Liz Drury Voiceovers' Blog

Happy New Year! It's that time of year when everyone swears they're going to get fit and healthy, and the gyms and fitness classes are packed full of people trying to work off all the cheese and chocolate they ate over the holidays. (I've still got a fridge full of cheese so no point trying to work it off yet ;-) ). It's also the high season for bugs and illness. We've all been cooped up in warm houses with our relatives for days on end, and there's no wonder the bugs get passed around. I came back from Christmas with a sore throat, my kids were sneezing, my husband was sniffling - the dog was the only healthy one (actually judging by the smells he's been producing, I'm not even sure about that...). As a voiceover artist this is the time of year I dread. A sore throat I can just about cope with if I have a short script to record - but a blocked nose is no good at all. Sometimes it's possible to keep working if a client sends me a one off projec

Hi, my name's Liz and I'm a serial networker. I admit it. I like networking! Maybe it's because I spend my days shut in a small box talking to myself that I feel the need to get out and meet people, but I do believe that networking is good for business. A figure that is often banded about is that it takes 6-8 'touches' before someone will buy from you. People need to get to know you and trust you before they'll do business with you - and meeting people in person provides a great opportunity for that to happen. I belong to a few different networking groups and I'm always open to going along as a guest to other groups too. It's impossible (not to mention expensive) to belong to everything, but most groups like to have visitors, even if they're not going to join, because it provides new networking opportunities for their existing members. So, which networking groups do I belong to, and what do I get out of them? Below are a few of the groups I'

I love cats. I grew up with cats and I've always had cats, so when son number one turned out to be allergic to cats it was a bit of a problem... We had two cats at the time and the doctor's advice was, 'when these cats have gone, don't get any more.' James was 4, and he had to wait another 11 years before the cats were gone! We lost Chester last year and although he left a huge furry-shaped hole in our lives, I decided to be kind to James and not get another cat (at least until he leaves home). Chester the Studio Cat However, Chester's passing last year coincided with me being made redundant and becoming a full time voiceover artist, which means that most days I am home alone, talking to myself! I missed having the cat to talk to, and so I decided to get a dog! The boys have asked a number of times over the years if we could have a dog. Their grandparents have a dog, their cousins have a dog, and they wanted one too. I knew however, that the day to da

Last week my eldest son started his first paid job. He's washing up at The Black Bull pub two nights a week , and although he's only being paid the minimum wage for 16 year olds of £4.20 an hour, he's still going to have more money than he's ever had before. On the first night he was there, the industrial dishwasher was broken, so everything had to be washed by hand, and as we have a dishwasher at home, 3 hours of washing up was possibly a slight shock to his system! However, he did also get to fry an egg for a food order, and it didn't get sent back so I think he was quite pleased with himself. Photo by  Catt Liu  on  Unsplash It made me think about the jobs I had as a teenager and later as a student. I did a few different things over the years - some I really enjoyed, other not so much, but they all added to my experience and helped me work out what I was good at. My first ever paid job was at Blisworth Tunnel Boats, a narrowboat hire company on the G

Proud Mum on results day! This week my eldest son received his GCSE results. I’m relieved to say they were a cause for celebration, even though it made me feel rather old to have a child big enough to be collecting exam results! The next stage in his education will be studying for A-Levels at Sixth Form College, and his chosen subjects are Geography, Geology and Business Studies. He doesn’t have a clear idea yet as to what he wants to do as a career – how many people really do at the age of 16? I know I didn’t, and until quite recently I still joked that I hadn’t really decided what I wanted to be when I ‘grew up’. That was before I trained as a voiceover artist. Now I know that I’m doing what I should be doing and I’m loving my career. Not sure if that means I’ve finally grown up or not….. Anyway, I started thinking about the subjects I took at school, and whilst none of them were courses in how to be a voiceover artist, some of them have definitely been useful to m

If you’re the sort of person that likes technical kit, then being a voiceover artist might be the kind of job you’d like. Personally I’m not really very interested in gear – I know what I need and I’ve got what I need, but I’m not someone who has to have the latest gadget! That being said, I do often get asked about what equipment I use, so I thought I would write a blog post about the various microphones and so on that I use in my business. There are a number of different types of microphone, which have different qualities depending on what they are being used for. The microphones used on stage by singers are different from those being used in a music recording studio, which are different again from those used in an television interview situation, or those used for voiceover. For voiceover, the type of microphone needed is a condenser microphone with a cardioid (heart shaped) pick-up pattern. Some microphones have a switchable pick-up pattern and can be changed, for examp