2009 April | Mike Cooper - Voiceover Artist

Mike’s Week on the Mike (18 – 24 April)

Last week was quite a week, with lots of “personal” stuff going on. Fortunately that didn’t get in the way of it being a great week for voiceover work, though!

On Monday I travelled up to Manchester for an all-day session on Tuesday at my agent’s, The Voiceover Gallery. The client was putting together a computer software package aimed at youngsters with dyslexia, the aim being that by using the software they could teach themselves to read and spell. I hope to have more details of this ambitious project when it’s closer to completion, but for my part it included reading out a dictionary of over 3,000 words and then the prompts and cues for the software and tutorials. For a while it looked like a second day might be in order to finish off, but we managed to crack it in a day, which meant I came back on Tuesday night as planned.

This was good news, as it meant I could squeeze in another session for Matinée Sound and Vision in Reading on Tuesday for their client, WhP in France at short notice, and score brownie points with the nice ladies in the office there.

Thursday saw me over at Sky for the first of two appearances during the week: the first session was to record a week’s worth of continuity links for History, which are on air this week here in the UK. If you have what used to be The History Channel as part of your Sky or Virgin package, you’ll hear me introducing all the programmes until last thing on Sunday night. (Sky 529 / Virgin 234 and in HD on Sky 545)

Saturday saw me back at Sky, recording two documentaries for the Crime & Investigation Network (Sky 553 / Virgin 237). They were both Bill Curtis Special Reports, being reversioned for the UK market. One features the story of Sandra Bridewell and is entitled “The Black Widow: A Web of Suspicion”, and the other, “A Killer on Campus”, tells of the shocking massacre carried out by Sueng Hui Cho on the campus of Virgina Tech in 2007. I hope to have transmission dates for both of these programmes shortly and will post them when I do.

April 28, 2009 | Filed Under News | Leave a Comment

London Oncology Clinic video now online

The second of my medical video narrations for the London Oncology Clinic is now online. The LOC, based in London’s world-famous Harley Street, wanted to give prospective patients an idea of what they might expect from the clinic, and the they created a first video “walk-through” in the virtual world of Second Life last year. This was so successful that they decided to make a second video, showing the different types of scan for patients. You can see both videos on the London Oncology Clinic website here.

April 20, 2009 | Filed Under News | Leave a Comment

Mike’s Week on the Mike (30 March – 5 April)

The highlight of my Week on the Mike this week was narrating a two-hour Easter special for the National Geographic Channel. Called “Jesus: The Man from Nazareth”, it gets its first showing this Saturday, 12th April, at 5pm, with a repeat on Easter Sunday morning at 10am. It’s an attempt to find out who the “real” Jesus was, by looking at evidence from the time and comparing that to the stories we’ve come to regard as fact. I found it fascinating to voice, and hope the finished product is as enjoyable to watch. (National Geographic is available on Sky Digital 526/7, Virgin 230, Tiscali 112, and in Ireland on UPC 215.)

Cardiff-based See What You Mean, who I’ve worked with previously, also came to me this week and asked me to provide the voice for a piece they were putting together for Capgemini, and it’s always nice to be able to add another Blue Chip company to the client list!

Aside from the regular Film24 stuff, I spent the rest of this week making phone calls as part of my attempt to move into the ISDN Voice market for commercial radio ads, and I’m pleased to say that’s met with some modest success too. At time of writing I should be on air on radio stations in Northern Ireland, Sussex and Shropshire, with more to follow.

April 6, 2009 | Filed Under News | Leave a Comment

Mike Cooper Narrates Easter “Jesus” Special for National Geographic Channel (UK)

I’m delighted to have been asked to narrate a two-hour special for the National Geographic Channel for transmission over Easter.

Called “Jesus: A Man of Nazareth”, it looks at who Jesus really was and explores some of the truths behind what we’ve come to accept as facts over the intervening millennia.

More details to follow…