Tags:

Anthony Reece, Voicetoons, Cartoon Voices, Voice Acting, Character Voices, Voice Over Coach, Voices.com

Transcript of Finding and Developing Character Voices

[Opening Music]

Julie-Ann Dean: Welcome to Voiceover Experts brought to you by Voices.com, the number one voiceover marketplace. Voiceover Experts brings you tips, pearls of wisdom and techniques from top instructors, authors and performers in the field of voiceover. Join us each week to discover tricks of the trade that will help you to develop your craft and prosper as a career voiceover talent. It's never been easier to learn, perform, and succeed from the privacy of your own home and your own pace. This is truly an education you won't find anywhere else.

Now, for our special guest.

Anthony Reece: Hi, I'm Anthony Reece and welcome to this customized podcast for Voices.com talent. In podcast we're going to explore finding the motivation for and developing character voices, probably the reason that a majority of people contact me to get in to the voiceover industry.

Character voices can be a blast to perform but very difficult. There's no doubt at all this is a specific specialty and there's a rare breath of us out there who can do a variety of character voices without sounding like Uncle Tom or Aunt Sue trying to do a character voice. See the key to being a good voiceover actor is trying to sound like your character and not you doing a character. I know you know what I'm talking about, think of Uncle Frank at the dinner table who tries to do Frank Sinatra because he has the same name as Frank but it sound just like him trying to do Frank Sinatra. Everybody laughs and how's giggle but inside they're thinking, "Oh, my goodness. Have a other glass of wine Frank" So, the most important ingredient is to be honest to yourself, only take on and tackle voices that you can honestly try to make unique and true to themselves.

Character voice uses. Character voices can be found in a variety of the entertainment world, there in cartoons, animations, anime, feature animated films, student films, e-cards, flash designs, games, toys, radio show drops and prep for DJ's, comedy skits and comedy routines, radio dramas and they even use as mascots, robotics and puppeteers on live stage, not to mentioned millions of websites now use animated characters to help people around their website. So, as you can see character voices in our industry are not just limited to Cartoon network, Nickelodeon or the other cartoon type programs.

Celebrity voice actors, some of today's most well known character voice actors include current actor such Bob Bergen, who's the voice of porky the pig. Tom Kenny, the voice behind SpongeBob, not to mention a gazillion other voices. EG Daily, who's the voice of Tommy in the Rugrats amongst others, Nancy Cartwright who for the last 14 or 15 years has been the voice behind, yes you guess it, Bart Simpson. Yes, a woman doing a boy and of course Mel Blanc who is likely the most famous voice actor who in many of our opinion was the guru and master of voice acting. One unique thing you might find funny, did you know that a majority of the boy voiceover in the industry are actually done by female voice actors? Some of us casting directors differ in our opinions on that. However, I believe there is a reason for the madness at the recent time. Some producers, investors, programmers and syndicators aren't necessarily interested in developing and distributing a cartoon series or an animated series featuring a boy who would potentially go through puberty within a few years and outgrow the part.

Some of the most successful ongoing legendary cartoons are like Charlie Brown in Peanuts and the gang but since they only release a new episode every few years, its okay for them to rehire a cast each time and try to match and be loyal to the original character voices as much as possible. However, a current syndicated program that have to produce two to three episodes on a weekly basis are limited to the outgrowth pattern potentially of that young boy. So, if you have a 10 year old boy who was cast for a particular cartoon series in two or three years that particular child could outgrowth the sound of the original voice used at the beginning of the series. Another words they can outgrow the part, so there is a reason why many syndicators and distributors do choice female for their young child actors, this assures that if the show is a success, the character voice will not have to change overtime hence Nancy Cartwright and Bart Simpson, now their 15 or 16 year.

Find your motivation, most character voices that you hear today in cartoon and animations or what you have actually where developed and based by that voice actor on someone real within their own personal life. Everyone that unique character around whether it's Uncle Sam or Grandma Jean or Aunt Sue or what you have or Bob the bartender down at the local pub. There's character around us everywhere you look, you could be sitting in the subway, ride in the A-train, you could be walking down 5th Street, you could be standing at the football game and the guy behind through the whole game, yes all four quarter has something just unique about voice and his personality that hammers and idea in your head for a character. That is my friend, how simple it can be to find your motivation for a character. It's a good idea just to find the base and build from there.

Character briefs, most of animators and producers usually supply a character profile or document and images of the character to help you the actor with a visual of the physically characteristics of a character they want to have voice. This is almost a must have for a professional actor. Make sure that you have a visual reference or some form a profile in word document explaining what's unique about your character, you can't crawl into their head, so it helps them to share this insight with you. This will help you develop a characteristic vocally from the physical characteristics and attributes of that particular character and its traits.

Experiment with voices, the best way to find a base for a character as mentioned earlier is to find a motivation. However, in other way to go about doing that is to mimic other people or just play around, talking and crazy, wacky, stupid cartoon voices all day. I usually recommend that an actor starts out just doing the standards, Igor, Dracula, a monster, a witch, a villain, a countess, a evil princess, some surfer dude, the valley girl, etcetera. Once you find one that you seem to do pretty good, keep that one and add it to your Loony Toons list and build from there developing a character derive from that individual character motivation.

Ask for input, have the client show and share how they envision or hear the voice of a desire character before year start to try to develop one. If they're clueless, it could be a difficult road ahead. If they offer some, try to bring out that personality as much as possible when you sit in front of the microphone and if they don't offer any, it's all up to you, follow your creative instinct base on again the visual, the profile and any images they may supply. Then I typically offer a couple different version of the character, for example three or four types of voices for that particular character and that gives them a chance to pick and choice and they may have find the one that works and you're on your way.

