Introducing this weeks creative,

Family Filmmaker and TV Editor.

Sophie Hurry, TV editor and filmmaker, chats about her creative journey, from working on I’m a Celebrity Allstars in South Africa to launching her own filmmaking projects. She shares how challenges—like managing mountains of footage or balancing creative expectations on low-budget shoots—shaped her approach to work.
Motherhood, she says, was a complete transformation. Becoming a parent expanded her capacity for love and creativity, describing it as a “maiden-to-mother arc.” It changed how she creates, thinks, and prioritizes her energy.
Sophie opens up about pushing through hard days: affirmations, mentorship, small resets, and learning to switch from “sprint mode” to “marathon mode.” She also explains the hidden effort in filmmaking—how even a few seconds of polished editing can take hours of care.
For anyone looking to work with her, Sophie’s on Instagram (@SophieHurryFilms), with her website and mailing list launching soon. Whether you’re a parent or just curious about creative processes, her insights reveal the patience, intuition, and heart behind the work.

Q1: Introduce yourself.
A: Sophie is a TV editor (mainly edit assisting and assembly editing) and filmmaker. She highlights her experience in both commercial TV and personal filmmaking, noting the unique pressures of working professionally.
Q2: What is your favorite project ever and why?
A:

• TV: Working on I’m a Celebrity Allstars in South Africa, pre-recorded post-COVID. She loved the location, wildlife experiences, and learning to manage unexpected challenges with large volumes of footage.
  
• Filmmaking: Model calls for her filmmaking business. The second model call was her favorite, as she knew what she wanted, learned patience during a three-month editing process, and was rewarded by a happy client.
  

Q3: What are specific challenges in your work?
A: Managing huge amounts of footage efficiently, high standards while editing, low-budget projects, and balancing creative expectations with limited capacity (e.g., during pregnancy). She describes herself as a “sprinter” adjusting to “marathon mode” for longer-term projects.
Q4: How do you push through hard days and know when to take a break?
A:

• Push through: Affirmations, motivation from her child, mentorship, caffeine or tea, and small resets during the day. Reframe doubt positively.
  
• Break signals: Task paralysis or physical signs like droopy eyes indicate burnout. Ignoring them can lead to overwork.
  

Q5: What do people often misunderstand about your work?
A: Editing takes far longer than it appears—small moments require intense care. People often underestimate the time, effort, and creative intuition involved.
Q6: What moment changed everything for you?
A: Becoming a mother. She describes it as the “maiden-to-mother arc” or “mother-maiden-crone” transformation. Motherhood expanded her capacity for love and creativity, drastically changing how she approaches life and work.
Q7: How can people hire or contact you?
A: Sophie is on Instagram (@SophieHurryFilms). Her website will launch soon, and her mailing list is active. She emphasizes patience and that building a professional presence is a marathon, especially while parenting.

If you are able to subscribe to me on YouTube - I would appreciate that so much.
​Thank you.

