Simon Roper

In a surprise twist, we have released 'Freedom of the Press' on my channel. Directed by two of my close friends and long-time collaborators, Mark Miko and Scott Burchell, this is a short film about fame, voyeurism, and the hidden cost of chasing the story. It serves as a proof-of-concept for an upcoming feature film.

I realise it may seem to have come out of nowhere, but it has been a privilege being involved in the development of this short over the last couple of years, and I look forward to staying with the project as we develop it further.

2 weeks ago | [YT] | 28

Simon Roper

In my new video, I discuss whether it is possible to achieve true visual realism in a film. I realise this is slightly 'to the left' of what I usually post, but I hope it makes for an interesting watch anyway, and I'd be excited to hear whether any of you have a different perspective, or feel I've missed anything in my analysis!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_zh3...

1 month ago | [YT] | 40

Simon Roper

Yesterday's video on Heathcliff's accent has been unlisted for the time being, as a member of the Yorkshire dialect society pointed out a few errors in my workings.

I don't think they were too major, and the impressionistic sound of the dialect was probably about right for somebody not too familiar with it, but I don't want to misrepresent a dialect that gets so little exposure! Especially in a video that was supposed to be quite detail-oriented.

As I've mostly worked on dialects north of the Humber-Lune line, I think I overestimated how much my instincts would extend to dialects immediately south of the line, and relied too heavily on Ellis and not heavily enough on dialect literature. So I think it will make for an interesting follow-up video.

1 month ago | [YT] | 889

Simon Roper

In my latest video, a partnership with the charity 'Shout at Cancer', I look into the ways in which people can overcome the immense challenge of losing part of their vocal tract after life-saving cancer surgery.

In this event, 'Louder Than Before', a choir of people who had undergone laryngectomies sang a series of pieces tailored to their unique experiences, and in many cases tailored to the new vocal tracts that they have learnt to speak with.

I think that the charity's research and creative projects shed light on the flexibility of human communication, the challenges of losing or partially losing one's ability to speak, and the ways in which those challenges can be overcome.

If you have the time or resources, I'd highly recommend having a look at their previous and ongoing work here: www.shoutatcancer.org/

2 months ago | [YT] | 96

Simon Roper

We're excited to announce that in 2026, we'll be releasing an 8-part limited series called 'Living Memory'. The series explores 8 different decades through a grounded and naturalistic lens, emerging from our interest in natural speech and behaviour in other periods of history. The series is currently set to be released in two blocks of four episodes, with the first block nearing the end of post-production now. It will be released on this channel.

The series has been produced by our production company Lipmouth Studios, with the help of some incredibly talented collaborators in front of and behind the camera - our website can be found here, with a mailing list at the bottom of the homepage if you'd like to receive updates: www.lipmouthstudios.com/

It's been incredibly exciting to work with so many new people, as well as developing our own skills as filmmakers. Thank you especially to Scott and Tom Burchell, my close friends and colleagues at Lipmouth Studios, without whom the diversity and quality of the episodes wouldn't have been possible, and to Mark Miko and Lucy Jessica, who helped us achieve the production value we were aiming for.

For now, we are releasing these stills to give you a glimpse of what's to come.

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4 months ago (edited) | [YT] | 1,515

Simon Roper

I've just uploaded what is becoming my traditional Christmas 'historical accent reconstruction' video, in which I show a progression from pre-literary Old English to a dialect of modern American English. I hope everyone enjoys it, and I'm excited to see what people have to say (and whether there are any criticisms on my conservative New York accent towards the end).

Within the video are a few brief clips from our upcoming web series, 'Living Memory', which I'll hopefully be making an announcement about soon.

I hope everybody has a good day tomorrow, whether you celebrate Christmas or not. I am going to attempt not to do any work tomorrow, but we'll see how that turns out!

4 months ago | [YT] | 187

Simon Roper

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Or5Q...

Over the course of a few shoots, I've been privileged to watch this new music video by The Paperwaits come to fruition! Often, the process of watching a project be edited can desensitise me to it a little bit, so that it doesn't have the same impact towards the end - but in this case, I've loved every opportunity Scott has given me to watch an updated version, and I'd highly recommend it (and the song) if you have a few minutes :)

8 months ago | [YT] | 32

Simon Roper

Our new feature film, 'The Mystery of the Romans', is available to view on YouTube now - sorry for the slight delay. Thanks to the entire cast and crew for working so hard to bring it together!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBeP_...

1 year ago | [YT] | 57

Simon Roper

Hello everyone! The intended release date for our feature film 'The Mystery of the Romans' was today, but we have decided to push it to next Monday (the 28th of April). While it is more-or-less finished, my hearing isn't fantastic and audio mixing isn't my strong suit (as you can probably tell from some of my videos), so are going to work on the audio mix a bit more to get it sounding as good as we can.

If you're in search of something to watch in the meantime, my close friend and collaborator recently released a video about how he made another of his short films, after taking the opportunity to take some footage of something that would have been very hard to recreate on a small budget: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFLAA...

I hope everybody who celebrates it has had a good Easter weekend :)

1 year ago | [YT] | 53

Simon Roper

Hello, everyone - I’ve looked over the comments of my last post, and decided that it might be a better idea to make both a Discord server and a Substack - they both serve different functions, and I know that not everybody likes both (and I’m sure some people don’t use either). Thank you very much to anybody who decides to investigate them - I think I've set them up right, but please let me know if there are any issues with either!



Discord: discord.gg/TCWHe2UM9y (This is a sort of forum with different ‘rooms’ for talking about different topics, as well as a room where people can voice chat with each other).



Substack: substack.com/@simonroper1 (This is more of a blog where I’ll make written posts).

1 year ago (edited) | [YT] | 290