I want a Screen Actors Guild card…
…not for the prestige.
…not for the pension and insurance benefits.
…not for access to all of the really great VO jobs.
…not for scale wages or residuals.
…not so that I can cast a ballot during strike votes.
…not even for the autographed 8″x10″ glossy of Alan Rosenberg.
No, I want to earn my SAG card just so that some day I can look into the baleful, unblinking eye of a television camera and say…
“I’m Michael Rankins… and I’m an actor.”
At some point during last evening’s narration class, I figured out why voiceover classes are cool.
Not the voiceover part, of course. I already know why that’s cool.
The class part.
Anyone who knows me at all knows that I’m something of a lone wolf. Simply understood from a psychological perspective — I grew up as an adopted only child in an emotionally distant family that relocated annually. No wonder I’m insular.
No wonder, also, that voice work would appeal to this element in me. In the booth, it’s me, and that mic.
All of this being true, one might suppose that learning in a class setting wouldn’t resonate with me. I’m not outgoing, not gregarious, uneasy meeting new people, awkward at small talk.
But I do enjoy my voiceover classes. And now I understand why.
I feed off the energy that’s ignited by the enthusiasm and passion of my fellow actors.
I also benefit from the direction and guidance given to the other students. Often, I hear advice that I can apply to my own reads. I can hear and evaluate that advice with clinical detachment, because it isn’t aimed at me. Sometimes, that’s an easier way to learn. Not always, but sometimes.
Then too, there’s the spice of variety. In an audition situation, I’ll hear my own work and no one else’s. I have no idea what interpretive ideas, what creative spark, other actors will bring to the same copy. Therefore, I only get my own take on the work. But in a class, I can compare and contrast a dozen different reads.
Sometimes, I’ll think, “Man, I wish I’d thought to do that.” Or, “I wish I could replicate that tone, or that emotional quality, or that energy.” I pick up tools to play with in my personal practice time — tools that I’d never discover if I read the same copy myself a dozen different ways. Because someone else’s way might never have occurred to me. Next time, it will.
Sometimes, I learn what not to do. And that’s helpful too.
I learn almost as much from the other people in my classes as I do from the director.
And I think that’s cool.
Question: Can a voice actor create quality work in a three-hour VO workshop with a vocal apparatus thrashed by a nasty rhinovirus?
Answer: Thanks to the fine folks at Traditional Medicinals, he can.
Last night’s narration class was a struggle. A cold that had been edging up on me since Monday exploded into full bloom, despite my pounding zinc tablets for three days straight. Still, the show must go on, as they say (you know, that anonymous “they” who author all of those pithy maxims), so I loaded up my two-quart Thermos hot pot with Throat Coat herbal tea and tried to keep sufficient distance from my classmates so as not to infect them.
And what do you know? I delivered some pretty good reads. I wasn’t as enthused with the work as my director was, but you know me — I’m always hypercritical of my own stuff. I had to admit that I was surprised that my voice and my interpretation sounded as well as they did, given my compromised condition.
Key revelation of the evening: My best narration voice resides in the lower reaches of my vocal range. That’s not entirely a new thought, but its truth was certainly borne out in my reads. I just have to remind myself to go for the deeper choice every time. That doesn’t mean trying to manufacture a basso profundo that I don’t possess, but rather making sure to open all the resonators and target a lower pitch.
Key non-revelation of the evening: When I step in front of the mic, I too often forget what I intended to do. I had to be reminded after my first take on the night’s second exercise about the very discovery that had made all of the difference in the previous read. That absentmindedness plagues me in more aspects of my daily activity than I care to count. I’m becoming a better note-maker, though.
Key self-congratulation of the evening: Speaking of notes, writing “HEY! SLOW THE HECK DOWN!” in huge letters in the margin of my copy helped my pacing immensely. Even when I forgot what I was supposed to be doing with pitch, my rate was under control and spot-on. So, in next Thursday’s class, “HEY! GO LOWER!” will be the watchword for the night.