Z: Hello everybody. Today we've got Sophie, and we've also got Baby on speed dial just in case.
S: On speed dial.
Z: This is ready to pipe up when she, uh, yeah, we're going to get to a really poignant moment and tell me more about that, and she's like "MUM!" She probably heard that, to be fair. We can't laugh too loud just because it wakes her up. Um, welcome to the third one. Thanks for being here.
S: Of course.
Z: I forgot to send you them ahead of time. Or did I?
S: No.
Z: No. Are we just going to freeball it today?
S: Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's what I'm doing most of my days at the moment anyway. So, I'm glad to hear it.
Z: I mean, is there any change from the rest of your life?
S: No.
Z: Nice. So, introduce yourself first, 'cause I think that's probably the best way to start.
S: Okay. Hi, I'm Sophie. Uh, I'm a TV editor and a filmmaker.
Z: Beautiful. I think I love that. We'll do the drop-in underneath in the description bit—all the places you can find Sophie.
S: But, um, many, many places. Many places. Don't Google me. There's stuff from my past that, you know, like--
Z: You make it sound like you've killed somebody.
S: Yeah. There's just, you know, those days of the internet where you were just posting anything willy-nilly.
Z: I think they're sweet.
S: There's some sweet stuff. Yeah. Some of them's really sweet.
Z: What do we not know about?
S: I don't want to mention—this isn't weird, by the way—it's just like a certain clothing website that we used to post outfits.
Z: Oh, and you used to take photos of--
S: Yeah. And I cannot get rid of them for love nor money because I can't remember my login details and I contacted customer support like, "Please take these photos of me away."
Z: Is the one where you would put like a mood board with all the—possibly. Anyway, the properly posed and a little--
S: Yeah.
Z: It's just baby Sophie. It's just baby S. She's just doing her thing. It's just baby S. It's just that the digital footprint for our generation is vast. Wild.
Z: Well, we'll go straight into question one, which is: what is your favorite project ever and why? It's a biggie. What's your favorite?
S: I see why getting these in advance would have given my brain cells time.
Z: Would you have had the time to look at them?
S: True.
Z: Fair.
S: Absolutely not. Fair. Um, okay. So, I suppose I can answer in two different ways. Obviously, I've got two things going on in the sense that I've got my TV work, which—I say I'm a TV editor, but predominantly my career in TV has been edit assisting, assembly editing, like junior editing. I was working my way before I had Revy to being an editor. But that's what I say I am. And obviously the filmmaker side of it, although it's been a part of me since very, very young, I probably wouldn't— not that it's not all valid—but I wouldn't count it in a sense that as a practice I probably would only count the recent project with my business as like my filmmaking. It takes on a different weight when you're doing it for work.
Z: Yeah.
S: When you're doing it for money, it's real. You know, it's always real. But it just definitely takes on a different kind of pressure. Anyway, I'm not answering your question. It's fine. I feel like the whole thing's going to be like that, and I'm really okay with it. They've all been like this so far.
Z: 100%. And I'm here for it. So, favorite project and why.
S: Okay. So, I would say when it comes to TV, there are two that really jump out at me. One of them was when I was media managing, which is kind of wrangling all the cards on location. I did a lot of location work while I was traveling abroad. For one, I did "I'm a Celebrity Allstars." Normally it's live, which I don't do, but for some reason, post-COVID fallout, they did one in South Africa because they wanted it pre-recorded just in case. So, I ended up being on that. It was actually a really difficult job because they hadn't really done it pre-recorded before. There was a hell of a lot of footage they didn’t anticipate. We were told we were going to get a certain amount of stuff to deal with and we got a totally different amount—a lot more. So from a day-to-day perspective, it was a very demanding and difficult job. But the location was incredible. I was there for my birthday, went on a safari—well, they call it game drives in South Africa—and visited an elephant sanctuary, fed elephants, got close. It was a sanctuary. That opportunity of being somewhere so different with people so different was just amazing. I did a little jaunt with my friend afterwards to Cape Town. So, from a life experience point of view, less about the actual job—it was challenging—but what it afforded me was unlike anything else.
For my filmmaking, I've done a lot of model calls recently.
Z: What's a model call?
S: So a model call is when you basically offer your services for free in exchange for the rights to use what you create for advertising, promotion, etc. They're getting a free product, but I can use it. Especially when it comes to children and babies, some families might not feel comfortable with sharing the work. I need these model calls to show people what I can do.
Z: Yeah.
S: I'd say the second model call I did was my favorite. The first was beautiful, but I was nervous. By the second one, I knew more what I wanted and came away feeling really good. The edit was long, over three months, because Revy had a sleep regression, classic four-month-old stuff. Some days I just couldn’t create. Best thing was to rest. I’ve struggled with switching from sprint mode to marathon mode. I want everything done now, but now I’ve learned patience. That time actually helped me reflect, and fresh eyes are valuable. They were so chuffed with it when I gave it to them—they sent me flowers. Amazing family, all good vibes.
Z: I think you've answered question one and two and started to add in little bits of the others as well.
S: Checking baby monitor—she's in there, not crying, so we're good.
Z: Um, for South Africa, what was a specific challenge?
S: With media manager work, it’s not really creative. We were inundated with camera cards—SD cards full of footage. There were GoPros everywhere. We had to back up, ingest, sync, LTO archive—all before the cards could go back. They didn't anticipate that amount of stuff, yet expected the same turnaround.
Z: No wonder you say you're a sprinter, having to get used to marathon mode.
S: I was incredibly good at it. Being a sprinter made me efficient, got creative stuff done faster.
S: A very challenging project—I was pregnant, editing a development project. Shot loosely, low budget. The producer had high standards, wanted polished edits for the channel. I had limited mental capacity due to pregnancy. Very challenging, but rewarding. I walked away thinking, “I can edit a full show.”
Z: Question three: how do you push through on hard days? And question four: how do you know when it’s time to take a break?
S: Push through: affirmations help. My kid is motivation. Remind myself I’m doing this for her. My editor friend and mentor passed away—what would he do? Embodying him motivates me. Caffeine or tea helps too. Small reset points in the day are valuable. Pushing through doubt: replace thoughts like, “What if it fails?” with, “What if it goes right?” Anxiety is worrying twice.
Break signals: task paralysis—ADHD brain stacks everything at once. I freeze when it’s too much. Droopy eye tells me I’m reaching a drain point. If ignored, like during my dissertation, it leads to eye twitching—a sign of burnout.
Z: -Sophie brings in Reverie, her baby daughter-
S: Seven and a half months, and she almost dribbled in my mouth—a turning point for me.
Z: What do you wish people knew about the process?
S: The smallest things take the longest. A 3-second shot in editing can take hours. You feel what it needs, you can’t always see it. People don’t understand the time, value, or effort to get it right.
Z: Last question: what moment changed everything?
S: Her being born—obviously huge. Every mother or parent would say that. From a creative standpoint, it was like going through a portal. The maiden-to-mother arc. You go through this portal and it's like the maiden to mother arc, isn't it? And you literally do transform and change--
Z: This is the tryptic thing. The mother maiden crone. I'm not even kidding. – talking about a ring –
S: So many synchronicities. Look at it. Yeah. So, from a creative standpoint, I forever changed, but I also think, um, because that's the obvious one and I, I, I know me and I'm trying to find—I'm trying to get you a juicy kind of like, you know, hidden uncovered one that's less.
Z: Sometimes there isn't. It's fine.
S: It's true. Sometimes there isn't.
Z: There's not been like I even wrote in the original question that it doesn't have to be anything big. Like that's pretty big.
S: Well, that's the thing and almost—it's a classic me thing. It's like I don't like to go for the big obvious stuff. I like to go for the nuance and I like to go to the more specific things that people might not know, you know? All right. I like to uncover. I like to uncover and have my hair pulled, obviously.
Z: Um, she wants the long hair. She's wearing it like a wig.
S: She is wearing like a wig. You'll get your own hair soon. I think I don't think I can think of one. I think it has to be that the moment she was born, I changed as a person. I felt like I was walking around with my heart working at like 5%. And you don't realize, you think that's your 100%. You think, I've got all the love I can give. I've got all the creative energy I can give, you know, and then you create a human who loves you unconditionally and suddenly you've got 95% and it's amazing and it's incredible. So yes, I've never been—I've never felt so creative. I've never had so much creative energy. Um, and how I create has changed as well.
Z: Yeah, exactly. So, I think we'll have a soft end, which is just if people want to hire you for family film, where can they go? And if they want to work with you in terms of editing, how can they contact you?
S: So, I'm on Instagram, SophieHurryFilms, and I'm hoping that in the next few weeks, like the end of September, my website will be ready. So, I say to people, go to my website, which feels a bit fraudulent right now because my website's not ready.
Z: No, because your mailing list is on there.
S: And that's—my mailing list is on there. It's so true. Yes. So, I haven't… Yeah, we're waiting. Yeah. Sign up to my mailing list on there. Um, but like marathon, not a sprint. I had all these expectations that when I would start opening my books that my website would be ready, everything be shiny, complete, perfect. That's not how life works. It's definitely not how things work with a baby. So yeah, my website and my Instagram and my email, which is [email protected]—just the one hello, which, not too hurts. Don't worry, I just wanted to add some little bit of jazz to it, didn't I? Yeah. A little bit accent. Yeah.
Z: I think it's the end.
S: I think it's the end. I think too. Yeah.
Z: Thank you, Sophie. I think it's the end. Thank you. Thank you, Revvie. You've been wonderful.
S: You've been catching a vibe.
Z: She's been catching a vibe. You've been catching a vibe. I will put all of the stuff underneath and go check out her stuff. Go sign up. And you might not have a baby, but somebody you know might be having one and those—that time we were talking to Chris and he was like, time is going very fast, so anything that we've got to kind of encapsulate that.

