Oh yeah, I haz blog

Yes, so obviously, I haven't been on here in a while.

To be honest, I've been super busy with tons of other projects. I finished a painting that turned out amazingly well, I've been in and out of a job washing dogs, but only out because of: split shifts, not enough hours to pay bills, terrible communication from management, a host of other things, and I've found work with enough hours.

Now, I've also been doing tons of voice work, but no mods and no demos. That's why nothing's posted here. This, while sort of tied to my YouTube, has become a separate thing. This place I intend to use solely to help out voice actors and give examples of my own work.

What I've been doing lately is a podcast-style audio book reading of... you guessed it, pony fan fics. As such, the videos don't really belong up on here since it's not accent work or any of the other things I've mentioned. I hope to have more of that work in the future as I build up my resume, but for the time being, I don't have anything planned. Still, voice acting is my dream job and I need to build up a profile.

Either way, VozDeSuenos After Dark (the radio show) has turned out really well. People are enjoying it and I've been encouraged to keep going with it. I even hope to make a site for the podcast someday soon. When there's more voice acting tips or news, you can be sure to find it here.

Updates

So, I have been doing a lot lately, but very little voice-wise.

I'm still looking for somewhere other than soundcloud to upload large chunks of voice to, since I really enjoyed doing live readings of fan fics. I had a couple other side projects I'd been planning to work on, but I haven't heard back from any of them. Not really sure whether or not My Little Time Lord is still happening or any of the other stuff.

Either way, I promised a loooong time ago to post the video made for that HL2 mod. I figured now would be a good time since I'm busy looking for work and new places to post things.

In the meantime, I've re-discovered my love of writing and have written several short fics that I eventually plan to do audio recordings of. Other than that... Yeah, just working through my own stuff, trying to find a job that can pay the bills until I can write or voice act for a living.

VIDEO CANDY! if you can't see the embedded one below.

New Workshop: Rapid Progress

So!

I'm helping out on many different projects, all run by bronies, though not all are linked to MLP.

One such brony is starting work on a game. Due to non-disclosure and other legal things, I won't reveal anything, but it's a non-MLP game that I may be doing lots of vocal stuff for. Either way, the project leader has expressed interest in voice acting but is concerned because he has a weak voice.

Now, here's the thing... While a voice may be soft or unable to take a lot of strain, those of us with stronger voices usually don't have anything physically different than anyone else. It's simply a matter of exercises, proper care, and practice. On the other hand, what can be done to quickly improve?

Well, this is a combination of microphone magic and the above techniques.

Soft voices are really only a problem with poor recording equipment. Obviously, if it's a bad mic, it will pic up lots of static and the white noise removal won't work well because it will remove most of the speaker's voice. With a good mic, the recording quality is much better. You can record a second of silence before you start speaking, use that as your white noise reference point, use the noise removal (most recording software has this tool), and then amplify your vocal track without excess noise. Even Audacity, my preferred recording software, has all of these neat tricks and it's FREE! Plus, many voices can only be done softly. Piccolo from Dragon Ball Z is an excellent example. Chris Sabbat got right next to the mic and spoke extremely softly to get that voice properly.

So, that's the technical-wizardry aspect of voice overs for those with weak voices. This technique is excellent when a voice actor is first starting out because it allows you to begin recording before you've built up your vocal cords, but keep in mind a strengthened voice leads to changed pitches and tones, so you may have to work extra hard later to match the same voice.

As for the rapid progress on the vocal side, it only requires dedication. I already mentioned this in a previous blog post, so I'm only going to briefly cover caring for your voice here.

1. Avoid sugary foods in general
2. Hydrate, hydrate, hydrate!
3. Water, green tea, and honey are your best friends
4. Tobacco, other forms of smoke, and large quantities of caffeine will make your voice a sad panda
5. Warmup!
6. Be cautious

What do I mean when I say be cautious? Why? Because you're toning a new muscle group. You can (and very well might) overextend your vocal cords and thus lose your voice. When first building your vocal muscles, which takes time and experience, you need to keep an eye on your voice. Feel it out. Are you getting sore? Are neck muscles tensing? Is your esophagus constricting? Is it taking more effort to speak? Pay attention to your throat and the sounds it's producing so you don't overdo it.

Take your time with lines. Practice speaking. Don't record too much in one day. There's always other work to be done. Recording sessions rarely last more than a few hours per person in a day anyhow, so don't overdo it. If you do a full eight hours of voice acting, of course you're going to be sore or lose your voice, especially if you've never been on-stage.

So those are the tips for rapid progress. Use tech magic, take care of your voice, be careful.

What about building your voice over time? Well, the single best way is theater. Even if you've never been in a play and don't want to, learning to speak to the back row of an auditorium is the hands-down best way to build your voice. Find a gym and deliver a speech to a friend at the back of the room until she can hear every word enunciated clearly.

Continue remembering the basics. Know your limits and only push them a little. Always warmup before a new recording session. Don't EVER skimp on the warmup, you'll regret it. Be kind to your throat with less sugar (pop is horrible for your throat) and more fluids and coating substances like honey. Then just practice, practice, practice. Get a bit louder over time.

Microphones can do a lot for you, but some characters are heroes and need to scream, yell, and get angry. What do you do in those situations? Well, you follow the guidelines I've laid out here to build your voice and then remember the following:

This is the most important lesson I can impart. You can feel real, full anger and deliver it convincingly WITHOUT, I repeat WITHOUT, going to the highest, loudest vocal register you can manage. As I've said in previous posts, almost every voice actor for DBZ passed out in the booth at least once. Why? Because they went to the angriest and loudest they could without listening to what their body was telling them. Most of the recordings for the show, the screaming that is, are not from the tapes where they passed out. They still sound convincing, though, don't they? It's about learning to act, emote, and feel what your character feels without overcompensating or letting it get away from you. It takes an acting coach to learn that, though. All I can say is ask for help.

So, for my friends over at Invocation of Awesome, there's your post on how to improve your voice if you're worried about losing it or damaging your vocal cords. Hope that helped!!

Also, here's that voice candy I promised two weeks ago. >.>



Or here. Aaand:



Or if you can't see it, here.

Accent Work

Okay, so... Here's the situation: I'm gradually running out of money being unemployed and trying to make car / student loan payments. My bank account is currently at almost 0. Many will ask: What does that mean for me? Well, it means I'm here to apologize for not posting as much as I'd like to. I wanted to be posting once a week or so, but haven't been able to because the job search has basically taken over my life right now. Still, if I found time to write a quick fan fic yesterday, I can find time to keep my promise on here. So, without further ado, I provide the following workshop on how to take your normal voice and get to a completely new accent.

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In a previous post, I mentioned some tips I'll go over in more detail here. These were: I will give a tiny preview of ways to improve accent work:

-Resources
-Script Analysis
-Over extend the stereotype
-Minimize the stereotype thereafter
-See if you can force yourself to think in the accent
-Do tongue twisters in the accent
-Sing in the accent

Now, something I'd like to add before we get into this is that you need to take your current accent into account. Depending on the accent you already have, this may or may not be easy for you. If you're not a native English speaker, it could get even harder. For example, the Japanese (stereotypically) have trouble with r's and l's in English. Why? Because they have a solid single sound. Japanese is all about syllables. Speech transitions like that are difficult and take years of practice (or very intense study) to overcome.

