The Sayer Hamilton Summer Camp.

Ahh… the lovely sounds of summer. The crackle of the barbecue, the gentle breeze tickling the branches of the trees, birds flying free… and the cacophony of two six year olds knocking seven bells out of one another on the lawn during a closely-contested footy match.

 

Here at Sayer Hamilton, like most voice overs, we live “above the shop.” Several years ago, we looked into the idea of working from town centre premises, but since most of our voiceover work is done over ISDN or down the phone, it seemed pointless to be in a potentially noisy inner city environment when we live in a quiet suburb – a much better start when you need to be fully soundproof. When clients come, we reckon we make cuppas to die for, and there’s always a parking space right outside. So, as long as you don’t trip over the boys’ toys or the cat, a warm welcome always awaits.

 

Working from home certainly has its benefits, and being around in the summer time while the boys are off school is – in one way – a good thing. Now they’re a little older, our twins understand what we do and how we do it. Even better, they’re getting more and more voice work of their own, and proudly have a local authority license to perform as child voice overs (or CVOs). We don’t force them into it, but they’ve always been interested in our work, so it was a natural progression to become something of a “V.O.n Trapp” family (geddit?). Alex and Ben have recently appeared together on a commercial for the new Vauxhall Zafira, as well as for countless summer kids’ activities (so much so, they need a new showreel!) Having them at home this summer has been great – they deliver their lines brilliantly, and – even better – they know it’s important not to start playing musical instruments (or football) right outside the studio if one of us is recording.

 

At the end of one of Ben’s voice sessions last week, I decided I would take the opportunity to finish a quick voiceover I needed to get back to a client, while I was still in the studio anyway. I didn’t realise how funny it was for him to hear me speaking in my “normal” voice, and then switch quite naturally into my “voice over” voice. Of course both the boys have heard us all over the place: on the TV, on the car radio, and even at the inevitable train stations, and they always recognise our “work” voices. I suppose it’s just strange for them – as it is for most people – to suddenly hear us switch into a deeper, slower, more enunciated read, when they’re far more used to us either giggling with or bellowing at them in equal measure.

 

Fortunately (or perhaps UNfortunately) all this happened AFTER I’d pressed the “record” button, so the whole giggle-fest has been saved and uploaded online for all to hear… right here. We may well dig it out again when we celebrate a double 18^th in 12 years’ time… In the meantime, it may help to explain why our summer break (and our sanity) has been saved ever since the boys discovered the “awesome” Football Camp at Bury FC. We’ve had a wonderful summer with plenty of projects to keep us occupied – both work-related and family-related, and it’s been fun to juggle the two. When the boys go back to school this week, we’ll really miss them (though we admit we’ll get FAR more done without them. Sorry, boys.)