Introducing this weeks creative,

Voice over actress and owner of Coopers Cookies.

Caitlin's Social icons:

Listen - Caitlin's voice over work with Great Big Story.

Zoe Davey  
(to Cooper the Dog) Hello, hello, boy, we're holding feet.  - Swoosh- Right? Love that. I'm gonna shake the weird out.

Caitlin S  
That feels good.

Zoe Davey  
It's a completely normal thing to do on a Tuesday, 

Caitlin S  
We were just talking for like an hour. Now that there's a camera 

Zoe Davey    
Secretly recording...
We've got the same eight questions that we're doing with Chloe. I don't know whether to look at the camera now, because I wasn't in the first one, I'm not going to I'm gonna look at you. That's fine. Um, hello. Welcome to your living room. My name's Zoe. What's your name? 

Caitlin S  
My name's Caitlin. 

Zoe Davey 
What do you do? Caitlin?

Caitlin S  
I am a voice actor, and I also sell some baked goods in my spare time. 

Zoe Davey  
They are delicious. What is the name of your baked goods company? 

 Caitlin S 
We are Cooper's cookies.

Zoe Davey 
And who is Cooper?

Caitlin S  
Cooper is my lovely Greyhound that is sleeping just off camera. 

Zoe Davey    
Can he eat any of the cookies? 

Caitlin S  
Absolutely not. 

Zoe Davey   
Can eat any of the ingredients of the cookies?

Caitlin S  
He can have things with flour in it. Baking soda is apparently fine for dogs. I make him a cake on his birthday, and it's the ingredients are just apples, flour, peanut butter, egg and baking soda. 
 
Zoe Davey     
What does baking soda taste like? 

Caitlin S  
Nothing.

Zoe Davey 
Well, I feel like it would be-

Caitlin S  
Pretzels. To me, taste very strongly of baking soda, and they're delicious. Yeah, it's just like that, um, there's ever a baked good with too much of it in it, you know? Okay, because it's very chemical, yeah? 

Zoe Davey  
Like, kind of an almost spicy, 

Caitlin S    
yeah, yeah, exactly, yeah.

Zoe Davey    
Okay, interesting. 

Caitlin S  
My first batch of cupcakes ever tasted like pretzels, because I've got too much.

Zoe Davey  
But now, now they're fantastic, and I love them. And I love them, right? Let's start. Then we're gonna get straight into the questions, what is your favourite project you've ever worked on, and why? And we've said at the start, these questions can be to do with Voice Over acting or Cooper's, whichever or both. Take it away. What's your favourite? Maybe your favourite of each one, have you prepared that in your brain?

Caitlin S  
 I mean, to be fair, with cookies, I wouldn't say 

Zoe Davey  
What's your favourite cookie. Okay, we'll just go with that one. Red Velvet goes down very nicely. 

Caitlin S  
Red Velvet is a fan favourite, and it does very well on the market store,

Zoe Davey  
Because it's right, it's red as well. Yeah, it's delicious.

Caitlin S  
My current favourite. And whenever I do a new flavour, it becomes my new favourite. So my newest flavour is a White Chocolate Espresso. So it's got browned butter, white chocolate chips and espresso powder. So it's like having, like I've been trying to recreate the taste of chocolate I had at Hotel chocolate one time. It was a white chocolate, coffee and hazelnut That sounds nice, truffle, and it was the best thing I've ever eaten. And I've been chasing that high ever since.

Zoe Davey  
I'm salivating little bit, just hearing...

Caitlin S  
I don't know if they sell it anymore, if I just haven't looked for it properly. But it was my favourite thing I've ever had. And so white chocolate, coffee, a little bit of cinnamon or hazelnut is like my favourite flavour combination.

Zoe Davey 
Wow, come at me. Come at me with it. When you finish, what's your favourite voiceover thing you've done that? 

Caitlin S
That one's hard.

Zoe Davey  
Why?