Luckily, I'm guessing most of the people here are native English speakers, so it won't be too much of a problem. I'm not a speech therapist and I can't really help when it comes to stuttering or properly speaking dialogue when you're not a native English speaker. So, sorry, but this is going to be geared towards people who are entirely fluent and have only regional accents, rather than International ones.

So, back to the point at hand. What does that have to do with anything? Well, it's hard to get rid of an accent. I should know. I spent my first 10 years in West Virginia, then moved to Georgia. I had a Southern accent for four years and then tried to drop it as soon as we moved back to the North. My point is, it took me a really long time, months of practice, to get rid of whatever accent I previously had. Even Northeast Ohio (where they send news anchors to learn that monotone drawl) has an accent.

So, what's your best first step? Identify an accent close to yours and then try to learn it. It will get you out of the mindset of "this is how people talk" without being too complicated. For example, Wisconsinites might consider trying a basic Canadian accent. Georgians (state, not country) might want to try the Texas variation of the Southern accent. Stick to a regionally close area with a similar dialect. Of course, New York's a tough one because there are distinct accents for every ethnic community or suburb. Once you've got a handle on that, you can move on to tougher accents. Some people have a natural ear and can mimic anything they hear. For those of you like that, good on ya! Good luck, just go grab some stuff on IDEA and get to it.

For those that don't or those that want to jump into a complicated accent... well, this is for you.

Before we begin, I'll also mention that this is written by an American, but the methods will work for any English speaker looking to work with any accent.

Step One: Resources

Of course, you need resources to begin this process. Just saying "I've heard British people talk before" isn't enough for learning a British accent. A quick look at the IDEA page for the British dialect shows there are specific regions and dialects within each region. So my response is "Which British? Do you remember exactly what it sounded like? Do you know for a fact they were actually British?" 'Cause I'll tell ya, I enjoyed doing an Aussie accent when I went out with my friends for a couple hours.

What resources should you have? Audio clips. Any you can get your hands on. YouTube and IDEA are great starting points. If you have friends with the accent, talk to them, too. Record them if you can.


Step Two: Script Analysis

I will warn you right now, this is the least fun part of the entire process. Script analysis SUCKS. It was the single most valuable class I had in college and the hardest, even including high level computer programming and calculus classes. It's merciless and unforgiving and takes a LOT of practice. Since they tend to teach non-standard symbols, I'm just going to offer two suggestions, either make up your own symbol alphabet that makes sense for every phonetic sound you need to make OR learn / use the international standard. I don't know it and I've got my own way, but I know a lot of actors and linguists who love it.

Step Two A: Analyze the Region

What do I mean by that? Well! Here's the thing: The region is going to have certain characteristics that work well for it. You don't need to know the why, just the how. Liverpool is different than London is different than Dublin is different than Atlanta. Some accents become easier when you work on others first. If you're having a lot of trouble, consider trying another nearby region.

I've also heard that learning a Southern accent is invaluable for learning any British accent. I'll explain why in Two C.

Step Two B: Analyze the Text

This is probably the least fun part of the entire process. You're going to have to print or transcribe a speech in the accent you want. I recommend double spacing it so you can have space to either make notes or write a phonetic transcript, which is what I usually do, to read off of later. This is one of the reasons IDEA is such an important resource! They only have two scripts for hundreds upon hundreds of accents. You can compare your accent to the one you're trying to learn with a lot less effort.

Another piece of advice... this is going to take a while. You need to go through the text SLOWLY. It took me over an hour to do two minutes of dialogue. Take your time, this is the place it's most well spent.

Step Two C: Analyze Video

This step is going to be really hard if you can't find any video. If you can, thank your lucky stars. You may not notice this until you start looking for it, but facial expressions are the same across cultures. What isn't the same is the frequency with which they appear and the mouth movements for individual sounds. Many British dialects use very drawn together, closed lips without a lot of movement. Therefore, expression comes from tone rather than actual speech. It's very expressive, but in a way that's very different from American English. The exception is our Southern dialect. The mouth positions are very similar and conversation relies more heavily on tone than it does context and word choice. A friend has also said the British can talk about absolutely nothing for hours and hours and still be entertaining, I fully believe it.

So! Look for videos, try to imitate the mouth movements you see. If you have trouble with the accent in the later steps, try doing something different and weird with your mouth.

Step Three: Warm Up

Now that you have your resources squared away and a piece of text to work with, it's time to begin. Before doing so... please, please, please! remember to warm up. If you haven't taken a look at the workshop-y post I put up a bit ago, please check it out. Doing a warmup will save your voice later on. This is going to be super rough on your vocal cords. Have some water, possibly even tea and spoonfuls of honey, at the ready. Be sure you haven't had too much caffeine or smoked recently and STAY HYDRATED!

Step Four: Overextend the Stereotype

Okay, now that you're in the thick of it and actually speaking, this is the first step. You're not even going to have to try to overextend the stereotype. When working on it at first, it's probably just going to happen. If you have a mic or tape recorder, try to listen to yourself. For lack of anything else, put one finger in your ear and just see how you sound. Chances are, you're off, but it'll be hard to pinpoint why. The reason is probably because you're overextending the vowel and consonant sounds to the point at which it's just slightly unnatural and rings a little off.

Step Five: Minimize the Stereotype

So, how do you fix that? Well my saddened friend, back to script analysis or a variation of it. There are two ways to make it what it needs to be, natural.

A natural voice is one you're comfortable with. It isn't an act, it's just a part of you. That's why a lot of accent work is hard for people not native to the dialect they're imitating. It's also the main reason you'll be overextending the stereotype when you first start out.

As I said, there are two things you can do. One is to analyze your own voice. Try to figure out where you're holding vowels too long, where the consonants are too hard, which consonants are you saying that the dialect actually drops? These and similar questions are the ones you want to look at if your accent is a bit off. And let me tell you, it is. Even with the best training and the hardest work, I'd bet money that you'll still sound not-quite-right to someone who naturally speaks in that dialect.

However! That statement is mostly geared towards Australian, Irish, Scottish, and British dialects. If you want to imitate an Egyptian American, it's very different. You can sound a little off and no one will notice because the community is small and people have very different ways of learning a new language.

If you're looking to craft a voice for an South African who moved to Ireland... eh, good luck is all I can say. You're not going to find many resources since IDEA is based in America (and therefore every dialect is [Country] American rather than [Country] England / Ireland / etc. To do that requires a step that's going to be even less fun. You'll have to analyze the linguistics of the original language (pauses, inflections, body language, tones, alphabet type, possibly syntax and morphology) and then map it to your dialect. In other words, how does a non-native English speaker learn British English or whichever variation you know. If you're non-American and trying to craft an accent for a foreign language to a non-American dialect... well, good luck. If you have tips, please share them. I'm nowhere near experienced enough to offer more advice than I've just written down.

Now that the above rant is over... The other piece of advice is to get more comfortable in your chosen accent which is what the next few steps will help you with.

