Maggie Walsh

British standard accent

I studied theatre at Northwestern years ago, but found I didn't actually like performing, so I didn't pursue it. After years of working in production, I missed the creativity of acting. I found myself reading books out loud for the fun of it, and listened to alot of audio books. One of the techniques we studied at NU is called 'Interpretation' (I studied with Frank Galati) where you perform books as they are written. I decided to brush up on this skill, and signed up to work with a friend from University who has become quite successful in VO. I learned there is a whole, big-wide world of VO! I spent a year polishing my skills, and learning about the wide variety of work one can do. I love telling stories, so I really love doing narration, but ads are actually really short stories. (I've done alot of work in costume and the point of a great costume is to tell you who the character is within seconds of seeing them. Ads are fun because you have 15, 30 or 60 seconds to nuance all the elements into a few lines). I've been doing alot of workshops with professional VO producers, directors, casting agents, etc - and getting very good feed-back, so it's time to dive in and do it for real! - Batchelor of Science from the School of Speech at Northwestern University (Theatre) - Theatre classes in London - The VO Dojo: 1 year M2M program with Tish Hicks - Fight Club - mock auditions for decision makers from the likes Disney and Saatchi & Saatchi I use Twisted Wave to record in my home studio. I have a Sterling Audio ST51 FET mic, run through a Tascam. The 'Interpretation' side of acting really helps you learn to focus on what the copy says: to make characters distinct. All the various aspects of film and TV I've worked in, boil down to the same thing: how do you tell the story. So if it's 60 minutes of narration, 16 hours of audio book, or 60 seconds of advertising - you have to make the decision that tell the story, and get the message to the audience.