Caitlin S  
Because, like, I like, Okay, I would say my favourite is working with Lego

Zoe Davey  
Okay, 

Caitlin S  
Because, and it's not just one project. I've worked with them for a couple of years now, and I think, yeah, okay, they're my favourite because I've worked with them for a little while. It's the same team every time, I always work with the same director. His name is Remy, 

Caitlin S  
Remy the Rat?

Caitlin S 
He's very much a man, right? I'm sure there's a ratatouille in a Lego set somewhere. 

Caitlin S 
Lego set there must be. 

Caitlin S   
They're always like they're my favourite because it's it's all educational content for kids. Most of it is and it's written so well. The director is always so clear on what we need to accomplish, and it's just a great time. We do it over video calls each time. I have some more coming up in August and October this year, and they're just great to work with, and they keep having me back, which I'm so grateful for. And I get to see the little videos at the end where, and it's all done in Lego, which is, 

Zoe Davey 
Wait, are you know, like a little Lego person?

Caitlin S  
I'm like the narrator guy yet, but we talked about that. Yeah, let me see if I can work that into my contract.

Zoe Davey  
Please do - and a little greyhound!

Caitlin S  
But, yeah, we talk about the environment and climate change, and the one we're working on currently is about how to make places accessible. So if someone say, someone who has a seeing and sight impairment, vision impairment, that's the word. I was like, there's a word, there's a word. Yeah, someone's visually impaired. What about this public park could we do to help them enjoy their experience there? Even better, and it talks about how they can put Braille on the map, and they can put different textured walkways and stuff so people know where they're going 

Zoe Davey  
And that's what Lego do?

Caitlin S  
So it's educational videos to help kids start learning about stuff like that.

Zoe Davey  
That's cool. 

Caitlin S  
And then the idea is they want the kids to get involved. They were like, We need your ideas, because you're a person with great thoughts that should become, you know, things. And yeah, it's encouraging them through play to sort of think about real world, not real world issues, but ways we can make the world better for everyone, from, like, a child's point of view, 

Zoe Davey  
And they have great ideas as well, wild and wacky ones. 

Caitlin S  
Yeah, it's I like Lego did a segment on TV once with it was comedians sat down with kids to, like, build Lego and talk about issues in the world, and their responses were fantastic. But yeah, that's my favourite.

Zoe Davey  
Beautiful, lovely. The second one is still to do with that. What were the biggest challenges that you faced on that project? If there were any?

Caitlin S  
I just say whatever challenges come up, working in voiceover in general, just things like, sometimes you've said a sentence so many times you can't think of any other way to say it, and no one else in the chat can either. But like you all, it's when you know you're not getting it right, but like you've exhausted all other options, but at the same time, you do always get there in the end. So I guess it's just the challenge is, especially with these texts, the challenge was to not make it too pandering to kids to you never want to talk down to them. So it was striking the balance between having enough emoting and undulation in the voice and to make it interesting to listen to and keep the child's attention, but also you don't want to become sing songy, or you don't be Miss Rachel, or you don't want because there are some that are targeted towards older kids too. So, but what's great is when we when we nail it, everyone in the room goes, Yep, that was it. Let's just do that 16 more times. But, yeah, I would say that's maybe the hardest part, but even, but you will come across that, no matter what project you do, you always get there in the end, so.

Zoe Davey
Beautiful. I love that you use the word undulating as well. 

Caitlin S
I don't even know. I knew that word.

Zoe Davey  9:54  
I might shut the window. Yeah, we might die in here. But just in case, I don't know. In case. I can't edit cars out because I only want to hear you. Yeah, that's fair. And for some reason today, the street be my streets. 

Caitlin S  
Normally dead quiet. 

Zoe Davey  
If we get a snoring dog, I see you snoozing. Oh, snooze.

Zoe Davey 
She's back, right. Let's go to question number three. Okay, so this could be a trick question. It's not um, how do you push through on a hard day? 

Caitlin S
It's hard on a hard day. I don't know. I really just have to, like, remember, it's not always going to feel like this. That's the big thing. Is, everything is temporary, right? The good stuff and the bad stuff. So I like to acknowledge that and then move from that place of it's not going to be like this forever. So if you can just carry on, and then if I can take a moment to stop and look at what I'm doing and simplify it, because something's happening, like, I'm very I fall into the trap of, like, making things more complicated than they need to be, because then I'm like, but then I could do this and then, but if I do this, I have to do this, and then I have to do and that's where I think I you know, I don't help myself, because then you get frustrated, and then your energy is up here, and you're just, you get, you know what I mean. So if I can stop and go. Actually, what has to be done? Which do I have to get done in the next hour, next few hours today? Oftentimes I can cut away whatever dumb stuff I was doing and just refocus back in and then sometimes I have to say, You know what? It's not getting done today, and that's okay, yeah. And you have to give yourself a lot of grace. But at the end of the day, would you rather put forward a product that you feel good about, or would you rather rush through something and not be happy with it, and then have to put it out. And then you're like, I know I could have done that better, which sometimes that's not always popular. You have to just do it if it was shit because. And oftentimes, you know, you'll get feedback that was shit, and you'll go, I know that's okay, but yeah, on a really hard day, have more coffee also. I'll be like everything's falling apart. Coffee Break. Let's add caffeine to this fire.

Zoe Davey 
Yeah, I agree with that one. Amazing number four, how do you know when, oh, it goes on nicely? How do you know when it's time to take a break?

Caitlin S 
I thought if I've started cursing at myself, like, I don't want to be too expletive on your channel. 

