Jim Nicholson

Cartoony sounding guys and one woman. Language accents but only if I'm coached. Did a robot voice once which was a tricky bit of production plus an astronaut who uttered the famous words, Houston we have a problem. Can't do Donald Duck but have met many people who can. I can do Mickey Mouse "slurp slurp, haha, down Pluto" and I once did a passable Prime Minister of Canada Pierre Trudeau plus Ronald Reagan but I guess that's like saying I can do Jimmy Stewart and John Wayne, Pilgrim. Mostly, if I'm called upon to do a genre voice I can usually come up with something passable but often it's because there's no one else around who'll take a crack at it. So I'm no specialist. In this department I have friends better than I at doing Donald Duck. Someone once referred to me as the Prince of Ennunciation and to hear the many voices of, uh, me go to seehear.net and find radio demo, a montage of my voices. Although I don't think it contains the 50 foot English speaking monster one of my demos called the Hong Kong Krok has a very large English speaking crocodile in it. I achieved the effect by taping six toilet tubes together and speaking through them plus lowering the pitch a half tone. Whatever you want, it's always fun and worth a shot.

During my time in Hong Kong I was one of the main vo guys in English for agencies. The post production houses used to flog my tapes to clients, the agencies, for which they got to mark up my fee and I was glad they did. I was 22 years in Hong Kong and during that time I was the vo for every major and minor brand, many you've never heard of and many you will never hear of. From several brands of foods, movies, records, cars, cigs for a while and various beers over the years, the list of brands is quite large, including Coke, Seven Up, Pepsi, Lexus, Toyota, Peugot, Jaguar, Hyundai, Toshiba, Sony, Rolex, Cathay, Gillette, Honda....banks, department stores, movie trailers, the list is long and I could go on. My only gripe was that it did much less comedic writing than in Vancouver but I was heartened that I could make people laugh whether Chinese or British, or North American. All those other ads, I did for the money. And who wouldn't. Here's money, just do what you love to do. Hong Kong continues to be a great international city. Someone from New York described the place as like New York but faster. I doubt this having lived there but I don't really know, having never made it to New York, yet. I feel like some kind of reverse Bruce Lee. I did reasonably well in Canada but not well enough to stop me from going broke while receiving awards in the mail. Hmm, that's not Bruce Lee at all. I should know. I narrated Bruce Lee, The Legend. But what I'm saying is, I was the foreigner who went broke in Canada and did well in Hong Kong. Better than I did in Canada? Yes, but not by all standards. I wrote for magazines, DJ on HK Commercial Radio, Voice of the major English tv channel and writer for DDB an international ad agency. Almost all at the same time. The difference between getting picked over in Vancouver and getting picked up in Hong Kong became like the cold of Winnipeg and the heat that I endure here now. Suddenly, I was in demand and earning something that gave impetus to doing more. I, uh, oh, look at that. I can't tell you my life story for a voice over. But for those who want to know more please get in touch. A more complete list of my international clients can be seen on my website. I was in the first rock band to ever perform at our highschool, my band from which sprang The Guess Who. Scared the heck out of our teachers but we got the troops rockin' and they seemed to like us. First radio station age 18 followed by about ten others in Canada and one in America. Winner of about 30 ad awards in Canada, Hollywood Radio & TV Society awards from Hollywood, Gold and silver awards in Asia from the Hong Kong 4A's I like what I do but I love to write comedy ads and then perform it. It's always a great relief when the words lift off the page and become the actuality, the ad, the movie, documentary of the written word. Protools, Source Connect, Neuman U87IA, guitars, keyboards, Korg, Fender, Yamaha It's my voice over studio but occasionally we record music, examples on request. Occasionally we provide original music for ads. I am basically a writer, producer, performer of ads, comedic if I write em. Additional skills? When I was a kid I was a magician, ventriloquist and hypnotist. About the same time I saw my future as a psychiatrist but when I learned that you had to perform surgery as part of your psychiatric background my desire for the horizontal consulting couch waned. I stopped subscribing to Psychology Today. I've also been interested in subliminal advertising and the psychology of color. Both these subjects are good to know for print and the electronic media, especially color which by itself can be a motivational force. These are some of the things that interest me these days. First in Canada where I wrote, produced and performed my way across the country, then in Hong Kong where I was the voice of TVB (local terrestrial) followed by Star World, Star Movies and Sports, History Channel, National Geographic, MGM, TNT and TCM, where in Asia/Australia you can still hear my stuff because they ain't making any new old stuff. I like to write.