceover artists, offering a range of accents and styles. Famous names among the 60 or so on her books include the actress Claire King, TV presenter Eamonn Holmes, and the fruity-toned cricket commentator Henry Blofeld.
Actors may fancy turning their hand – and tonsils – to voiceovers when they are in between jobs, but they aren’t always the best choice, says Thistleton-Smith. “Actors have lots of time on their hands and are masters of disguise but the secret is to be yourself.”
The company has provided voiceovers for everything from satnav systems to Welsh language warnings on Welsh buses but Thistleton-Smith says corporate work and documentaries are the staple. Recent clients include Sony, Vodafone, Granada Television, MTV and Tesco.
Through a London affiliate, foreign language voiceovers can also be provided. Recently the company worked on voiceovers for a Cartoon Network show that was translated into 16 languages.
Thistleton-Smith insists she couldn’t have set up the business in London, with its harsh competition, the aggressive nature of the people and “no space to breathe”. There are around 40 voiceover agencies in London, she says, and only three in Manchester.
She says: “I wouldn’t have had the business I have if I hadn’t done it in Manchester. I wouldn’t have done it in a million years.”
In her Chorlton basement Thistleton-Smith – with only one other employee – has two studios, one a dedicated voiceover suite, the other a digital dubbing theatre suited to television and radio post production. Having funded the business through the sale of her London house, she is reluctant to disclose turnover but says business grew fourfold in the last year.
“We are going from strength to strength,” she says. “As long as we can keep all the balls juggling then the future’s looking good.”
So much so that she’s considering moving if the right premises in Chorlton turn up. “Fate found me a sound engineer; fate can find me new premises.”
Thistleton-Smith believes the benefits of the BBC’s proposed move to Mediacity in Salford have already been felt, helping reverse a trend for TV production companies to move away from the region. She points to the presence of the likes of Hat Trick and Objective as evidence of strength in the region.
“And when London is flooded by the Thames then we’ll take over.”
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