With any luck, this doggoned cold will be history by then.
Good thing this doesn’t happen often.
Both Patrick McGoohan and Ricardo Montalbán passed away today.
Although I’ll mostly remember Messrs. McGoohan and Montalbán for their face-acting roles — McGoohan as the title character in Danger Man and The Prisoner; Montalbán as Mr. Roarke on Fantasy Island and as Star Trek‘s “Kha-a-a-a-a-a-n!” — both possessed noteworthy voice credits.
McGoohan played Billy Bones in the 2002 Disney animated feature Treasure Planet (you can read my review of that film here).
Montalbán turned in quite a bit of TV voice work during his golden years, most memorably as Armando Gutierrez on The WB’s Freakazoid! and Señor Senior Sr. on Disney Channel’s Kim Possible.
Both of these talented gentlemen will be missed.
Thursday evening was my first session in a four-week course on narration. It’s the beginning of what will be a busy semester for me at Voicetrax.
Although I’ve mostly taken acting and character classes to this point, and seem to have an affinity for that sort of thing, narration is more like what I thought I’d be studying when I decided to focus on VO. I realize now what a tremendous help the acting work has been. I think it will help the narration work to come along more quickly and easily.
We have a “two-headed” instructor for this course. Chuck Kourouklis, who has been my director/coach in several other classes, is working with us for the first two weeks; Bob Symon, with whom I’ve not yet had the opportunity to study, will direct weeks three and four. I always enjoy working with Chuck, who’s a likable guy but also clear and direct with his critique. He’s the voice on the audio tour at the Alamo, so I’m confident that he knows this aspect of the business.
Our opening exercise was a one-page excerpt from a documentary about the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. I had a couple of advantages in approaching the material. One, I took a course in San Francisco history at SFSU back in the day, so I could easily access mental images from the earthquake. Two, I’ve recently been teaching a class at church on the Biblical book of Lamentations — it struck me immediately how closely Jeremiah’s narrative about the destruction of Jerusalem paralleled the earthquake documentary copy in emotional tone.
I felt as though I gave the piece a solid read right out of the box. Chuck thought it was pretty decent, too. He seems to think I’ll get my arms around this narration thing with relative simplicity. Yeah, we’ll see.
As is usually the case at Voicetrax, we’re a rather diverse group in this class. Two of the other students were in my first-level acting class last semester. Among our fellows are a stand-up comic, a speech therapist, an audio engineer, and a club DJ.
Another student in the class was the voice of Lucy in the Peanuts animated specials when she was young; she’s coming back into VO after pursuing other things for most of her adult life. Sometime, we’ll have to compare notes from my You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown days.
Over the weekend, I watched a few episodes of Planet Earth, which is narrated by Sigourney Weaver. (In the American version, anyway. The original BBC run is voiced by David Attenborough.) I’ll never be as good a narrator as Ms. Weaver is… but I might as well aim for the stars.
Here’s a weird thing I noticed the other day.
I was recording a new qualification track for my chorus; we have to submit updated individual recordings periodically to demonstrate continue development in our vocal skills, as well as mastery of new competition material.
Usually, I’m uneasy with this process. I’m plagued by nervous tension, causing my vocal apparatus to constrict, resulting in a singing performance that isn’t truly representative of my abilities. This time — thanks, in significant measure, to my increased focus on VO and beaucoup practice time in front of the mic — I had a much better time of it. In fact, I submitted my second take, which I’ve never done before.
But why should it matter? Why am I fearless in front of the mic when I’m speaking, and a quivering mass of exploding synapses when I’m singing?
It’s the same microphone.
It’s the same voice.
Isn’t it?
Today’s career-building activity involved doing something I haven’t done in quite some time — watching cartoons on TV.
As much as I love feature animation, I haven’t been moved to take in much made-for-television product — aside from the occasional episode of Legion of Super-Heroes, Justice League, or the various iterations of Spider-Man — in recent years. Since my coaches think I have an affinity for character work, however, I figured it was high time that I conducted some research into the current state of the medium.
