Kiwi over artist sweeps London awards ceremony

Toby Ricketts Voice Over

toby@tobyricketts.com 0275486297

For Immediate release. 22/05/2018

Kiwi over artist sweeps London awards ceremony for the second year in a row

New Zealand voice talent, Toby Ricketts returned to the One Voice Awards in London winning 3 out of his 6 nominations at Europe’s biggest voice awards and defending his title of 'Male Voice Artist of the Year.’

Open to anyone with UK citizenship and in its second year, The One Voice Awards were held last Saturday night at London's Docklands Hilton Hotel in front of a crowd of industry professionals, agents and celebrities. Born in Brighton, UK and a New Zealand citizen since 1998, Ricketts has been a full time professional voice talent for over 6 years.

The categories he won were;

Television Commercials Male - Best Male Performance

Television Documentary Male - Best Overall Performance

Male Voiceover of the Year 2019

Previously, Toby had won 4 awards at the One Voice Awards in 2018, including the prestigious Male Voiceover of the Year.

Toby works from a remote self-built studio in rural New Zealand, where he connects via the internet to clients in New York, Los Angeles, London and all over the world – using 4 different accents; New Zealand, Australian, British and American. His Clients include; Netflix, Uber, Facebook, BMW, Audi, Intel, Microsoft, Amazon, Samsung, Cathay Pacific, and 100s of others.

This is the last year that Toby can enter the awards as, together with Sarah McLeod from Bigmouth Voices, he is collaborating with ‘Gravy for the Brain’ – a comprehensive online training platform for voice artists, which is run by the parent company of the awards.

The One Voice awards are one of the most respected and impartial voice awards in the world by having no entry or winner’s fees, and double-blind judging. Hugh Edwards, who is a global casting director and one of the organisers, explains:

“To have belief in the validity of the judging process, you need to be able to see inside that process. We have built our system from the ground up and it has the following criteria:

All submissions are listened to;
All submissions are anonymised (so that judges are not swayed by ‘friendship’ voting);
The identity of the judges is secret (to protect any ‘corruption’ attempts);
None of the judges are aware of who any of the other judges are (to protect ‘collusion’ voting);
None of the judges can see any of the other judges scores (to prevent any ‘historical’ voting).

The idea is to protect the integrity of the awards so that it is incorruptible.”

Toby Ricketts graduated from the New Zealand Broadcasting school in 2001, and started his career in radio broadcasting, working for many stations at The Radio Network and Mediaworks over the years as a studio operator, progressing to a studio owner. He has now been voicing for over 20 years, with it being his full-time profession for the last 6.

He also runs the New Zealand Voice Academy for people looking to start their careers in voice work (www.voiceacademy.co.nz), and is about to add to this with an online training portal for voice artists of all experience levels – Gravy for the Brain Oceania (https://oceania.gravyforthebrain.com/).

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Toby Ricketts Quotes:

“I’m so honoured to again be nominated for 6 awards, and I’m so thrilled to come away with three wins!”

“From my tiny wooden cabin in Northland I can connect live with studios all over the world. Isn’t it amazing that in this day and age a New Zealander can win International awards with a British accent for American audiences!”

“Event though it can be quite isolating – working in a small sound booth alone – I find voiceover can connect me to a global audience of companies and corporations who can use my voice to promote their products and services. These Awards and Conference have been amazing in connecting me with other voices working in their home studios all over the world.“

Sarah McLeod (New Zealand Agent) Quotes:

“Huge congratulations to Toby Ricketts for winning three awards at the One Voice Awards held in London last night. These are international awards so to be receiving international recognition is huge kudos to Toby and his ability to deliver for clients all around the world. His ability to deliver scripts in so many different accents is a tribute to his skill as a voice artist and also his dedication to constantly improving his craft.

These awards give Toby International recognition as not only one of New Zealand’s best voice over artists but as one of the world’s top voice over artists.

As BigMouth Voices we are very proud to represent Toby. His professional dedication to the voice over industry is an asset to us on a daily basis. His versatility, quality of recordings, speed of delivery, and professionalism, make Toby a stand out voice artist. The beauty of recording VO in this day and age is that Toby can be based in his studio, delivering top quality audio for clients all over the world.

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Toby is available for interviews and can be reached for further comment and information at: toby@tobyricketts.com or +64 275486297. Sarah can be contacted at sarah@bigmouthvoices.com or +64 21 411228

High Resolution photos and videos of Toby and his Studio, His work, and the One Voice Awards, are available here: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/gtw3zjx14v4p46m/AAD6V6D0jGYXu15aCQHEDIGBa?dl=0

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