Montreal Voice Over Talent Kim Handysides

Montreal is an arts haven. Vibrant culture, affordable living, rich in history and architecture, built on an island and around a mountain. Home to internationally acclaimed dancers, musicians, film makers, artists, fashion designers, writers and actors. For actors, the city fosters two talented communities, one in English, the other in French. Work abounds for both in theater, film, television, and voice over. Within the arts, Montreal voice over talent can find work in gaming, animation, commercials, documentaries, and narration.

Female voice over actor Kim Handysides is among the most prolific of them. With roots in theatre and a background in broadcasting, Kim has been very busy in voice acting (fulltime) since 1991. Available to work in any studio you happen to book, or in her broadcast quality home studio, Kim has narrated over fifteen thousand jobs and would be happy to discuss voice over for your project.

Over a dozen prime ad agencies in Montreal, create hundreds of commercials every year. We stay abreast of changes in media buys, cut downs, versions, campaigns and acting styles, and pump out award winning ads that capture people’s ears and eyes and stay with clients. Commercial voice over actor Kim Handysides has supplied the English voice for thousands of ads in this city. From long term campaigns (like Jean Coutu for over 20 years, Danone, Metro and L’Oreal for 10+ years) to shorter runs and one-offs, Kim has the range and versatility that leaves clients and creatives alike happy they booked her.

Narration is the backbone of voice over work for actors in Montreal and all over Canada and the USA. Whether for businesses, corporations, TV narration, documentaries, museum guides or audiobooks, female narrator Kim Handysides has extensive experience in all these genres. She’s been hired for internal and public facing voice over narration for major corporations including Hydro Quebec, the Business Development Bank, BMO, Novartis, CN Railway, BMS, Genetec, Rio Tinto, Pfizer, and hundreds of small and medium sized businesses. You can hear Kim’s voice at interactive historical sites, and in Montreal museums. She has also recorded TV narrations for half a dozen series, over fifty documentaries and several audiobooks in this great city.

Kim Handysides specializes in voice over for eLearning projects produced in Montreal. The go-to narrator for significant producers of medical and pharmaceutical eLearning, IC Axon and Taimma, barely a week has gone by without Kim voicing not one, but several narrations from the infancy of eLearning in the mid 90’s to its current heyday. Kim can meet you at a studio you book or can work from her own broadcast grade studio where she offers full production of the narrated elements any eLearning program. As well as extensive work in continuing medical education, she has voiced and produced hundreds of eLearning programs for financial, government, retail, engineering, air and space market sectors.

Telephony voice over may not be as glamourous as Cannes nominated commercial work or iMax documentaries, but they are extremely important as the first point of contact for most businesses. Kim Handysides has done telephone voice over in Montreal for hundreds of companies. The first answering service voice on the Blackberry, Kim has also been the telephone voice for the Laurentian Bank and from her home studio produced voice files for California power utilities, a genetics testing company in Seattle and a major pharma company in New Jersey. She also does telephone voice over in Montreal for local businesses in this city or anywhere else in the world.

One of the major supply engines for English actors in Montreal is gaming voice over work. Ubisoft, EA, Gameloft and many others create a multitude of games, most of which use voice over. Kim Handysides has had her share of work from these companies, appearing as characters on Assassin’s Creed, Splinter Cell and Rainbow Six and as a game director on Ubisoft’s My Cooking Coach. In her state-of-the-art home studio she has also self-directed or created voice over characters through remote live direction for Maverick in the UK, Frostburn Studios in Michigan and Avalanche Studios in Sweden.

Animation voice over in Montreal has traditionally meant cartoons, either dubbed or original voice. The city has a long animation history dating from early works produced at the National Film Board to the Cinar years, which produced Arthur and hundreds of other series from Nelly and Caesar to Maya the Bee and beyond. Female voice actor Kim Handysides has worked in several animated series produced in Montreal, including Mona and the Vampire, Town Mouse and Country Mouse and Alfred the Hedgehog. One animated film in which she was the main voice, “To Be” produced by the NFB was nominated for a Cannes Golden Palm. But, animation voice over can also mean something specific technical productions, like medical animations. And recently, with animation technology becoming more accessible, how-to videos, who we are and animated shorts which border on explainer videos.

A type of narration, explainers are short, chatty, usually snappy videos that usually live on company websites. They basically “explain” how something works, why a company exists or the advantages of a new product or service. Kim Handysides does explainer voice over in Montreal either at any of the various studios in town or from her own broadcast quality studio in her home. Usually one-offs, occasionally explainers are produced as a series, like the six Kim did for the Options Industry Council in New York, or the set of 4 explainers for the OHRP in Maryland. These were recorded from her own studio.

With over 30 years of experience voicing commercials and narration and having a keen ability to direct other actors, Kim Handysides offers commercial and demo direction in Montreal. Working primarily with L’Acadamie Les Syllabes, she works with actors who want to create a solid demo to present to ad agencies and production houses to solicit work. Constantly updating her own skills with coaches and courses in LA, New York and elsewhere, Kim is abreast of creative changes in these markets and can help actors design an excellent demo to best showcase their skills.