Zoe Davey  
It's alright. Did you hear Chloe? She's like 'can I swear?' and I'm like 'Absolutely - go ahead'

Caitlin S
It's when I'm like 'fuck this'. I don't want to do this anymore. I don't want to be a voiceover. I don't want to do and I like, crash out. Basically, that's when I know now I shouldn't let it get to that point. But because I'm so much like, I will just put my head down, and if, even if, like, something's upsetting me or whatever, I will just keep going. Because I'll be like, if I can just get through this. But it's never just No, if there's always something else, 

Zoe Davey
Something else is coming.

Caitlin S
And then, yeah, then I'm like, I want to throw my laptop window.

Zoe Davey
So that's like, that's the end of your thermometer. Okay, I'm done. What do you think your mid thermometer is? You know what the warning sign is there to be, like, I should take a break. 

Caitlin S 
It's when I've like, I've like, dropped, if I'm baking, I've dropped something, and I get unreasonably angry. That should be my warning sign of, let's take a moment thanks. Get out of the kitchen because it's hot and you're sweaty and you're not allowed to open the windows because it's against health and safety code, like, go pet your dog, yes, and then wash your hands. And then you can get back to it that, yeah, when something very minor certainly happens and you get so unreasonably fucked off that's the warning sign.

Zoe Davey    
I agree. It's not that I'm baking. But if you're, like, in your kitchen, if you had, 'are you doing these things?' And that's just a picture of you like -swears aggressively at oven- at a cake - if you're doing that, then-

Caitlin S 
 I've done that to my oven. Like. 

Caitlin S
Take a break, because what is it? What is it you're making?

Caitlin S  
A cookie; which is meant to be full of love and enjoy?

Zoe Davey  
They could tell that you're baking the hate in. Imagine.

Caitlin S 
Someone's like this taste, this taste..

Zoe Davey
I'm getting "annoyed". Number five, what made you say yes to the first opportunity that you got? So either or both, whichever.

Caitlin S  
Um voiceover I remember, I guess the first opportunity was from Matt. Matt's my husband, and he was already working as a voiceover artist, and we picked the flat we were in in London because it had a closet that he was like, I'm gonna turn this into I'm gonna get in there. I hadn't seen the apartment, and I just had to trust him that this is going to be really worthwhile. And he was right. It was. It became a major source of income for us both during the pandemic. So we moved in, literally the day that my work in London shut down because of COVID. Yeah, we were like, well, I guess we're here. But a few months before that, Matt had said, I think you'd be really good at voiceover, 

Zoe Davey 
He was right.

Caitlin S 
And at the time, at the time, I had no concept of voiceover beyond video games and audio books, and I do both of those things now, but at the time, I was like, well, I won't be good at that, because I can't do the different accents. I can't do the different funny voices, which you know, Matt can like to a very high degree of skill as well. So that was my only frame of reference. But so when he was like, No, you can there are commercials you can do. There are e learning modules. Like, there's telephone. It's called IVR. Like, if you call someone and you go, Hello, welcome to Google, or whatever.

Zoe Davey
This I was just thinking, because there's so many times that you hear a pre recorded thing that you don't even pay attention to you, like you get on the tube and it's like,

Zoe Davey
Yeah, that's a person. Yes. You get on the light, yeah, although there was a really big scandal with royal Scotland rail. Oh, it's a whole thing. They paid for an AI model of a voice, a Scottish voice actress, to so they paid the company. They took the model from. They did not pay her, and she found out, because She heard herself on the train. Not only that, oh my god, it's bad. It sounds shit. And she's like, Not only have I been snubbed of money, and someone's closed my voice without my permission. Everyone's complaining that I sound shit, and it's not me.

Zoe Davey  
It's like some black mirror stuff. She's on a thing, and you hear your own voice. 

Caitlin S 
And that's what's so hard right now, is there's really no legislation to help her. Equity is trying really hard, but at the end of the day, Scottish rail doesn't think they've done anything wrong because they paid the AI voice model company and the voice model,

Zoe Davey 
They know they've done wrong. They're just not admitting to it. 

Caitlin S  
That's just it. And if, personally, in my opinion, if you saw what you did was wrong, it would say a lot more about your company. If you because she was like, hit me up. If you want me to re record it, you'll have to pay me, obviously, but I will be willing to work with you. They, they should probably take that offer if I want this. But, um, yeah, anyway, the opportunity, what were we talking about

Zoe Davey    
I think it was the first opportunity. So Matt bought a closet. Yeah, you got in it.

Caitlin S  
So that set up the booth in the closet. But he also, for my birthday, paid for me to get some demo reels done, which was honestly the best thing he's ever done for me. Besides, you know,

Zoe Davey   
Marry you.

Caitlin S
Besides that, he which demo reel is basically examples of you doing so I have a commercial one. It's me doing different types of commercials. I'm a narrative one, which is like me doing, there's an audio book at the end. There's like, don't tell the bride an excerpt to see what you would sound like. 

Zoe Davey  
What a programme

Caitlin S  
I loved it. So, yeah, I had, I did those two, and he paid for them, and I worked with a great guy named Nick. He doesn't do them anymore, but I think he still is in the audio production world in general, which is great because he's got a great gift for it. He became very high in demand shortly after that, and his rates went through the roof. But I set up a Fiverr account. I applied to a bunch of voice agencies. And I got my first job through Fiverr in October of 2020, and it was for a company called Fi-serve. I remember this, and they're just a financial company, um, they just needed a short video to have on their website. And I did it, and I sent it to him. And this guy. Was like, You should be charging way more for what you're offering. And that was the moment I was like, Oh, I thought might be good at this. And I'm so serious, it just exploded from there. And it was like, I could, you know, quit my job at the hair salon I was working at, and I felt really aligned with what I was doing for the first time ever. It was fantastic. Like, who knew you could make money doing something you like?!