Step Six: Find Your Voice

Now that you've mapped the accent, imitated it, and toned down the stereotype, it's time to find your voice. Chances are you've been imitating more than just the accent. You've probably been imitating the tone and inflection of your target example, too.

How do you find your voice in the accent again? Well, the best thing is to grab other samples of the same accent and imitate them until you form a pattern for exactly the way consonants, vowels, diphthongs (two letter pairs), and triphthongs (three letter pairs, like -ing) are said regardless of the speaker. Try to figure these out and then try to speak in your natural voice with the accent's modifications.

Step Seven: Think in the Accent

It doesn't matter if you "just think" or if you actually think in complete words (most of us don't). Try to pick some daily tasks, like reading over a grocery list or set of chores, and think through it. Clearly enunciate every word, but wait! Don't do it out loud! That's right, force yourself to learn how to think in this accent. Make the voice, the accent, your voice, your thoughts.

Does an Irishmen think in Irish dialect? You bet! To truly become comfortable with an accent, for it to be natural, it has to FEEL natural TO YOU. To do that requires that you slightly alter the way you think. If you think a line ahead and think that line out in the accent, it will come out more fluidly and naturally than anyone who's simply imitating.

Step Eight: Tongue Twisters

Another thing you can do to become comfortable with the accent is to do a second warmup. Do the warmup in your accent. See how hard it is, and how different, to read out loud in the accent. This is another way to force you to think about how you're speaking and ingrain "this style of speech is natural" in your brain.

Tongue twisters are meant to be difficult, but many are designed for American English. Some can be really entertaining in a different accent. They may get easier or much, much harder. Play around with it. Being silly and ridiculous in the accent makes acting with it more comfortable. The more comfortable you are, the less you overextend the accent, the less you stereotype the better you're perceived and the more realistic the accent.

Step Nine: Singing

Finally, we come to the final step. This is when all else has failed or if you plan to move to said country and want to fit in more quickly. Singing uses an entirely different part of the brain than speaking. Additionally, many singers lose their accents when they sing and just have sound. So, if you can force yourself to sing in an accent (one of my favorite tricks for quickly learning it), then you can get perfectly comfortable in it.

Now keep in mind, I'm advocating two steps here. First, sing in as stereotyped an accent as you can. Like I said, people tend not to have accents when they sing. The Beatles and Scars on 45 or rappers tend to be an exception. Why? Because their accents are very thick and their singing is closer to speech than to belting out lyrics like Ozzy. So, sing in a heavy, stereotyped accent first.

Then go back to your original accent (the comfortable one) and sing in that. Try to analyze some singers and see if you can catch the small hints in their lyrics that betray an accent. They are there, they're just subtle. See if you can handle it. If you can, congrats! That's a very difficult and very impressive feat.

This step can also be a first step if you're a singer looking to learn an accent. If you want to learn a British accent, it may help you to sing a bunch of Beatles songs and match their inflections in song before trying to learn Liverpool.

Step Ten (Optional): Craft a Character

Now, this is an interesting step. This is for when you aren't intending to use your own voice, but still need an accent. I have to tell you, this is the roughest thing out there for voice actors. Not only must you convey everything through your voice, but you must also act, feel, emote, and express in a voice AND an accent that aren't yours.

This is where you'll have to learn layering. I think I may need to come back to this in a full blog post, but for now I'll give a step-by-step process.

1. Decide how you think you want the character to sound based on cues from the script, director, and artwork
2. Get the voice down first, the nasally or the gravely, the feeling and the emotions
3. Layer each on top of the other
4. Get comfortable with that
5. Then add the accent on top of it
6. Get comfortable with the accent with the new voice
7. Then audition

I wouldn't handle it any other way... this is just... leaps and bounds beyond most voice actors. I don't recommend trying to do it unless you almost never speak in your own voice to begin with and have years of experience and vocal training. I'm rarely comfortable with doing it. An accent on its own is essentially a new voice and will rarely sound like you, but adding a character voice to the accent... forget it. I can do it, but I rarely want to. It's hard. Really hard. If you're doing this... good luck.

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Now, a question that might be occurring is: Can this be used to imitate celebrities and / or craft new voices? Absolutely! These techniques are great for making new voices for voice-less characters. Anyone interested in voice acting will need to be able to look at a character sketch and basic personality profile and instantly craft a voice from it. It requires a little more work and I may try and write that down someday, but for now, these tips should be enough.

It may be that not every step is necessary, but I recommend going through each and every one if you're having trouble. To test yourself, see if you can find someone with that accent and convince them you're from somewhere nearby.

If you're still having trouble after all of this, you should speak with a friend who has a good ear. Ask them if they can figure it out. If not, message me and I'll take a listen or you can try a new accent and come back to this one. It's always possible you've been working too hard.

Cheers,
Drew

Believe It or Not...

Believe it or not, I actually haven't been ignoring y'all. I have been extremely busy, both with real life and some voice acting projects. I've been using everything I know to pin down Matt Smith's voice as closely as possible for My Little Time Lord and should be making a full write-up on both that and the accent work I promised a couple weeks ago very soon.

In addition to several videos posted with Matt Smith work (which I will soon put up here), I have also done something I said I never would... On the other hand, it got me on Equestria Daily and has almost 200 listens in under a week.

There is a terrible fan fic called Cupcakes that is written about Pinkie Pie. Think Soylent Green and Hannibal crossed with Christopher Nolan's Joker and add a little bit of confetti. It's pretty horrifying. That being said, I recorded a reaction audio while doing a live reading. People really seem to be enjoying it. It can be found on soundcloud and given the graphic nature and NSFW rating of the fic and the reading... I'm inclined to not link it here. Suffice it to say, I've been busy.

Soon, I'll have shiny new voice candy for all the good boys and girls. Back soon.

-Drew

MLTL

So... someone is looking to do an audio book of My Little Time Lord. I had spoken with someone about doing it. A very talented young lady, but she's not free for a month and someone else has taken up the mantle. As a result, I'm sending in an audition for the Doctor and hoping I can get that or one of a number of other parts. I've also just finished recording Dr. Magnusson's lines.

Anyhow, that's all for now. Promise I haven't forgotten about the step-by-step accent thing!

Guilty

Oh man... so, yeah. It occurred to me it's been over a week since I put anything up here.

Here's the deal right now: I've had an enormous amount of trouble finding a job and have been focusing almost exclusively on what I need to get done to be ready for work again. I also haven't had a lot of responsibilities in my mod work.

However, there has been stuff getting done. I'm speaking with an amazing lady who has given Derpy a voice and may be doing a reading of a Doctor Whooves fanfic in a month or so. Besides that, Leon over at the HL2 mod just posted a demo of the modeling work for the Kleiner lines. Here you can see the fantastic work the animator has done. A little later on, I'll try to embed it here on Voz De Suenos, as well.

I should also be finishing the Dr. Magnusson lines this week and continuing to perfect the Hoity Toity voice for the ponies mod. Finally, I'll try and get that step-by-step accent work thing posted later in the week when I'm finally done with some really important psych stuff. Stay tuned for more!!

