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Audio Tribute

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The joy of the surprise

Fireworks

     

In these strange Covid times where parties are out of the question, I am increasingly being commissioned to make tribute-style Spoken Portraits as a surprise birthday or wedding gift. To produce them I interview and gather messages from friends and relatives over the phone or internet. I then weave together their stories and well-wishes into a seamless affectionate entertaining piece about the ‘sitter’ and what’s great about them.

I love hearing about how surprised, touched and delighted people are when they get to listen to their Spoken Portrait on the big day. I like to imagine the recipient sitting with a few close family members out in a garden, yet feeling the warm glow of friendship from perhaps 20 loved ones as their voices come in, one after another. It’s wonderful to be able to create such a meaningful, memorable centrepiece for a celebration that might otherwise feel rather low-key.

I’m always excited to get these kinds of commissions. The process is a journey of discovery as I gradually form a picture of someone I don’t know by speaking to people I’ve never met before. On the way, I’ll hear hilarious and unlikely stories and discover fascinating details of social history.

Sometimes people really surprise me. One man began his message for an 80th birthday girl with a spirited rendition of Happy Birthday. Another gave two readings from Saint Augustin, one in English and the other in Hebrew!

It can be a challenge to find ways to incorporate these marvellously left-field contributions. But they always make the feature richer and more colourful. As one recipient put it, what’s so lovely about a tribute-style Spoken Portrait is that it is as much about the person’s friends as it is about they themselves. And in these days of lockdowns and social isolation, how much more we crave their company and love.

You can find out more about our Spoken Portraits and listen to clips here.

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Adam Through The Ages

Presenting a surprise Spoken Portrait

It was such a delight to produce this surprise Spoken Portrait of a very special 50th birthday boy. As he’s a keen historian, I came up with the idea of an affectionate, humorous audio portrait of ‘Adam Through The Ages’. I divided it into tracks called ‘Adam at 10’, ‘Adam at 15’ and so on, and asked friends from different stages of his life to paint a picture of what he was like. As it was lockdown, I couldn’t visit any of them for face-to-face ‘real-life’ interviews. So instead I interviewed most of the contributors over the internet and gathered voice messages from the rest. I heard from 22 people in all, from San Francisco to India. After some very careful editing (657 cuts!) and sound engineering, the final feature came to 50 minutes.

Here’s a 3 minute taster.

And here’s what the birthday boy had to say after his family played it to him on the big day.

What a wonderful surprise! I love it. It’s so nice to listen to as it is as much about my friends as it is about me. You have done a fabulous job weaving all the voices together to deliver great material, and the shape and tone of the editing is brilliant. It’s the gift I never knew I wanted, but will always treasure.

You can find out more about our Spoken Portraits and audio tributes here.

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On weddings and all that love

Couple being showered with confetti


Some personal reflections on the wedding tributes we are producing for couples who have had to cancel their big day because of Coronavirus lockdown

I’ve been to some fabulous weddings of very dear friends and family over the years. But, if I’m completely honest, I didn’t really ‘get’ the whole marriage thing until recently. I think it had a lot to do with being gay and that quite painful sense that this was an institution from which my partner and I were excluded. Then, a couple of years after the laws were changed, we got married ourselves (that’s us in the photo!) and the penny dropped. The big revelation for me was the amount of love we felt on our big day – not just for each other (obviously!), but for and from all our family and friends.

Having had such a wonderful experience myself, I feel huge sympathy for couples who are having to postpone their weddings because of coronavirus social distancing. So it’s a real pleasure to be able to produce Audio Tributes for them.

One example is a couple — both NHS workers — who were due to marry in April. The sister of the bride-to-be approached me about producing something as a surprise gift. We discussed who would be good to speak to and she sounded them out about getting involved. I then set up and conducted recorded telephone and internet interviews with nine of the couple’s closest friends and family, and gathered voice messages from a further five.

After some very absorbing work mastering the sound quality and editing things into shape, the final feature took the form of a 25 minute ‘Lockdown Special’ tribute from people all over the country and even in Singapore. Between them they told the story of the couple and what’s great about them, and sent their well wishes. Here are some edited excerpts:

What struck me most from all the conversations and messages was the amount of love everyone had for the couple. There’s something rather magical about being able to capture that and bring it all together. Here’s what the bride-to-be said about it:

“Thank you so much for putting together the lockdown special. Everyone knew how disappointed we were when we had to postpone the wedding. It really was brilliant to hear my friends and family say those wonderful things. It really brightened up our day/week/month/year! I laughed a lot, I cried a lot, and smiled till my face couldn’t take it!”

I like to think the tribute helped to recreate that warm fuzzy loved-up feeling that the couple would otherwise have had on their big day – as we did on ours.

If you would like to arrange an Audio Tribute for a couple you know, we’d love to hear from you.