So, I parked myself in front of the Cartoon Network for two hours.
First, I checked out Star Wars: The Clone Wars. Not being a major Star Wars fan, I was taken aback by the show’s pseudo-lifelike, computer-generated animation style, which feels more like a video game than series animation. I’d seen promos for this show some time back, but I hadn’t really tumbled to the visual approach.
The voice cast here does an excellent job. I’m not familiar with Matt Lanter, who plays Anakin Skywalker, but both he and James Arnold Taylor (the other lead actor, as Obi-Wan Kenobi) deliver nice performances. Their smooth, natural styles match well with the show’s visuals — a good thing, because the dark, somewhat stiff on-screen characters wouldn’t lend themselves well to over-the-top voicing. It’s fortunate that the acting is so effective, because the show itself is not, from my perspective, all that intriguing. (It’s rather boring, if I may be so blunt.) But I’m sure the Star Wars geeks dig it.
Next up came Ben 10: Alien Force, which I might describe as a spacefaring version of the old DC Comics feature Dial H for Hero. I was a little bit familiar with this series, because I’m a fan of the comic book work of its story editor, Dwayne McDuffie, and frequent the forums on Dwayne’s site.
Overall, I thought the voice work on Ben 10: Alien Force was surprisingly strong, given that the show is very much kids-targeted and probably doesn’t have much of an adult following. The lead voice, Yuri Lowenthal, I recognize from Legion of Super-Heroes, in which he played the young Superman. To my ear, Yuri sounds a skosh mature for his character’s supposed age of 15 years, but he’s a solid actor and carries his lead role well. The rest of the cast is good also. I was struck by the relatively natural approach taken by the actors, which seemed dialed back tonally from what I associate with typical action cartoon voicing. I’ll credit that to the voice director, Andrea Romano, whom I remember Susan Blu mentioning as preferring a more “realistic” sound.
Another series voice-directed by Andrea, Batman: The Brave and the Bold, followed. From an entertainment standpoint, I enjoyed this show the most among the four, because of my greater familiarity with the characters and closer connection with the material. I’m glad to see a Batman presentation with a lighter, more engaging tone, given that most of the characters recent appearances in all media have been oppressively grim. Batman: The Brave and the Bold is a fun show that I’ll watch again… even when it’s not “homework.”
The one thing that took me out of the show was what I perceived as a tonal dissonance between the episode’s lead characters — Batman, played by Diedrich Bader (the guy from the old Drew Carey Show), and Green Arrow (James Arnold Taylor again; nice to see that he’s getting plenty of work) — and some of the supporting roles. Whereas Bader and Taylor brought good naturalism to their parts (Taylor’s Green Arrow is a bit bouncy for my tastes, but that’s how the character is written in this series), the actors playing the other key roles opted for a more stereotypical “cartoony” read. None of the performances were bad, by any means — it just sounded to my ear as though Bader and Taylor were voicing one program, the everyone else dropped in from a different show.
My Cartoon Network experience concluded with something called Bakugan: Battle Brawlers, a fairly pedestrian example of anime, rendered and performed in the style I usually associate with this sort of program. It’s highly reminiscent of Pokemon both in approach and subject matter. I’m not an anime connoisseur by any stretch of the imagination, but I’ve seen it done better than this. Then again, I probably shouldn’t expect Miyazaki on Saturday morning at the Cartoon Network.
Although the brash, screechy tone of Bakugan — visually as well as vocally — made it agonizing to watch, I tried to keep an open mind. About one-third of the way through the program, I ran an experiment. I watched a segment with the sound muted, just to get a feel for what the show was like before the English track was applied. Then, I restored the sound, and listened for a segment without looking at the TV screen. By the end of the half-hour, I better appreciated the challenge the voice actors in this genre are up against.
I’d like to explore animation work as a part of my voiceover future. Toward that end, I should do more of this kind of sampling.
The state of TV animation (along with, well, pretty much everything else in the known universe) has changed substantially from when I was a kid. I really need to ramp up to speed.
