Voiceovers

We are hearing lots of ads with voiceovers by Mr. Armitage recently: Alfa Romeo, Santander, and especially the BBC’s coverage of the Winter Olympics. RichardArmitageOnline has links to some of them, and you can also hear more samples on his agent’s page, including one for 02, a company that I richly despise. I have read some grumbling about Armitage as ad man here and there. I don’t think that is entirely fair. The man has to earn a living. Especially the people who are clamoring for him to reveal the identity of his significant other and then reproduce should understand that a family man has to have an income, and that he may not be able to get leading roles forever. He has also stated repeatedly that he enjoys voice work, which is perfectly understandable if he is as shy as is often reported of him.

My stance: While I will not listen to these as repeatedly and compulsively as I will watch his acting or listen to his audiobooks, I do think that his pronunciation (especially the very percussive “p” in the Olympics spots [OlymPics, droP, e.g.] is interesting to listen to, as is the way he says “Santander” so that you can hear the closing consonant. Most of all, though, I hope that his contracts for these pieces involved residuals and that he gets tons and tons of them. (In fact, although I have no idea what a flexible ISA is, I’d be happy to click on that Santander ad again and again if he gets a per-click royalty on it. It would be payback for the fact that I have watched the North & South DVD so many times that my per-watch expenditure has fallen well below 50 cents U.S.).

~ by Servetus on March 6, 2010.