Zoe Davey 
Talking, just talking about reading and talking.

Caitlin S  
I learned. It's a skill. Like, although sometimes you would think, I don't know how to read based off of my outtakes or that stuff that gets edited out, Matt will leave little notes for me when, if I used to ask Matt, I used to pay Matt to edit my audio books because I was bad at it, and he would leave me nice little notes, like, did you have a stroke?

Zoe Davey    
That is not a 'nice little note'.

Caitlin S   
Or, Oh, I see you were drinking the good wine this evening in places where I need to, needed to go back and edit the voice. But very funny. It's love 

Zoe Davey
That's love. 

Caitlin S  
That is love. 

Zoe Davey  
What about cookies? 

Caitlin S  
Um, I think I've made a bunch of cookies for it was when I make I make cookies for Christmas every year, and I was gluten free for a long time. Sucks. Don't recommend it if you don't have to do it, if you don't have to. But I found a gluten free cookie recipe my almond chocolate and cookies that everyone's obsessed with. And I was like, Oh, I wonder. But at the time, I was like, it would be way too expensive to have to make every cookie gluten free. So I was like, so if people want them, they can just ask me maybe take 10 pounds from them or whatever for parties or whatever. But it was when I was no longer gluten free, like, I had the blood test done and everything. It opened up a whole new world of baking opportunities. And that's when I was like, maybe I could sell cookies. I could give this a go. And, yeah, it's been nice. Like, I think the first so last year was the first year that I did it, and it was fantastic. I've had a lot of support from my friends and family, and I did a bunch of markets and stuff, and I very much lost a lot of money doing it sometimes, but the first year in business doing anything, I think, is a learning experience. And I learned, I sort of was able to discern what sort of events are worth my time. Yeah, how to prioritize ingredients, for example, and where I get them, when to bulk buy, when not to bulk buy. But also, like the first year in business, there's a lot of upfront costs, like the public liability insurance. So my whole market stall set up, um, printing business cards and stuff. But this year, I'm much more focused on scaling it back, supplying to like people local to us, to like the Berliner, and then with Lucy's coffee stall that's coming up and doing markets that I am now a regular at, and I have regulars come see me, and it's so satisfying. There's this one gentleman that comes and buys my shortbread at the I uh, at the my god, I'm there every month. I can't remember name, but there's a market up in Derby. You went, Oh, it's the one you and Harriet came to visit Alfreton. 

Zoe Davey  
Alfreton.

Caitlin S
 I was like, it's not Alberton, alphyston, Alfreton. And he's there every market, bright and early, ready for that shortbread. It makes me so happy.

Zoe Davey
We love Shortbread Man.

Caitlin S  
But yeah, so kind of long story short, I could eat gluten again. That was when I knew

Zoe Davey 
And life just took off after that

Zoe Davey 
Beautiful right? What do you think? This is my favourite one. What do you think little you would say about the work that you're doing now?

Caitlin S   
Oh, she would think it was cool, especially so like, when I was little, I was doing drama and theatre and stuff. Since I was like, eight, nine, I would think she would think it was cool. So I still got to do that, but I didn't have to leave my house. I could still tell stories and like, be creative and stuff without having to go anywhere. Sometimes I do, obviously, but the cookie thing. Like, I was always, like, obsessed with learning how to make things, to the point where, like, I was trying to learn how to cook, or not even cook, I was just putting things together, and I thought it would make something nice. I mixed orange juice and milk once, because I thought it would taste like an orange creamsicle popsicle, no? Like, why not?

Caitlin S  
It's baking powder, right?

Caitlin S    
Like, thankfully, eventually, my aunt Denise taught me. She was like, here's something called a recipe, and we're gonna follow this out.

Caitlin S  
Thank you Denise.

Caitlin S 
 So, yeah, to think that I used to bring cupcakes to school. And whenever it was Anyone's birthday, I would get their request for what flavour they wanted. And a cupcake

Zoe Davey   
This is so you know, it is me now, which is all those cookies to Amy's Hen Do.

Caitlin S  
I just because I, like, I can't believe I'm making any money off of it, because it's something I like doing. It doesn't feel like work. Sometimes it does when I'm prepping for a market and like, it takes, I've gotten to a good system now where I can prep the dough up to three days ahead of time, because I now I have a separate business fridge thanks to my wonderful husband, who saw it on the street and said, That's ours.

Zoe Davey  
It's been cleaned thoroughly. 

Caitlin S  
To be honest, it was in pretty good condition. It was from our neighbour down the street. He Matt saw him getting rid of it, and he was like, Is that mine? I'll help you carry it into your house. And I'm like, great,

Zoe Davey    
He's a little Scavenger. 

Caitlin S  
Yeah, I have a system now that is more helpful, so I'm not spending 12 hours in my sweltering kitchen. I can get it down to about three now that's That's amazing, which it involves, like, prepping the dough over the course of the days leading up to it and then baking it all the day before, so that it's packed and ready to go. But even just that is so much more helpful, because then I can take stuff in and out of the oven and be prepping other things, like getting the stall ready and stuff. But yeah, I think little me would think it's pretty cool. 

Zoe Davey
I love that. What an amazing answer I wasn't expecting that. Um, number seven, what do you wish more people knew about the process behind your work

Caitlin S   
For baking?

Zoe Davey   
What you've just talked about.