Cheers,
Drew

Accent Work

So, I have begun working on Aussie and should be playing with Dutch sometime soon.

I just wanted to mention that I will eventually be doing an advice column for accent work. Since I haven't done a whole lot with start-finish methodology and kinda brushed it off with "it comes naturally to me," I thought I'd try to pin down some things that help.

I will give a tiny preview of ways to improve accent work:
-Resources
-Script Analysis
-Over extend the stereotype
-Minimize the stereotype thereafter
-See if you can force yourself to think in the accent
-Do tongue twisters in the accent
-Sing in the accent

[That's right, I've sung in accents. When I was in 5th grade, I was in choir and never sung in an American accent. I don't know if anyone ever noticed, but I was definitely singing in an Australian accent.]

So, there's that to look forward to!

Advice Column: Caring for Your Voice and Warming Up

Hey everybody!

It's been a busy, busy week. I've gotten the chance to do a little voice work, but no videos to show for it yet. I've spent the last two days reinstalling Windows, so I'll be learning yet another video editing program sometime soon so I can upload things. In the meantime, here's a quick update on things.

I've been working (not altogether successfully) on the Dr. Magnusson voice as well as trying to more closely match Hoity-Toity for the MLP:FiM thing later on. After listening over and over and matching the track with the show, I finally see how it was a little off, but it's getting there. As for Dr. Magnusson, it has a very interesting quality. I think I'll try to save information on that for a write-up later on.

So, you may be asking: Drew, where are the videos you keep promising us?! Well, here's the thing. Leon, the HL2 mod leader is ALREADY posing, animating, and rendering Dr. Kleiner. Because it took much less time than I thought, I may just wait and put that up instead of a terrible video with pictures. As far as the other videos, Cave Johnson and some of the other projects have taken a back seat to Hoity-Toity and Magnusson. Besides that, I am planning on doing some new accent work soon. I'd like to get my Aussie back (possibly work on New Zealand, as well) and finally work on the Dutch. In addition to all of these things, I've also been looking into teaching English abroad or taking a tech job in Kyrgyzstan.

Anyhow, in the meantime, I've got an advice column for you!!

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As many voice actors (professional or otherwise) will tell you, your voice is your single and only instrument. You must, Must, MUST take care of it. There are a lot of ways to do this, but the single best is the warm up. You shouldn't be singing or speaking for long periods of time without some kind of warm up. Still, there are a lot of quicker, easier things to explain, so we'll come back to that in a few paragraphs.

A quick Google search reveals numerous articles on proper voice care and most are more extensive than I'm going to be.

National Health Institute's Recommendations
Communication Blog
Another Voice Blog [kinda like mine!]
Even More Resources!
And an eHow article!!

In truth, most of the recommendations you'll find will boil down to the same key tenets as being healthy overall. Eat well, sleep well, relax a bit, exercise, avoid certain things, and warm up.

Now, like every teacher / actor, I'm about to tell you things that my friends know are hypocritcal. In fact, I'm doing a couple things I shouldn't and not doing several that I should right now given that I'll be playing around with voice work soon after I finish this.

Now, what about those tips? Your diet can have a rather interesting impact on your voice. It seems a little counter-intuitive at first, but it's definitely true. Crackly chips can make little cuts in your throat and chocolate and milk can coat your throat in a goo that will limit your range and strain your vocal cords. I'm not going to go into a full diet-tribe (hah!), but you need to be wary of eating certain things, especially right before you warm up. You also want to avoid dehydrators and make sure to keep a stead stream of water or mild (preferably decaffeinated) tea with you while recording. This will loosen up your throat and give you longevity in the recording process. When you get paid for this, you'll be at it all day, every day. Remember that.

So, what am I doing wrong right now? I'm drinking coffee. Coffee is bad, really bad. It's not only a dehydrator, it also pumps you full of chemicals that are likely to make it harder to relax. Honestly, as soon as I'm done with this cup, I'll be getting water and start warming up.

"I can't give up coffee, Drew! It keeps the sad away!!" Believe me, I know. As someone with severe insomnia, coffee basically keeps me alive in the morning. I doubt I could give it up again. So, what can you do instead? Well, either quit *shudder* or drink plenty of water and don't have any more caffeine until after you stop recording unless it's in minimal quantities, as in tea.

Cigarettes, despite what you might know about Chris Sabat or other gravely voice actors, are TERRIBLE for voice acting. Don't do it. If you smoke and want to be a voice actor, you WILL have to pick one or the other. They destroy your breathing, may give you cancer, limit your opportunities in the field, and will make you noticeably less relaxed. My only advice on this one is the advice I give myself: meditate. Meditate to relax and to explore the reasons you began (and then the reasons you continued) smoking in the first place. See if you can resolve those issues and build coping mechanisms to handle situations where you might have grabbed a cigarette before. If it's mostly social, realize that any real friends will respect your decision to quit. And, if you need a friend to give you some encouraging advice and stories about quitting, just email me or leave a comment on this post.

"Oh no, I'm sick!!" Well, there's not a lot you can do here. You don't want to get the other VAs and workers sick and you probably can't record. To avoid it in the future, keep a better diet, make sure to get more rest, exercise, make sure you're getting enough vitamins, and look up ways to enhance your immune system. If you absolutely MUST record today, then you have a few helpful options. Doing a bit of exercise, yoga is great under these circumstances, will help you regulate and normalize your breathing. It might also clear your sinuses. As always, drink more water. Beyond that, you probably ought to increase the length of your warm up. If you can't finish your warm up, you shouldn't be on a mic today. Finally, there are a few things that may help: cough drops and honey. Since cough drops are rated at one or two every few hours, it's not really a great idea to eat them by the handfuls. Better is honey. Honey will coat your throat even better than a cough drop, loosen it up, and get you ready for recording. It's also a great way to soothe your angry vocal cords after a long day of recording.

"Drew, you keep touting exercise, why?" Science isn't about why, it's about why not! If you love safe science so much- erhrm, sorry, too much Portal 2. So, why exercise? It's no secret that the overwhelming majority of us are simply lazy. There are real, amazing benefits to exercise for a VA, though. Besides keeping you in shape, working out (especially cardio) does two very wonderful things. First, it makes you genuinely healthier than your counterparts in the field. Voice studios are always glad to work with the voice they think can go longer and the guy who's wheezing at coming up the stairs once is probably not their best bet.

Second, and far more important, is breathing. Exercising will literally force you to have better breath work. In the research I did to write this post, it is mentioned EVERY time. People who are more out of shape and have poorer breathing are more likely to need long gaps in between recording single sentences. Honestly, there are very few times when you'll only record a sentence at a time. More than likely, it will be a paragraph or more, even in dialogue. Besides that, a larger lung capacity also increases your vocal range and decreases the likelihood of straining your vocal muscles.

I'm kind of going about this in a roundabout way, but sleep well is next. Why? Well, sleeping well boosts your immune system. Since many colds will damage your voice, staying healthy is a huge part of your job. Beyond that, sleeping well will also relax you and give your vocal cords a proper rest. Do yourself a huge favor and avoid those late nights whenever possible.

