FREELANCERS UNION BLOG

  • Community, Advice

Hallo, hier ist Heike Bachmann

Meet another member! We met Heike at the holiday party last year and thought she had a fascinating story to tell. Luckily she agreed to let us interview her for the blog. Read on. And if you're looking for a voice, you can find Heike through her website. So, what do you do? I am a voice over talent. I record everything from museum audio tours and clinical trial voice prompts to video games, movie trailers and in-flight information. Why did you decide to go freelance? I climbed the corporate ladder for 13 years always feeling inside that it wasn't me. One day, in the middle of the n-th executive meeting I looked around and asked myself if I still wanted to be here in 10 years. The answer was a clear NO - then a voice inside me asked: why then even waste another year? When I decided to leave my corporate life, I immediately moved to a smaller apartment and started saving money to hold me over for 1 year - saving became fun because it meant freedom. Once I had that freedom the plan was to put all my fishing rods in the pond (consulting, coaching, interpreting, voice-overs etc) and see which fish would bite. After 2 years of doing everything that came my way and was in some way connected to my talents, voice-overs was it. **Tell us about one really interesting project you’ve had. ** I got booked to record the German voice over for the "Cosmic Collisions" show at the Hayden Planetarium of the American Museum of Natural History. The original English voice was recorded by Robert Redford who started his narration by saying "Hi, this is Robert Redford . . . ". When I arrived at the studio I asked the producers if it wasn't a bit strange to have a female German voice say "Hallo, hier ist Robert Redford . . . " Everyone nodded and went outside to discuss while I worked with the sound engineer to get the levels right. After a few minutes the producers came back in and asked if I was alright with saying: "Hallo, hier ist Heike Bachmann . . . " Boy, was I alright with that! What tip would you give to a new freelancer or someone who is considering going freelance? 1. As Churchill said: Never, never, never give up! 2. Spread yourself as much as you can in the beginning, whatever is right for you will have the strongest resonance, in the market and with you 3. Trust that the answers will come to you when you need them, they will not be there on day 1 - that is fine! Do you know a lot of other freelancers? Is there a community? Definitely! Once you enter the freelancers' world, you meet more and more - in my case, other voice over talents, or the sound engineers I work with, web designers who need voice animation and so on and so on. Everyone is willing to share information and even work! Before you know it you are invited to each other's b-day parties and their children's Bar Mitzvahs! What’s one thing you do in life or work as a freelancer you wouldn’t or couldn’t do as a traditional employee? Go for a run in Central Park while everyone is working