Zoe Davey    
The amount, it's the amount of time that goes into it in prep. But also, because I have people come up to my stall and go, Oh, I made cookies with my kids. And I'm like, That's so great. I'm I'm really happy for you, like, you should keep doing that, but also that it's the same thing. And I'm like, Yeah, at the very basic idea of it, it is the same thing, and you're doing it because everyone bakes with their not everyone, but people bake with their kids as a fun activity to have something yummy at the end. It's an experience to share with people, but when they use that as a reason to justify not buying something from my stall, it's 

Zoe Davey   
Like, do you hit them with that? And I've had a person come around my house and assess my entire kitchen  for cleanliness.

Caitlin S 
Right?! But I don't have boogers in my cookies.

Zoe Davey  
Made with love too, but without the snot.

Caitlin S 
Without the children getting their hands in there. But it's just like I am happy for you, but if you think that your pre made cookie dough mix is going to taste the same as what I make, which, to be honest, that's why I started doing cookies, because cookies here in the UK, no offense, are very much one thing, and I prefer so cookie some people, everyone has different preferences, and my idea was to make cookies that I like because I didn't see them anywhere. For me, when you get the really massive ones that are trendy right now, in order to have them keep their height, people freeze them, and then after a certain point, you can do that with great results. But at a certain point it really starts to go dry and it's crumbly, which is fine. It's all preference. It's just not why preference? And the ones that you can get for a pound from Asda, I love them. They're great. But again, they're not soft. They're very much chewy, which is great, a great texture, and I love it. But I really wanted the types of cookies that I make that are a reasonable size, a reasonable amount of fillings, and you can actually taste what's in it like it's not the massive cookie pies that are part brownie, part cookie, part Malteser cake type thing, and I wanted them to taste like someone I cared about making them for you.

Zoe Davey  
And they do!

Which I really hope so even to the point where I recently experimented with using cheaper ingredients and it worked and they tasted fine

Zoe Davey  
But you don't want fine.

Caitlin S 
I don't want fine; I don't feel good about selling something that I think is just fine so even though it costs more. I want to stick to the ingredients that I know work give me consistent results and yield a better end product. Because I want it to taste like someone has put thought into what they are eating, even if it's not calorie friendly, is not sugar friendly.

Zoe Davey  
That's not why I'm buying a cookie. I'm buying a cookie for the experience!

Caitlin S   
You'd be surprised. I had a woman go, Oh, are these organic. And I just was like, I'd be charging six pounds of cookie if they were organic, you know what I mean. But yeah, I wish people would realize there is a level of difference between I'm sure some people do go buy the pre made cookie mixes and try to sell them, and I wish them great success. But, yeah, I think that's the main difference.

Zoe Davey    
Well, that's your unique point, isn't it? It's like, you're putting what you love out into the world. And there are other people who love that too, and they're gonna find it and be like, yeah, this is just like I want!

Caitlin S   
And it's like, can you buy short growth from the shop? Yes.

Zoe Davey  
Yeah. But do you have a personal connection with the person who's selling it, who you turn up to the market stalls to get that shortbread, right? No,

Caitlin S  
I've been really looking into what else I can sell on the stall. And I really want to start doing jams and preserves and stuff, which there is, like a level of preservation I need to keep in mind, like I might need to get, like, a mini fridge or something, but

Zoe Davey  
Get Matt out in the street.

Caitlin S    
He's, you give him a mission. He's like, bet they'll be on Facebook marketplace for it'll take him two days. Yeah. But so I was thinking, like, no one like, you can buy strawberry jam from the shop. Then I was like, yes, you can,

Zoe Davey 
People buy it for the story,

Caitlin S  
Right? But also people, the type of person that wants to buy fresh jam cares that it was made by a person in their kitchen using fresh ingredients and using minimal ingredients. There's a big push for that at the moment. It's like, yeah, they people want things, and it's also convenient. That means that person didn't have to spend three hours making jam, they can just buy mine. So, yeah, with Voice Over, I do wish people knew that. I don't know it's hard with, like, the rise of AI voice and stuff, because that very much is trying to say you are like a robot could do your job, yeah? And it's like, yeah, they can. But we're seeing that people don't want it, 

Zoe Davey  
No.

Caitlin S  
And the argument that I've heard is a row, robot can make sounds that sounds like the words of your script, and they can copy a cadence that it's copying from a real person, but you will never be able to replicate. Every person has their own point of view. They've lived their own life. They have their own perspective on things, which means every person that reads a script is going to come at it totally differently. And that's what's special, is you've lived a whole life up to this point that will inform how you interpret a piece of text, even if I'm selling. One of my favorite clients is a sex toy brand. They're fantastic. I love working with them, and I like them because they make sex like a very it's not taboo. It's not like this spicy thing. It is very much just like a like the neutrality of like a Siri type. It's it's very much just like a normalized this is our product. This is how you use it. Their tagline. The tagline is, we wish you lots of love and happy masturbation.

Zoe Davey 
You just said to yourself 10 years ago, and like drama school, you're gonna do this, what would you have said?!

Caitlin S  
But yeah, that's, I guess that's my point. Is a robot could say your script, but how do you care about other people caring about your product? Because the my brain just switches off when I hear a fake voice.

Zoe Davey  
You can tell and even if you can't, and then you find out, you feel like you've been had, and you're like, hmm. You get this icky feeling.

Caitlin S 
And that's the thing, is, there's a time and place for everything, including AI voices, but I don't know if you really and a lot of like clients I speak to their their thing is they care. They want people to care about their brand, because that's how they make money. 