Finally, we come to the warm up. The warm up is. The. Single. Most. Important. Tool in your arsenal. Why? Just take a look at this:

Reporter 2: Yeah, I heard from one of the people who was at FUNimation's panel yesterday who said that Sean once passed out.

TW: Oh yeah, it was Eric Vale.

Reporter 2: Oh, it was Eric Vale?

TW: It wasn't Sean Schemmel. Sean Schemmel had a 30-second scream -- and it was at the top of his register too -- and he just screamed for 30 seconds. Like I said, it's about technique like anything else -- like holding a high note in a singing -- it's all about support from your diaphragm. Basically you're just screaming, and Eric Vale took this huge breath which you never do -- you never just blare it out; you take this three-quarters breath and then support it -- and it was like this throaty yell and I think he got like 18-20 seconds into it and you just heard this ba-bump. Then it's like "Oh ****! He just passed out." We open the door and he lies on the floor there, and you're like "Oh my God!" I'm sure Sean Schemmel might have passed out too, but it's all about support; and they are not a whole lot of screaming battle cries anymore. I think Ed and I do it a couple times. I think I just yell at people; it's not like when I snap I'm like "raaaaaaaaaaawwwawrr."

Now, some of you might ask, why aren't you citing a source here? Because this isn't the first time I've heard this story. At Ohayocon one year, I heard Chris Sabat talk about passing out. I don't know if he ever did, but he said it happened. A lot. You may not be auditioning for or voicing the next Dragon Ball Z, but it's an important point.

If you don't warm up and know which muscles and technique to use, you may well pass out in the recording booth. I'm guessing that's not a place or time you want to sleep. Warming up will also help prevent you from doing lasting, permanent damage to your voice.

Given that I've been classically trained and had some voice training, my warm up may actually be a good place for you to start. Most of what I was taught, I got out of the Acting One book I've mentioned before, so you can find better descriptions in there.

• In preparation, drink a little water, maybe have a spoonful of honey if your voice is feeling a little off or strained. Brushing your teeth (Be sure to clean your tongue!!!) and gargling with water and making sounds through the water can also be a nice first step.
• When you're ready, close your eyes, take a couple of deep breaths, and clear your thoughts. Believe me, this is going to get silly and you need to let your inhibitions go. You're going to look ridiculous, but it's okay. Once you prove your vocal range and work ethic, you may have others doing warm ups like this, too. Then THEY get to look silly!
• The next step is to blow out some air (open your eyes or don't, you won't need them until you have to read in a bit). Relax your lips, purse them together, and blow air out. You'll sound, and look, like a horse. It's pretty hilarious. Do this at least a couple times before moving on. It can also be helpful to gently massage your face muscles.
• Next, we're going to add a bit of sound. It doesn't matter what sound, just add some. We'll be working with range in a moment. Do this for a minimum of five breaths.
• After this, it's time to get a great range going. I have no doubt that this part of the exercise is where my voice modulation abilities and exceptional octave range comes from during recording. Play around with range. At breath one, start at a normal speaking voice (though you won't be saying any words). Blow out with your flappy, funny lips and project a sound out as you blow. You'll probably sound like a plane here. Next (in whatever order you like), go for a full breath at a high range and then a low range. See how high and how low you can go. After at least trying one breath of each, start playing with the range in between. Finally, play with your range during a single breath. Breath in, normal, do ray me fa so la ti do and back down again. Get as far as you can in a single breath. No one will blame you if you start laughing. Even when I'm alone, I still find this hysterical.
• Once you're content with a little range, the next step is chewing. Wait, what?! What does that mean? Basically, you're going to do every step thus far and then shut your mouth so you kind of look like a blow fish and swish around the sound in your mouth. This is kind of an abstract concept. Since I can't show it to you, I'll explain as best I can. The idea is that you've already worked on your relaxing, then your breathing, then your sound, and then your range. Now you're working on relaxing your face muscles and getting them to work with your mouth and voice. Chewing the sound around in your mouth feels like having a harmless buzzy bee in your mouth that wants to keep moving from side to side.
• Last in this part of the warm up is the sound. By this point in the warm up, this should produce a really strong, solid note. Breath in, purse your lips, breath out and make sound, chew your words, and then open your mouth and let the sound escape with a beautiful "Maaaaaaaaa." If you do it right, it will probably be right around the same sound as your speaking voice, but with a clearer, nicer tone and fuller body. Hard to explain what that means, but you should know it when you hear it. Anyone familiar with this method who has a better way of explaining it, please let me know and I'll update this post. I would do this at least a few times before moving on. Play with the octave if you like, it's a great way to build your range. Just be careful not to strain yourself before you've even made it to recording.
• After this, I recommend shaking your entire body. One side, then the other. Right leg, then left, right arm, then left (or vice versa, it doesn't matter), then shiver your whole body. Work out any remaining tension. It can be super helpful to relax your face muscles and play with your face and tongue here to. Just loosen up.
• Then we come to the final step: actual speaking. Not normal speaking, though, ho no. Tongue Twisters. Tongue twisters are the hardest things to do in any language. They're designed to make you trip up and say something funny or just gibberish. Tongue twisters are 9 times out of 10 more difficult than any line you'll say all day. Warming up with them means the hardest work is out of the way and your articulation will be much better than if you'd left them alone. So. Try some out. Instead of posting some here, I've got one better. A site with literally hundreds of tongue twisters, it's a really amazing place. If you're like me, a few isn't enough because some are simply easier than others and your easier ones may be my hardest. Just play around with a few that seem difficult and a few that seem easy. Be sure to be articulate and crank up the speed when you feel ready.
• Now get out there and record!

A piece of advice when warming up: do what works for you. Look up other warm up techniques and see if any work better than this for your voice. If so, share a link in the comments for others to see! Besides that, this is meant as the fastest warm up. I generally take at least two or three minutes at every step instead of a couple breaths. Try to figure out how much you think you need and keep at it. If you land a real voice acting job, you may want to quickly warm up again after lunch.

At some point in the near future, I do plan to record this so you have a better idea of what some of this may sound like.

So, that's that. Good luck out there!

Make sure to take care of your voice and good luck out there.
~Drew

Update-y Things

Hey everyone!

So, here's a quick update on what's going on. I'm focusing pretty heavily on my job search right now, but that doesn't mean I haven't had time to work on things. I had a secondary audition the other day for that pony game and received an email last night saying they'd like to proceed. Doesn't guarantee me a spot, but they liked what they heard thus far. I'll also be continuing work on Hoity-Toity for them.

In addition to that, I will likely be doing the other character for the mod I'm voicing Dr. Kleiner in.

I have also posted a commercial demo.



As always, head here if you can't see the video.

Besides that, I'll be continuing work on mods and trying to find something paying in the mean time. I'm considering teaching English abroad, though I'd be taking my mic with me to continue building experience while I work on paying off my car and student loans.

I've also seen some basic stuff for Dr. Kleiner and it looks fantastic. I really can't wait to see it in game. Otherwise, I guess I'll be working on Hoity-Toity, Dr. Magnusson, and some other stuff while handling other stuff. See y'all later!

