Perhaps my most enjoyable media job of all is getting to voice a ‘rad’ ad. By some stroke of luck and accidental talent, I have become the official female voiceover artist for Dubai One TV and lent my voice to epic brands like L’Oreal, Coca Cola and Emirates. For these awesome roles, I’ve learned to tweak my usual ‘girl next door’ voice to adopt a range of tones for movie trailers, corporate videos and radio ads.
Sometimes that means being abnormally breathy while I murmur into the mic for a romance flick or a sensual radio ad for (what must be some pretty remarkable) chocolate. I rapped for the first time and wasn’t even half bad when it came to announce surprise sales for Centrepoint. Then of course, there’s getting into character – whether to impersonate ‘The Gossip Girl’ or encapsulate the trauma and drama of ‘Million Dollar Baby’. And there are times you just gotta get physical! For Adidas’s I GOT THIS campaign, I actually found myself out of breath, yelling my lines while boxing and running.
Don’t get me wrong, a voiceover can be surprisingly difficult, especially if you’ve got a roomful of clients who disagree on whether your voice is at the right pitch or if your intonation is truly reflecting the mood of the piece. But at the end of the day, it’s an opportunity to act and develop a theatrical side of you without the fuss of hair, makeup and costumes. And that’s how I love it… just me and the mic, baby!