My key tactic for 2009 is to do something every single day of the year that will help advance me toward my voiceover career goals.
Some days, that may be as small as reading one good article or blog post, from which I take away valuable information. Other days, I’ll make bigger contributions — attending a class, getting some one-on-one coaching, or investing time in creating my new VO website and marketing materials. In between, there will be those pesky-yet-vital daily reads.
This being the first day of this exciting new year, I decided to do something special… but not too taxing. (It’s a holiday, after all.)
Pat Fraley is one of the best-known talents in the VO business, as well as a respected teacher and coach. On his website, Pat offers a series of brief podcasts covering a diverse range of practical subjects, everything from accents and dialects (one of Pat’s specialties) to specific techniques for creating character voices, from overcoming performance anxiety to narrating audiobooks.
A couple of months ago, I visited Pat’s site and downloaded the entire set of recordings. Then, as is my wont, I promptly forgot to go back and listen to them.
Today, as the Tournament of Roses parade marched by on my TV screen, I slapped my cans on and audited all 19 (my lucky number, serendipitously) of Pat’s lessons. It took almost three hours to get through the entire package, but by the time I was finished, I’d acquired a wealth of information. I’ll need to go back now and review each podcast with individual focus, so that I can take notes and strategize. In the meantime, though, I have a ton of new ideas floating around in my skull.
I was thoroughly impressed by Pat’s teaching approach. Even though each recording is only a few (between six and ten) minutes long, he gets right to the point in each one, and delivers straightforward, usable content. His style is engaging — I always had the sense that he was talking right to me, as opposed to a disembodied, anonymous multitude on the Internet.
Most of all, I’m amazed that he gives all of this wise counsel away for free.
Pat is based in Los Angeles, but he travels around the country to conduct coaching workshops. The next time he’s here in the Bay Area, I’ll make an effort to catch his class. I might even consider driving down to SoCal for a seminar one of these days.
One thing for certain: The more I learn about this business, the more I realize that I don’t know.
2009 is going to be a busy year.
This morning, I presented a lesson on the subject of planning. It’s a good subject for the approaching dawn of a new year, when people are getting themselves into the forward-thinking mode.
Like many of my better lessons, it’s one I preached to myself first.
I’ll be the first to acknowledge that my planning and organizational skills suck swamp water. It’s not that I lack the ability to think strategically and work in an organized manner — it’s more that I lack the motivation. To be brutally honest, I just get lazy.
But, as I drove the point home this morning, success requires a plan — conceived, detailed, and executed. No productive journey begins without the traveler knowing not only where the destination is, but also the roads to take and the resources that will be needed along the way. If I’m going to reap the results I so boldly affirm that I desire from my voiceover career, then I’d better figure out where exactly I want to go, and map out the steps that will take me there.
Acting coach Bob Fraser, whose Actor’s Tool-Kit e-newsletter I read religiously, sent a packet of amazingly helpful planning materials to his subscribers last week. In the days since, I’ve been using Bob’s Action! A Workbook for Professional Actors as the template for my 2009 strategizing.
I still have to follow through, of course. But for me, just having a clear direction and a sequential process for reaching the goal is quantum leaps further than I usually go.
If you’re not already reading Bob Fraser’s free newsletter, I recommend that you pop over to his site right now and sign up. His insights into what it takes to be a successful actor are worthy of your time and consideration.
As Joe Jackson once sang, “You can’t get what you want until you know what you want.” I almost always know what I want. I don’t often know how I’m going to achieve it.
This coming year will be different.
I’m planning on it.
Eartha Kitt, the multitalented entertainer who recently won consecutive Daytime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Performer in an Animated Program for her voice work in Disney’s The Emperor’s New School, died today.
You can read my complete tribute over at my pop culture blog, SwanShadow Thinks Out Loud.
Ironic twist: Ms. Kitt, who popularized the pop-jazz carol “Santa Baby” in 1953, passed away on Christmas Day.
The Mic Guy: Adventures in Voiceover 