Introduction
Firstly, welcome if you have been redirected from www.admazemedia.com or www.voicemaze.com. It is all associated and those two sites will reappear eventually, but for now they are deliberately out due to a lot of unsavoury sods utilizing the data base and company operational tactics and making money from it. But that is common around these parts. ‘Hey Geg, write us a cracking jingle”. You do it and then; “Thanks, send us the master’. Unbelievable! They then go and place it on endless TV channels, not only making placement money from the clients, but taking all the royalties as well. You challenge them and they come back with; ‘Ugh!’ Looks of such innocence on their faces and; ‘ Everyone does it, we paid you for the studio work, what else do you want?’ If you would like to hear some of that, then click on the ‘production’ page. If you just want to hear my own voice show reel, scroll to the bottom of this page.
Before we get into my favourite rant about the world’s infestation of the ‘PRONOUN VIRUS‘, let’s get back to me! How’s that for narcissism? Who cares about me? If I had 3 eyes and 17 toes what difference would it make to the price of eggs? It is probably the voice you want to hear and better still the type of product I produce.
You need to know if I can deliver whatever style and energy you require………………. Er! Um! Voice wise… Yeah I can! And by all accounts I’m pretty good at it really. I only voice in English but I’m happy to give it a go in Swahili if you teach me the words. The only set back is: Do you like my distinct and unique tone and ‘can’t quite put your finger on it’ accent? But then, I can sound like Edward Heath if you like……..
As for production; you have to walk a million miles to find better. English/Arabic/Hindi whatever, it is done here and better than they do it themselves or so I’m told. Do you like my ‘in yer face’ productions as slick as they are and some say ‘OLD SCHOOL’ and I’ve even heard say by those intimidated; ‘Not what the people want these days’. For all those instant experts out there, go prance your phoney art around your mother, because she surely loves you and will protect you from the likes of my creative aggression. Snap my beads.
I am still British, Elvis Presley’s love child, gorgeous, a 2.3 metre tall, 22 year old Adonis based in Outer Mongolia with a warm ISDN machine and a rockin’ kick ass studio in which we do all sorts of audio and video recording – and I invented strawberries. Ok, I exaggerate…. Well lied slightly and I have the perfect face for radio and a bit of voice, but the ISDN and the studio bit is true.
I’m actually the Master/Slave at ADmaze Media WLL studio and I write, direct and produce thousands more commercials and programmes than I voice. Not only voice-overs, but with my best mate Allan Jennings, we have written loads of original music jingles and even songs and airline music, you name it.
More than that, you can get the WORLD’S MOST BRILLIANT TELEPHONE & IVR SYSTEMS designed, programmed, recorded and installed. Yes! right down to; just stick ‘em in your system, no conversions or changes needed. That is, unless it is a Nokia-Siemens core/network, then depending where you are, there might be some scum bag area representative managing it who will charge the telecom operator $100,000 to release a ‘special software’ which basically only changes the dot suffix. Oh yeah! Been there, experienced that. But in this little ‘ole shack, we have seen it all, so it comes as a bit of a surprise to operators using ADmaze Media for the first time, when we attend initial briefings and we already know all the lines, the pitfalls, the work involved, the frustrations with pin-point accuracy. This is what you pay for I guess. The fact that the team can spew out a system, be it Ring Tones, to Network from their heads and always to the highest standard, still doesn’t justify the price according to accountants and the uninitiated, so NEVER let them attend!
Of course all cowboy facilities and Agencies think it is easy and profess to be experts. Absolute bollix! It is all monkey see-monkey do and most clients know no better either, so blindly pay up and as cheap as they can get it with no perception of the art involved. There are very few good facilities who do this work well, very few indeed. Why are ADmaze Media award winning systems so good? More than good – probably the pièce de résistance of systems; the aspiration level for the serious and talented and the bench-mark to beat, but for the copy-cats and opportunists, a nightmare hoping that the client doesn’t know the difference. (Are you getting the message?) . Well, the experience of course, but it is all in the direction and scripting but so few attach importance to this work. A bad telelphone or Call Centre system destroys your image instantaneously, yet most out there are simply BAD! I actually hate this work, but I happen to be extremely good at it and few if any can beat the flow and quality, although It is extremely difficult to do if you want to do it well and sound flowing and professional. Yes, ADmaze Media WLL is your baby, but if you want a $10 system and your secretary reading the prompts, don’t come here.
Nowadays, I/ADmaze Media still produce slick, professional video, but to be really honest not as much as we used to and that is deliberate, because video takes up such a lot of time to do it well, yet few perceive the value in the slickness and level as they have been bombarded with such a lot of trash over the years. As with audio, everyone with a computer and a bedroom is an instant expert and it really is a waste of time competing at the lowest common denominator price, but that is what has happened. What is it they say about the ‘sincerest form of flattery’?
Reputation precedes (locally in particular) and before we walk in the door many clients have already been primed with the notion that ‘ADmaze Media (especially the name Geg Hopkins) is good, but very very expensive’. One gets used to this tactic used by the so-called competitors and wannabeez to keep clients away, because once they get on board, most never leave. It is annoying, but tolerated as a sort of back handed compliment . So I am half a dollar more than the rest, but if you cannot perceive the difference as a client, then you will never warrant the price so go for the cheap and kill your image.
The ‘PRONOUN VIRUS‘ is but one phrase I have inadvertently coined in the pursuit of my passion, but apparently I’ve coined a few others as well. which I have heard people use, one being; “AUDIO MAKES VIDEO – NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND’. Again, if you cannot see or should we say ‘hear’ that, then you should NOT be considering a career in this line of work nor be interfering in its progress.
If you care to ask those top names that have worked with me, I’m confident that you’ll get good feedback. When I was based in London (I’m not now), loads of well known actors with good voices (or they thought so) got to hear of me and came knocking on my apartment door asking me to voice direct them. It was quite bizarre because I am nobody, just an acquired, ‘non’ formatted radio DJ known by a few million ‘non’ main stream people. I can’t dance, can’t cook, horizontal jogging is a big iffy and I can’t sing, but I CAN stick good radio programmes together, do voice-overs for myself and have an ear to direct you to near perfection if not perfection itself. AND TELEPHONE SYTEMS. Well at least my mother always thought so, but I think it is true! I like doing documentaries, but so do all voice-overs if they can get the job and they all think they are the best, so why pick me? Well it is like this; I can make even the others sound better if I was directing it and that applies to your secretary if you still want to go that way, so surely I can make myself sound perfect. Cough cough!
Download Geg Hopkins Voice Demo 1
Download Geg Hopkins Voice Demo 2