Mark Simon

English: "British upper class" (Snob), "Jo'berg" or "Vaalie" (Transvaal local), "Brakpan" (wrong side of town), "Appartheid Politician" (like PW Botha heavily Afrikaans accented English), "Leb" (Lebanese Jo'berger kinda white jo'berg gansta!), " Pretoria special" (Heavy Transvaal Afrikaner accented English), "Capie" (Cape Coloured broken English with Afrikaans mixed in), "Koelie" (South African Indian), "Cavendish" (Cape Town cool snob), "BEE" (Heavy Black SA accent employed in affirmative action jobs), "New South Africa" (Black SA politician), "FreeState Farmer" (White Farmer), Afrikaans: "Malmesbgreeei" (Afrikaans with a strong bray or guttural "gr" sound), "Pretoria" (Strong clear Transvaal Afrikaans), "Boksberg" (Transvaal Afrikaans from the wrong side of town), "Appartheid Politician" (PW Botha Afrikaans), "Kapie" (Cape coloured Afrikaans), "Rooinek" (heavily English accented Afrikaans),

BUT MAN CAN HE TALK WELL! I have no specific voice over experience but that said I have spoken through a microphone for over 30 years as a DJ, Event Host I have conducted many Skype interviews with technical people and financiers. TALKATIVE DJ WITH A RENT A CROUD! I began my DJ career to pay for my studies in Engineering and Design. I worked first as a reproduction artist and graphic designer. Soon had a strong client base in big business in Johannesburg and was pulled into print and design consulting and the world of marketing customer relationship management. At the time holding the two biggest accounts in Johannesburg. WELL BRANDED CLUB DJ! All the while I continued to DJ at night building a strong following as a name brand club DJ. I began hosting big events and handling the sound engineering and set up as well. ALL TALKED OUT! I was burning the candle at both ends at the time and decided it was time for a big change and moved to Cape Town at the end of my 20's in 1994. There I worked as a general manager in a family business while I found my Capetonian legs. CHARITY EVENT HOST After that I mostly only ever DJ'd or hosted for charity functions and fund raisers. I established myself as an online marketing and development specialist. I fell in love with and married my soul mate a local Cape Town girl and we now have two children (a son and a daughter). THE NIGHTCLUB CALLING In 2002 I picked up a client "Dockside" which at the time was the largest nightclub in the Southern Hemisphere four stories high with a capacity for over 20,000 partygoers through it's five different entertainment venues all under one roof. Soon the owner Derrick Gordan a stage comedian and musician himself got to hear about my onstage history and invited me to host his Dockside Lady's Nights which grew so in popularity that he created a combined event every week for both men and woman that was the talk of the town, with both him and I hosting the events. But all good things must end and he resigned and sold up and the new management was not as proactive and soon the club was no more. COMMUNITY PROJECTS At that time I had become heavily involved in community projects and technology solutions to solve community problems in Africa. But this work is mostly entrepreneurial and being in Africa self funded if funded at all. ON THE WRONG SIDE OF 40 & STILL TALKING So I find myself at the end of a five year project to develop and launch an Identity Management and Governance Auditing solution intended to reduce or totally eradicate Identity Fraud and Privacy Abuse in Sub-Saharan Africa called KEPT (kept.co.za). Even though we have developed a solid working solution funds to get the project to commercial launch have not been forthcoming and local bureaucrats have stumbled about delaying everything. WILL TALK FOR MONEY! So I find myself out of funds with a family to feed. In the new South Africa an over qualified white man on the wrong side of 40 just cannot get a job. I have spent my life's savings on developing community solutions to better the life of my fellow man so have nothing to start a business venture with either. And no one can get credit in SA right now. VOICE REDISCOVERED! After recently volunteering to help on stage and do the music for a local yearly Christmas Charity Festival, my wife reminded me that I do have one skill which is timeless and worth offering my voice or more precisely my ability to talk. So here I am Un fortunately I am already committed to various Charity and Community non-profit projects so will not be able to take on any more. What I need right now is some income to keep my family afloat. My schooling took place at the very famous ST.Johns College Houghton, where even though attending an English Private school from a naturally speaking English home, I received a distinction after volunteering to take the Hoor Taalbond Eksamen (Higher Language Board Exam). A prestigious exam normally only offered to first language Afrikaans speakers for bragging writes and as a measure to keep the standards of the Afrikaans language very high. I then Attended two Afrikaans Universities "RAU" and "PU vir CHO" to study Engineering. Served in the South African Defence Force (SADF) for two years in army intelligence. I then furthered my studies at Technikon Witwatersrand studying Design where I used to bunk classes to sneak into the theatre craft classes which were in the same building. While being a self taught DJ I would buy every book on electronics and audio technology I could find. Eventually building my own speakers and amplifiers. I spent my nights in the university of nightlife mixing with name brand DJs and Radio Personalities. But by day I was first a designer then a marketer applying my linguistic skills to influencing big business decision makers into using the services I brokered. During this time I attended many business courses amongst which was a Professional Negotiator course. After this my training has been life and various web based courses on technology and strategy. Alienware 17X and a MacPro Quad Core for computing I have the usual array of sound production software too long to list all FL Studio Producer Edition Apple logic Pro M-Audio Vocal Studio Cubase Nuendo I love tinkering with Software so I have it all for both Mac and PC. American Audio VMS4 controller Samson Studio condenser Microphones. Behringer 12 channel mixing desk. Behringer Vacuum Tube Dynamic Sound Processor (nothing beats the old fashion warmth of valve pre stages) Boss Digital Reverb Boss Digital Pitch Shifter/Delay I have extensive web development skills and a very good knowledge of current & emerging technologies and software. I have very good graphic design skills and am a wiz at Corporate Image Development. I was one of the first people to be trained on Photoshop/Illustrator and Quark Express in SA back in 1989.