Own the character, once you do find a voice, own that voice. Work with it everyday, walk around the house talking to spouse, your sibling, your friend, your neighbors in that character voice. Many of the leading actors like Jim Carry, Robin Williams and a variety of the other ones actually walk around for weeks at a time on set and offset walking in that character voice, believe in just the part wearing wigs, shaving their head, doing what it takes to totally get in to that character. The same applies to a voice actor behind the mic, feel free to spend hours a days for a few days honing in the particular character you find and once again make then your own and own the character.

Build a stable, make an effort to build your own unique character voices. Your goal should be about eight to ten unique and diverse character voices, that way you can build more characters from these characters in the future. Also it helps to remember quality not quantity a voice is what your goal is.

Then keep clips of these particular voices so that in the future you can go back and easily mimic, mock and or use those clips as reference to get back in to character. I've even gone as far as making a few notes on a notepad and saving it as a text file within that folder, so that I myself might remember my motivation and what made me think of that character, whether it was a British accent I heard on the subway or whether is my Uncle Sam, who is this old time gangster sounding voice from Bermuda. You'll never know what your motivation was and you might find it funny where it came from by looking back in the past.

Use your jar, mouth and throat. Yes, its sound strange but simply moving the voice further backs into your throat can create different tones. Try to build voices from different parts of your mouth. Use year our nose to be more nasally, add more sound to be breather, add some grovel for textures to sound tougher, just try to locate and give birth to characters hiding inside your mouth. They're there, this is key. For example, if I want to be rough in a Southern organic tough guy, I just throw a little grovel in there but it would be nasally I kind the tighten up my jaw (inaudible) through my noise (bar). If I want to be airier, I just throw some air in there. If I want to be maybe not so straight, I just cut it like this and throw a little hello. Play with your jaw, move the sounds around, in and our through your mouth back your tongue up, try it to through your nose, scream through your ears, whatever it takes that will add just a little bit unique characteristics trait to the character and who knows where you can go from there. So, play around using throughout muscles within your own skull.

Now, play with dialog. Animations are great because you're not always limited to the copy like in radio or TV, in many cases the visual content or the lip sing has even yet to be performed by the studio. What's cool about this is it actually allows you a time, at time like quote to play with dialog and saying it the way that your character might say the lines. I bet you didn't know that Homer Simpson's famous, "dupe" thing that he does, that actually was a (do wap) line that was said by Laurel and Hardy back in the 1930's, I believe it was, interesting but true. So, don't be afraid with the permission of your client to play with the dialog every so lightly. In other words, you don't want to play with the whole line but you maybe able to play with the word here and there or the emotion or inflection in how it said.

Stay in character, after several hours of recording it's easy for any session or beginner voice actor to slip out of character, you got pay extra attention to your track after several clips or cuts. Your objective is to assure you're staying true to the character, its tone, feel and the uniqueness of the characteristics of that character. Sometime even the most professional including so called professionals like myself have gone in and out of character, when I listen back I find that I'm losing my character, so I'll actually stop the session for an hour or two or pick the next day. This allows me to refresh my mind, approach it again, listen to my own tracks I recorded in the past and find my character and get back in to motivation and that way it all sound like the character not like me trying to do the character burn out after four hours. So, stay in character once your begin voicing.

And lastly label those clips. It's again very professional of your to deliver a line of dialog or scene of dialog as single tracks, producers will love you for this. I highly recommend prior to beginning recording ask your client what they like you delivered as single clips, by scene or in any other particular fashion. I think you'll find most of them will say, "Oh, you can just send the by scene but I know as a producer myself I would prefer greatly to have clips sent to me, edit it, clean and ready to go, then I just adjust them, add effects, put some post on them whatever I need to and it makes my job and life much, much earlier. I suggest the typically naming conviction such as character_scene_clip01 for example.MP3 and that's all there is to it. You've just discovered how to get yourself motivated, get in to character and stay in character with character voiceovers. Well, these conclude finding motivation and developing your character voices, now it's time for you to do a little homework. Feel free to create a few character voices of your own and send them to me for a quick listen, I'll be happy to take a listen and send you back my thoughts, use the contact information located here at Voices.com or drop them to student@anthonyreece.com. Thanks for listening. I hope you learn a little something about characters and good luck you in your voiceover career. I'm Anthony Reece.

Julie-Ann Dean: Thank you for joining us. To learn more about the special guest featured in this Voices.com podcast visit the voiceover expects show notes at Podcasts.Voices.com/VoiceoverExpects. Remember to stay subscribed.

If you're a first time listener, you can subscribe for free to this podcast in the Apple iTunes Podcast Directory or by visiting Podcasts.Voices.com. To start your voiceover career online go to Voices.com and register for a voice talent membership today.

[Closing Music]

Links from today's show:

Voicetoons
Anthony Reece
Anthony Reece

Your Instructor this week:

Voice Over Expert Anthony Reece

After a lifetime in gaming, radio, television, theatre, music, entertainment & animation, the resume of Anthony Reece is vast including hands-on experience as a audio and sound track producer, creative director, studio manager, broadcast program director and producer, casting director and voice actor. Mr. Reece has "been there - done that". Anthony has personally cast, directed, produced and/or voiced hundreds of cartoons, games, commercials, animations and just about every type of media there is today. This diverse, creative background assures you're working with a studio, directed by a professional in all areas of broadcasting, gaming, animation, performance and media.

Did you enjoy Anthony's episode? Leave a comment with your thoughts!