JobAccess Scheme works for Alistair
Listening to Alistair Lee’s dynamic vocal range, you can understand why he’s in demand in the voice acting industry. With the support of JobAccess, he’s been able to make a critical piece of studio software accessible to his needs, allowing him to expand his international career.
As a voice actor, Alistair has taken his voice around the world, performing voice overs and bringing scripts to life in commercial advertising for a range of multinational companies. If you watch television or listen to the radio, you’ve probably heard Alistair’s voice work.
“I love being a voice actor, it’s something that gives me enormous joy and you can obviously earn a living out of it as well,” the Sydneysider says.
His clients say his ‘acute ear’ allows him to pick up on subtle nuances of speech and accents and deliver exactly what they want, efficiently and professionally.
Alistair was born at around 26 weeks’ gestation, remaining in hospital in a humidicrib or incubator for five months afterward. In tiny babies, oxygen therapy can cause blindness, and in Alistair this was unfortunately permanent. He was also born with mild cerebral palsy.
By late 2019, Alistair knew he’d need to build his own recording studio to achieve his goals. One aspect of the new studio that wasn’t accessible to the blind was the operation of a software program called Source-Connect, which makes remote recording sessions achievable from anywhere in the world.
With so many studios using Source-Connect as a standard piece of software, Alistair didn’t know how he would link up with them and continue his career as a voice actor if he wasn’t able to use it.
Getting Job Access support
Having previously received support from JobAccess through its Employment Assistance Fund (EAF), Alistair was quick to make a further application for funding of workplace modifications. Following a free workplace assessment to work out what modifications or equipment would be helpful, the Assessor approved funding for specialised IT scripting services to allow Alistair to use Source-Connect.
Earlier in his career to support his IT role, Alistair received JobAccess funding for a braille embosser, which is a printer that turns text into braille. For Alistair, this piece of equipment was ‘life changing’. It meant he could have a script emailed to him by his voice agent, transcribe it into braille code using translation software, and then use the braille embosser to produce a hard copy on special paper.
“It speeded up the translation time, particularly if you’re doing a long corporate read where it might be 10 or 30 print pages long, or if I’m doing a cartoon voice, some of them can be pages long.
To be able to whack it in, adjust the formatting a bit, and press print, I don’t know where I’d be without my embosser. It’s so much faster than typing up scripts on a Perkins Brailler.”
Alistair recently received funding to upgrade his embosser so that he could use it remotely, and his JAWS screen reading software, which helps users read aloud what they’re unable to see on their screen through text-to-speech technology.
Alistair found the process of submitting applications to JobAccess straightforward.
“Also, the support that JobAccess has provided is truly fantastic because they’ve always been positive to deal with. Everyone that I’ve spoken to, if I’ve ever had a question about an invoice or something to do with how I might fill this in, I have found everyone to be absolutely charming, very knowledgeable on any specific area that one needed to address."
“It’s been an absolute pleasure to deal with JobAccess and all the people that work there.”