Possible New Project and Pony Voice Work

So, I may or may not get any positions, but I've spent all morning working on voices for another mod. Not only did I work on these voices, I also have a shiny new video for all of you!

What is this video you may ask? Ponies.

I've been having enormous difficulties getting a good recording for the music I've been working on. Since it may have to hit the back burner for a while, I'll let you know what I was working on instead of being evasive. I had planned to record and upload Frank Sinatra's Strangers in the Night and the Grateful Dead's Friend of the Devil. It's been difficult getting rid of the original vocals and even worse getting a solid, single recording of a song. It's good practice, but it's taken up a lot of time.

What about Cave Johnson, you may ask. Well, to be honest, there's so much needed to get the voice perfect, that I'm not ready to record yet. I've worked on it for about an hour every day for the past five, but it's rough on my throat and progress is hard won. Thaaat reminds me, soon I plan to do an advice column about taking care of your voice which will include vocal warm ups. It's important for every VO specialist or VA.

Also, as promised long ago, here's a link to that ever-interesting torrent of arguably the world's worst fanfic. http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/6139788 Unfortunately, I need to poke one of my friends (Vonix) to start uploading them again, but I'll get to work on that. Hint: Later on, there's even a chapter where we base the reading on DBZ Abriged and I'm transitioning between about 10 voices. EDIT: Listen up, folks! If and when this goes back up, realize, it is NSFW and probably would be rated 18+ no matter where you live. There's dirty jokes, cursing, and drinking during the recordings, so... ya know. Listener discretion is advised.

As for the Dr. Kleiner video... ugh. It makes me want to buy intricate glass work to shatter. The MP3 files are beautiful, but they don't import well. A friend says he's fair with video editing, so I'm hoping to see if another program will handle it better. We shall see.

Now, what about this mystical pony video?

Well, it includes one of the first original characters I've ever created. Saw the concept art without knowing anything about the character and crafted a voice I thought would fit from there. The character is from MLP Gen 1 and named Arabus, but the art has been revamped. As for my voicing, I took a pseudo Middle Eastern acccent and crossed it with what eventually became Barbados Slim (from Futurama) for the base voice. After that, I made it deep and rumble-y, like thunder, since he's a cloud creature. Finally, I added a lot of extra air and hissing to convey the cloud-like air/wind quality I thought his voice should have. As a result, the voice ended up being very soft. To counter this, I used Audacity's amplification feature because I felt his voice should be booming. Unfortunately, I needed the computer's help on that voice because amplifying my own voice lost that airy quality I was striving for.

Next were actually established characters. I recorded Big Macintosh (though the mod already has one) because it was honestly a piece of cake. His voice is super close to mine if I make it a bit quieter, more thoughtful, and replace a bit of the Southern accent I lost.

Then there was Hoity-Toity. Man, that took forever. I swear it started off sounding like Sean Connery, not what I wanted at all. I basically had to speak from my nose with a constant air of disapproval and a physical frown. The inflections came pretty quickly after that.

Finally, we have Braeburn... Goodness. That was a difficult one. His voice is between two of the vocal ranges I can do and getting there was a real challenge. I still don't quite have it spot on. Still, it's coming along. As for the accent, it required some very interesting mouth movements that I can't really describe. It needed to be a combination of a young prospector and a Southern accent without really being either.

DEAR GREAT SKY MONSTER! Ugh, the audio quality in the video turned out terrible again. I hate Ubuntu so much right now. I wish Windows would properly install. It's not even the loudest recordings any more. Why is it that the MP3s sound amazing, but the videos are terrible?! Honestly, I don't know what to do about this. I guess I'll be trying a new video editing program. I'm tired of this happening. I'm not a video editor, I don't care about the video quality. I need good AUDIO.

----

After much screaming, I appear to have located a better set of video editing software. It's more user-friendly and has tons of audio / video quality and compression options. However, it doesn't like saving in any format but what it wants, so I guess I'll have to find something to change file formats if YouTube doesn't like it. Hooopefully, the audio works properly on this one, though...

WAAAAHOOOO!!! Oh man, I'm so stoked! So, I sacrificed a bit of the video quality, but the .dvd format uploads to YouTube no problem and the audio is CRYSTAL clear. That means I can upload the Dr. Kleiner video as soon as I get the chance. In the meantime, here's more video-y goodness.



As always, if you can't see it, check out the YouTube channel here.

Thanks for checking me out everypony!

Sneaky, sir, very sneaky

Things are brewing. Won't tell y'all what things, but things are brewing. Lots of things. Fun exciting things. Do I sound like the Doctor yet? Fine, but bowties are still cool!

Working on two little projects this morning and may have one or two up later. Been having... technical difficulties with the Kleiner video. Turns out my recording is really loud. The mp3s sound great, but they don't import well to kdenlive (yep, I'm on Ubuntu). So, probably going to try using audacity's amplify feature to un-amplify them to a more kdenlive-y-tolerating range. Lots of technical terms there, I know.

The other stuff, well. Just. You. Wait and see. Should be fancy.

*** Edit:

So, not today. Technical issues are getting the better of me. Also, I've been working on two musical things and my voice isn't super used to singing. Plus, Cave Johnson's voice is ridiculously hard to match. I'm going to need a long, full writeup to explain what I'm doing for that. Just the voice alone is requiring physical tricks, mental shifts, special cadences, strange tones and inflections, and a melding of several voices I've already "mastered," it's turning out to be super tricky.

Also: ponies.

Updates

H'ok, well... Since I just made a giant post, I'll quickly update everyone so they know where I'm headed from here.

I have fully recorded Dr. Kleiner's lines and probably won't be recording Dr. Magnusson. Since there appears to be a large time delay between now and mod release, I plan to grab a picture of Dr. Kleiner and post the video in the next few days. When the mod is released, I'll probably record in-game footage and replace the current video with that.

Next works:

-Cave Johnson [Portal 2]
-Abraham Lincoln
-Call of Cthulhu
-Commercial Demo

and eventually:
-1985: Reclamation
-Redub of Video 2

Plus, at some point I'll be talking about My Immortal. I may also be helping a company begin a podcast (where I'd likely be the one recording).

Now, what's the time table on these things, why am I doing them, and where am I headed from there?

Time table for Cave Johnson is later today or early tomorrow (assuming I can actually match the voice well enough). I played around with a bunch of the lines and really enjoy them. It will likely be more of a tribute than any real acting, but y'know.

As for Lincoln, I need to find a reference voice that is piping and squeaky or a portrayal of him in film that I think does a good job with the voice. As soon as I've found that, I can work on the voice again and continue on my merry way. While it won't *really* be acting, I've chosen to do that particular voice work because it will involve heavy emotions and a lot of voice work without actual um... voice work. What I mean is it will involve a lot of intense work with my voice without crafting a new, weird voice (like Vegeta's or Gollum's). Basically, I'm doing it because it will be a challenge.

