What project did we work on together?

I’ve worked on two audiobook projects with Jamie. The first was to record three chapters of Richard Holliday’s novel ‘The Last Of The Steamers’ as a downloadable preview, and the second project was a full recording of his short story ‘Oranges and Lemons’, for both of which I did the readings.

How did you find it working with me?

Working with Jamie was an enormous pleasure, his studio and equipment were well suited, his process efficient and his company very enjoyable. In spite of my lack of familiarity with the text and therefore the number of mistakes that I made in each recording, Jamie had developed an increasingly slick technique that was fully committed to getting the best results possible, whether this meant considerable effort in editing or suggesting that I retake certain lines, he always ensured that we were able to get the best results possible.

Any advice you would give to me or others considering my assistance?

Jamie is just beginning to find his feet in marketing his skills as a business and so I think this is the area from which he will benefit most with more business experience. His technical skills are very good, and so as far as the recording is concerned his service is excellent. I would recommend however certain business practises to consider for future projects might be; invoicing customers with a breakdown of expected costs, displaying a pricing scheme somewhere public and agreeing a certain time period for work to be completed in.

Typically the customer will put a cap on how much money they are prepared to spend at the start and so the business will only get done as much as they can achieve in that time and has an opportunity to manage the expectations of the customer so that they are reasonable. Perhaps providing an estimate of time that will be spent in editing and recording would be useful so the customer can expect how much work may get done for their money from the outset.

Basically just giving as much information as possible from the start to help the customer make decisions about what they want. Often a contract would also be written up, but it depends how seriously job is being taken, so I’d recommend just discussing it with the customer first, get an idea of how professional the project is. I realise that estimating like this can be difficult at first, but Jamie will develop better intuition at it with every project he completes.

As for advice to future clients working with Jamie, I would recommend that you just be very clear about what it is you want. Ensure that you have realistic expectations and ask plenty of questions to get an idea of what is realistic to expect. Make clear how much money you plan to invest and know how much or little can be achieved with this. After that, just rest assured that you’ll have excellent results at the end.

ELLIOT STAMMERS – Computer Animator