Voicing My Complaint

At the beginning of the month I did a two day Voice Over class at the "London Academy of Media Film & TV". The website promised

Key Benefits of taking this course

1  Industry recognised Diploma

2  Work experience

3  Professional Voice Over Tutor

4  30% discount off your next course

5  Build your own voice showreel

What happen during the course (note the grammatical error)

During the voice-over course you will experiment with your voice on various themes, such as; narrating documentaries, corporate videos, trailers for film, TV & radio commercials as well as radio station promos. 

I had my doubts about the Academy's efficiency when I had to contact them by phone to pay the fee. An automated North American voice gave way to live human beings for whom English was a second language, who did not have a record of my application (although I had received an automated email in reply) and who, when they found it, had me down for the wrong course.

Doubts increased when I read the class instructions. "Turn up at the door on Lancing Street only five minutes before the course begins. Your tutor will let you in." Was this a prison? An army camp? No, my fellow-students and I discovered on the wet and windy day as we stood waiting in the street; the grandiosely-named Academy is no more than a couple of hired rooms in an anonymous block of flats; there is no office, no reception, nowhere for students to come in from the cold.

There were three of us on the course, plus tutor Bill (not his real name), replacing advertised course tutor Melinda. Bill was an affable chap, an actor with a wonderful voice - you will have heard him and seen him in old films - but also an actor going through a difficult patch, as witnessed by his unshaven face and the various stories of his private life that came out over the next two days.

It took Bill the first 45 minutes of the day to finish telling us about the problems he was having in his new flat and to start us on a series of vocal exercises. It was then time for lunch. After an hour's break, we took turns to read poetry (Shakespeare's Sonnet 18 and Lewis Carroll's The Hunting of the Snark) before we were shunted off to the computer and told to choose three or four potential pieces for our voicereel. (We queried the poetry, thinking that it might be better to practise on the pieces that we were more likely to be asked to present and were told it was useful to train clarity of speech...)

Once we'd chosen our pieces - with no guidance as to which would be more suitable for our voices or which different styles they represented - we each read through them a few times and decided with Bill which ones we were most comfortable with. We were then sent home. At five o'clock. An hour before the scheduled end of the class.

Next day. A few vocal exercises. Time spent while the engineer discovered that the loudspeakers he needed were missing and had hunt up a pair. Time in the cubicle reading our pieces. I was crap. I sat at the microphone and for the first time since I took up this career, I froze. My voice came out thin and throaty, with no emotion or variety. I wanted time out, to relax, but it was clear this would not suit either Bill or the engineer. I had three shots at each piece (a continuity announcement, an advertisement, a documentary narrative) and I was only happy with one.

But never mind, it was five o'clock, an hour before the scheduled end of the class and that meant it was time to go home...

Jack, one of my fellow students, and I sat in the pub afterwards and agreed that we had not had our £300 worth. There had been no structure to the course (I should know - I was a teacher for 10 years and one of the basic principles was to have a clear structure to each part of the lesson, what should be taught and what students were expected to achieve); no explanation of the differences between the various styles of voiceover and how we could and should adapt our voice to each; too much time had been spent listening to Bill's tales of woe; Bill, a classically-trained actor was obviously uninterested in the crass commercial side of voiceover; an hour had been shaved off the end of the class each day; and so on.

I intended to complain, but I wanted to complete the course - receive my "professionally produced" voicereel and "Industry recognised Diploma" first. The voicereel came. Of the three recordings, only one was usable and I have uploaded it to Casting Call Pro and my website. The other two were bad. I'm sure if I had spent an extra twenty minutes in the booth I wouldn't have produced a perfect voice, but I am also sure that if the course had been more professional and we had been given the time we needed, I could have made better recordings than the ones I ended up with.

Then came an email about the Diploma. I would receive it but only after I had rated the course. I looked to see if could rate the course online so that potential students could see my comments. Surprise, surprise, I couldn't. My comments had to be vetted by Sari Bannister of Student Support. I wrote back that I gave the course 3 out 5, with my reasons for that rating and in the hope that the comments would be posted, together with a reply from the Academy recognising my concerns and agreeing to improve the course in future.

I did not get that guarantee; I did not even get a response acknowledging that I was disappointed. A couple of days ago, however, I did get my diploma - a pretty piece of paper that looked as if it had been designed by a 13 year old girl playing around with ClipArt.

I notice that on the "London Academy of Media Film & TV" website there are comments from students suggesting they have profited from their courses. I will be charitable and assume these comments are genuine, but my experience is that the London Academy is happy to take your money and to go through the motions of tutoring and does not care about the quality of the classes it offers. In future, my money - and I suggest other people - will go elsewhere.