As I'm typing this, I'm reminded that I have yet to do a commercial demo and really need to get to that. I think I mentioned it briefly in another post, but commercials are probably my best shot of getting paying voice acting work before companies like Funimation and Pixar will even take me seriously. Therefore, although it isn't acting, it is in a sense because it's selling something I probably don't care about and will need to convince myself I care about so as to evoke and involve the buying habits of the mysterious customers out in the ether. So, time table for that one is pretty much as soon as I find some lines. My cousin gave me some, but I recall finding that the site was blocked or required some kind of authorization / account to see the script. Feh. So, soon.

Call of Cthulhu is sort of nowish and sort of on the back burner, as well. It's something I'd really enjoy doing, but it's not a super priority. It's going to require a lot of research, a lot of work, and some reaaaaally long recording sessions. As such, I will probably be holding off on that until I've finished some of the smaller, more important projects.

1985: Reclamation is the second mod I applied to and got serious interest from. The thing is, I haven't heard from the mod leader for a little while and it seems to be a pretty massive project. I'm not even sure how much of the game is coded, modeled, and rendered. As such, it could be quite a while before I actually receive any lines from him to be recorded. I'll be applying to mods in the mean time and doing other work until I get some kind of a script from him. Until then, all I can do is stay in contact, get better at voice acting, and improve the quality of my British, Irish, and Scottish accents.

Fiiiinally, we have the re-dub of the character demo I did. To be honest, I don't even want to watch it again right now. After the work I did on Dr. Kleiner (which I'm pretty proud of), I hardly even want to recognize what I did in that video. It needs to be redone and recorded until the voices are all more-or-less spot on in each line. I also want to add some actual acting, choices, and motivations into the line delivery that weren't there before. Just because something is a character demo doesn't mean there's no need for dynamic, exciting acting. There is. There really is and I dropped that ball in the first recording session. So, I do want to re-do that, but I think I need some temporal and acting distance from it before it gets re-recorded. Time table? Soon, but not yet.

Also: I wanted to mention that since I finally have a few videos up and lots of blog posts, I'll probably be slowing down on the updates as I take on bigger projects and look to applying for jobs again. When I start working again, it probably won't be in voice acting for a while so the lessons I learn related to that will be less frequently learned. As such, I plan to make a regular update schedule of either once a week or once a month depending on how much voice work I have and the lessons I can add up here.

Obviously, I'll post videos and demos as regularly as possible, but until this is a paying job it needs to be a hobby. Besides, how can y'all keep up with a post a day when I write walls of text?

Advice Column: Choices

I was reading through my acting book and I wanted to cover one of the most important fundamentals that gets neglected in a lot of voice classes. Choices.

You'll hear about choices in your beginning acting classes (and hopefully on the web if you haven't had any formal training). Generally, they talk about choices that excite the other (usually your partner in a scene) physically and psychologically. Bad choices don't drive the action forward, they drag on and stagnate. Good choices elicit emotional responses in your partner. It makes for dynamic acting that then comes off as real to the audience.

There's a lot of good stuff about choices in Acting One by Robert Cohen. It's a really fantastic book and if you've got a bit of extra money (as little as $5 on eBay right now), I suggest picking it up. He talks about choosing:

• To find your partner interesting
• Goals that excite you physically and emotionally
• Fears that personally frighten you
• Use your entire arsenal of human emotions, tactics, and beliefs
• To smile
• To hurry the action / your partner along

As well as several other things. The book is really fantastic, but this blog isn't designed to help a non-actor become an actor. Rather, the advice column here is to help an actor learn what it takes to become a voice actor.

Honestly, if I didn't know better, I'd think most actors look down on voice acting as though it were somehow easier than physical acting. For those in that mindset (and those of you considering voice acting as a career path), consider this: In normal, everyday acting, you have movement, lighting, camera angles, physical gestures, other people to play off of, scenes to develop, sound tracks, and a host of other scenarios and props to play off of. Now, consider this: a voice actor must make all of the same choices, too, and yet must elicit every emotional response in a distant audience simply by using his or her voice. In fact, you may even be in the recording booth on different days than characters you're supposed to be talking to.

Beginning to see why a lot of voice acting comes across flat? This is where script analysis, research, and an understanding of the psyche (all things I've hinted at before) come in. This next point is really important, so aspiring voice actors should really listen:

To become an excellent voice actor, you should watch other voice actors. If they manage to elicit emotional involvement on your part, rewatch it and try to figure out why. It probably wasn't what the animators chose to do. In series like Spongebob, Futurama, or Dragon Ball Z, one voice actor could be playing up to 15 or 20 unique characters (though it's likely that only one or two are main characters). The point is, they have to fully express a separate persona simply with their voice.

While Billy West does this with Fry, Zoidberg, Professor Farnsworth, and a number of others, I can think of an even better example. Piccolo and Vegeta are both voiced by Chris Sabat and the voices are nearly identical. At a convention, I saw him explaining the difference between the voices. Honest to gods, the only difference is he gets quieter and closer to the microphone for Piccolo. That means that his acting CHOICES are what differentiate the two characters. It isn't even the "voice," it's the use of the voice.

The actor's voice is an instrument, but the voice actor's voice is literally his only instrument. Choose to develop a tonal range. Choose to say lines 50 different ways. Choose to set scenes in different places in your mind until you can find the real, underlying, gritty, driving, emotionally exciting line delivery you need.

The choices you make will develop a character and you can only convey these things with your voice. The tone, the inflection, the warmth or hostility, a quiver and quake, anger or enticement, and much more will influence line delivery and how the audience receives it.

Furthermore! While the audience may not be able to see your movements, I fully recommend moving (not away from the mic) while recording. If you're persuading someone in real life, you're probably using your hands and facial expressions to convey the point. Try convincing the microphone. See if that adds more emotional depth and realism. It may surprise you to find that sitting down and simply recording isn't enough.

Just remember, the choices you make influence your performance and develop your character. I suggest reading the choices chapter in Acting One (chapter 12 in the fourth edition). It can help you understand what your partner and audience expect from you and how to develop these qualities yourself. As a voice actor, you'll need to do all of these things with only your voice and it pays to be a little dramatic in your vocal staging of things since it's your only weapon.

Listen closely when people are speaking in your everyday life. What clues do the shake in their voice give? Are they attracted to someone and afraid that someone might find out? Are they hiding the fact that they just lost their job? Are they holding back excitement in their personal life because their friend has just revealed crushing news? Listening closely to these clues will help you develop the ability to make these vocal distinctions in the recording booth. Each of those scenarios will have a different waver to the voice, but the waver is there all the same. Waver isn't the only thing to listen for, mind you. Plenty of other qualities exist, as well.

Try not to pay too much attention to stage or camera actors when doing this. They've learned to use everything (or, in some cases, nothing) they have and the voice is just one of 100 things they understand. For this, I suggest listening to real people's conversations and analyzing the best voice actors you can think of.

---
Examples and transitions into psyche:
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We've already explored a bit how understanding of the psyche can assist you in acting. It's similar in voice acting. Once you understand a character's tactics and motivations (usually choices you will need to make as the actor based on script analysis) then you can begin delving into what you need to be working on.

