This month, having received nominations for ‘Best Performance’ in both the Radio and Web/TV Commercial categories, I was deeply honoured to receive the One Voice Award for Best Performance in Web/TV Commercial.
I can’t begin to explain how much the award means to me. To think that, out of 5000 or so entries, 15 judges came to the conclusion that mine should receive the award is completely mind blowing, but to get the approval from my peers and some of the biggest names in the industry is incredibly humbling and affirming.
This was my first visit to the One Voice Awards and – I now regret – I only attended the awards dinner itself and missed the conference in the run up.
Travelling up alone, I was definitely becoming more nervous as the day drew nearer. It was only a few days before going that I realised that I hadn’t been anywhere without the support of my family since 2017!
I underestimated the voiceover community, though. So many of us meet online for courses, community and social meets, and long before the event some friends from a Whatsapp accountability group that I’m a member of were reassuring me that they were there to support me and, literally within seconds of meeting up with them we were like old friends and I felt completely at ease. In fact, the entire voiceover community is just incredible – a huge group of positive people bound together by our love of voice. It’s difficult to explain to anyone not involved, and I’ve never encountered another group where everyone is genuinely supportive of everyone else. There is no bitchiness, no jealousy and no back-stabbing, just support and friendship. I wonder if, because what we do has no public face, we don’t really need to pump up our egos.
There are so many new friends that I have made that I realise now that the award is just the icing on the cake. I’m just so happy and fortunate to be building this career doing something I love among people that I adore and who are such a pleasure to be associated with.
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