There’s a bear in the voice over booth?!

“Doesn’t everyone have a bear in the booth?” I reply, slightly puzzled…

Apparently not!  Allow me to tell you his story….

Once upon a time, on her 10^th Birthday, a little girl was given the roundest, most golden, cuddliest bear by her Grandma.  “Oh my! Winnie the Pooh, no less!” She was delighted & they enjoyed lots of chats, giggles & cuddles together.

When she went away to University, he waited patiently for her to return. He moved house with her on many occasions & they talked of their adventures. Following the last move, Pooh entered semi-retirement with a group of other bears. Some of them have now gone to other homes to begin new lives, but Pooh was family. It was decided that he would take up residence in the voice over booth, so he could enjoy lots of new adventures.

The cynical might say, ‘he’s just collecting dust!’. But we know he isn’t. He’s actually performing a number of very important jobs. Even though you might not see him doing it, he’s absorbing sound reflections – clever bear! He’s also a useful bear to talk to. If a script takes his voice over companion off into a parallel universe, Pooh will draw her back, reminding her that she’s talking to him. Cunningly, he becomes the correct audience for whomever the script is destined to be delivered. Not only that, he is a magical bear & allows her to delve into emotions, moods and adventures past, to inform her voice overs today.

Pooh may be a Silly Old Bear to some, but he’s a magical bear to me.

Courtesy of AA Milne, Winnie the Pooh also has some words of wisdom for those of us inside & outside the voice over booth….

“If the person you are talking to doesn’t appear to be listening, be patient. It may simply be that he has a small piece of fluff in his ear.” 

“When you are a Bear of Very Little Brain, and you Think of Things, you find sometimes that a Thing which seemed very Thingish inside you is quite different when it gets out into the open and has other people looking at it.”