Zoe Davey  
And like, you've spoken about Lego and this sex toy brand, and like, the relationships you're having on a business to business level, you're building that with another person to, like, I don't know that's just really cool. And like, with AI, if they'd have decided to go with that instead, they wouldn't have that, right? And. You wouldn't be able to have that like rapport and new ideas from a human perspective. I don't know

Caitlin S   
That's just it. And you're so right. The direct ability of AI voices is so limited because you can go, No, put the emphasis on this word, but then it's like, you're right. You're not having that. There are so many times I'm in a live session with someone and they can't articulate exactly what they're trying to say to give me direction, but I know what they're saying, yes. And it's because we have that shared, lived experience that I'm like, I know exactly

Zoe Davey  
What you're saying. You're having an unspoken conversation. Yeah, yeah. And it's like,

Caitlin S  
You can't do that with robots. I really hope we don't get to the point where I can have an unspoken conversation with the robot. Conversation with a robot. I'm not interested.

Zoe Davey  
Yeah. Can you believe we made it to the end question? It's gonna take me about eight hours to download it. But it'll be worth it! We didn't have to do a reading, right? -to Cooper - Excuse you sir, big strange pose at the end, I'll turn the camera around. Is there a moment in your creative journey that changed everything? If there isn't, that's okay too,

Caitlin S  
You know what? Because I, when I was reading these questions, this was the one that I had an answer for first, 

Zoe Davey 
Nice and goosebumps. 

Caitlin S   
It was when I realized everyone is making everything up, right? Everyone pulling stuff out of their ass, money like terms they we are all making it up as we go along. 

Zoe Davey  
Amazing answer

Caitlin S  
There, especially in terms of money, there are industry guidelines for where you might feel like, yeah, there is an accepted industry guideline for what you might charge for a certain project. But even that, you don't have to it just is there to give you a good idea of what the going rate is, but even within that is your own personal well, how what do I How much money do I need to make off of this to feel it was a worthwhile project to take on, to take up my time, and because we're all trading time for money, yes, so you have to be really okay with the amount of money you're receiving for the time you're giving up. And that number will be different for everybody. But, and of course, like it's not always been like, super straightforward, things fluctuate. The economy fluctuates. What people are willing to pay fluctuates, but as long as you can say to yourself, I'm I'm getting paid for my unique perspective and my skill set, and I'm willing to give up this much of my time for this much money, as long as you're comfortable with that. That's the right number like, and of course, you, I think you need to be working within an industry long enough to have that sense of because I could go in that I could quote everyone $5 million for every project, and that feels great. But a lot of clients go no no. So I think you get a sense of, like, knowing, yeah, because it's also, like I said, everything's made up. They people that ask you for your quote don't know what you're gonna say. 

Zoe Davey 
They might have a number in mind. 

Caitlin S   
They might have a number in mind.

Zoe Davey    
But they are too making that number up!

Caitlin S   
Exactly 

Caitlin S 
somebody else's made their number? Yep, everything's made up. In the moment I realized that everyone is faking it till they make it, I relaxed a lot, yeah, because I used to put so much pressure on myself through like, I have to know what to do. I have to know. 

Zoe Davey  
But no, the thing is, no one is gonna tell you. No one's gonna tell you, especially when you work for yourself. 

Caitlin S  
That's just it. And like, I've had to get good to get good, I'm gonna get good. I've had to get good at not knowing, at making best guesstimates, at doing the best that I can with the information I have. And then when I get new information, I can do better, or I can change what I'm doing, or whatever. But that was a very freeing moment

Zoe Davey  
Is that was, is that mainly with the voiceover stuff, then even baking like?

Caitlin S  
That's why I lost money at one point. 

Zoe Davey  
You were putting orange and milk together. Now... you're putting other stuff together but it works now!

Caitlin S  
There's more ingredients 

Zoe Davey 
Because there was a little bit of a recipe, but you don't have to follow it, right, beautiful.

Caitlin S 
So the thing with baking is there are overhead costs that you have to you should know a lot before you start charging people. And that's why I lost money in my first year, because I was used to making numbers up. So. That was your charging. But if you can get, if you're going into something like that, if you can get someone who knows about overhead and numbers in that sense, and can tell you what you should be charging to make your cost worth it, please do so find them. You can just vibe it out like I did, but just be prepared. You're gonna lose money. But yeah, even that, once you hit that threshold of, okay, this is the number that I need to be charging to make any money to go up from there, you make it up. You just like, and then obviously people then scale up. They can afford new machinery and new premises and whatever, whatever. But that's not my goal with um cookies. My mom keeps saying, oh, you should open your own like, bake shop. Like, no, because bakers get up at 3am and bake friends. 

Zoe Davey  
You said, No, you'll be happy that you can work from home,

Caitlin S  
And I can read my books and walk my dog and do whatever I want, but Yeah,

Zoe Davey  
Beautiful. What a wonderful interview. Thank you. Thanks for saying yeah. Thanks for having a little chat. It was nice, beautiful, lovely answers, where can, where can people find you? Where can they track you down?

Caitlin S  
In my house doing nothing

Zoe Davey  
No, don't come and find her in our house. This is where you can find her instead.

Caitlin S    
For voiceover, I have a website. CaitlinSloanvo.com that's VO, as in voiceover. I will put it in the description. Or if you want some cookies, Cooper's Cookies is on Facebook. There's, which I've learned, there's a lot of Cooper's cookies on Facebook.

Zoe Davey   
Not this Cooper's cookies. 

Caitlin S  
We're the one. We've got the blue logo that says Cooper's cookies.

Zoe Davey  
Beautiful. Thank you. Now we're gonna show you him, because the man who didn't wanna, he didn't want to join in during but here he is. 

Caitlin S 
He's dreaming.

Zoe Davey 
He's fully asleep, fully conked out. Thank you so much for watching 42 minutes. Okay, we're gonna press the button and pray now that it worked.