Honestly, one of the most difficult acting tasks I've had thus far was the sociopathic Dr. Kleiner from a HL2 mod I just recorded. Why is that? Well, sociopathy develops slowly and must display signs at age 15 or earlier. Those who know Half Life know Dr. Kleiner is a super nice guy. The first time I went through the recordings, I went with "he became a little nuts because he's desperate to save the Earth." That's not what the mod leader wanted or intended. He actually wanted him to be bonkers to the point of being homicidal. Essentially, in a few weeks (in-game) Dr. Kleiner's character had been transformed into Hannibal Lecter.

The way I had to deal with this was analyzing the lines and watching a clip of Anthony Hopkins talking about Hannibal's character over and over again. Then, I went to the DSM (which I already suggested getting) and looked up the general traits of a sociopath after I researched what Hannibal was technically classified as. [It would be good to mention now that Hannibal was the character / craziness reference the mod leader gave me]

After that, I had to study Hopkin's acting choices and how I thought those related to the clinical understanding of a sociopath. After I had a better understanding of the type of crazy the mod leader wanted, I had to plausibly develop in my mind (without actual story details) the decent into madness that Dr. Kleiner (a super nice guy who cared deeply about Alyx and Gordon) experienced. How was he still the same? What tactics would he use when speaking? How did his voice need to transform from Dr. Kleiner to Hannibal without being one or the other? How could I make him sound crazy without being so over-the-top that it became funny instead of terrifying?

Finally, after I'd answered all of these questions for myself, it came time to record. Unfortunately, I had a bit of a problem staying perfectly in character. Obviously, I had to remedy this, so I started adding some physical quirks to the performance (even if the audience will never see them), added a little more range to my voice, twitched and suppressed anger, and paced to make me feel like I was in a prison cell.

After that, I chose what I think made the biggest difference. Before EACH and EVERY line, I recited a line of Dr. Kleiner's from Half Life ("I was just saying hello to Alyx and Gordon") and then recited one of Hannibal's lines in a half-Kleiner, half-Hannibal voice ("A census-taker came to my door once. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti.") While reciting the first line, I tried to imagine knowing Alyx and Gordon as old friends and being relieved to see them and a little perturbed at Dr. Magnusson's rushing me. Every time I recited Hannibal's line, I let my psyche slip to a darker place, a more muted, teeter-tottery place where I stood on the knife blade of sanity and "remembered" when I had invited the census-taker into my home and how delicious that meal had been.

True, it is disturbing, but these are the things that are needed to fully engulf yourself in a character so you can bring about an emotional response in the audience. That's what we're truly after and the psyche is an extraordinary part of the process. The thing is, these acting choices will affect vocal choices and since your voice is your only weapon, you need to do it. Make bold choices. Make good and exciting choices. Use the best voice you have and good luck out there.

Resources Part I: DSM

One thing I haven't really touched on for actors is resources.

Since I'm in the middle of researching crazy and getting the patterns and ideas down properly, I thought I'd share one of my favorite resources.

Although I owned it before I came back to acting, it's a godsend. That is... the DSM IV. The Diagnostic Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders IV. I know V comes out in late 2012 or 2013, but there won't be huge differences and it could be that IV is even cheaper in a year or two.

Now, why might this be useful? The thing is as heavy as a backpack of bricks and around 1000+ pages. That's a lot of reference material on everything from eating disorders to depression to schizophrenia. It's well organized, comes with symptoms, leading questions, family history, and even cultural factors. It is by far one of the most valuable tools an actor can own. (As opposed to possess, like natural talent, or develop, like high energy)

Now, why is this so useful, you might ask. I don't need that.

Really?

...Really?

How often are you going to play a character that has never once had a problem. Whether mental diseases are recognized or accepted in your society, how often will you play someone who has been super happy their entire life (and isn't that probably delusional, anyhow)? Never. Some characters have agression issues, others mania and depression, some are truly psychotic, and others are compulsive kleptomaniacs. No matter what it is, understanding a character's mental state adds tons of depth to a performance that may not otherwise be there.

Of course, as a warning, owning a copy of the DSM might convince you you've got problems you don't have. I implore you not to diagnose yourself with it. It doesn't work well, especially for actors who display a lot of traits the general population would term insane.

Anyhow, back to the advice. Consider how useful some of your acting tools have been. The best performance you ever gave, the best acting book, the best coach. You can pick up a copy of the DSM IV for at most $60 on eBay right now. Go to Amazon or wherever you buy books and leaf through some of the pages. It's an invaluable resource for understanding mental states outside your own.

Just remember: some symptoms are cultural, so don't always trust what you find online. Wikipedia is Eurocentric and may not give you the best description of an African, Russian, or Asian character's view of or symptoms of a mental disorder.

While most of us are moderately well adjusted, that doesn't make for good theater or interesting stories. Wild, passionate characters do and that's how most writers choose to develop them. That means playing something with an extremely high energy. There's a lot to be said for doing research into your character and even more to be said for doing it the way a psychologist might. Every good actor should be a psychologist, so get started.

NPCs and HL2

Well, I mentioned on my Facebook at around 1:00 am that I had recorded some lines for a Half Life 2 mod. I really enjoyed the character and thought the lines turned out really well. I woke up this morning to find that the mod leader really enjoyed the lines, but they weren't quite crazy enough.

This is something all actors will inevitably have to deal with and believe me when I say it takes practice. Criticism, constructive or otherwise, is always hard, especially if a director doesn't give you much, well, direction. (Man, look at how many commas that sentence had!) But, the director is the director and more crazy just means it can end up being more ridiculous, psychotic, and more fun.

So, shortly I'll be going back through the lines trying to make them even crazier. We'll see how that goes.

****
Now time for the first, or second?, advice column. I know there are a lot of topics I wanted to touch on and this isn't even on the list, but it came up in a discussion last night and I think it's a great place to start. The idea of NPCs.

In a lot of voice acting, you get what you pay for. Even if you have Mark Hammil or Billy West, they still might not give the best performance if they're underpaid or if the lines aren't super well written. The specific example I'm thinking of is a genre not EVER known for its voice overs. What is that? RTSs or Real Time Strategy games. This would include everything from Diablo II to StarCraft and Command and Conquer. Hell, you might even make a case for Civilization.

Some of the voice over work is all right, but the vast majority is simply atrocious. Why is that? Well, a couple of reasons. One I'll call the NPC Rule and come back to. The other is the idea that several deaths is a tragedy, but a million is a statistic. Characters get lost in the shuffle. This leads, psychologically speaking, to the NPC Rule for writers and voice actors.

In D&D, NPCs are defined as Non-Player Characters, anyone the player cannot control from Hitler to Mess Hall Cook IV. The problem is, unless there's a certain amount of investment in the character's game future (as there would be with Hitler), there won't be development or personality added to this particular character. This one of the things that causes bad voice acting. If your character will never interact with the player for more than two lines, it's likely you're willing to let yourself underdevelop the character's personalities, goals, etc.

This is a problem in both acting and everyday life. When someone cuts you off on the highway, your immediate response is probably to think "what a jack@$$," but what if he or she is rushing someone to an emergency room or just got back from a business trip and wants to make it to their child's birthday party? We almost never think about that. We're so wrapped up in our own world that we typically only think WE are the real person and no one else is.

This is where the NPC Rule comes in for acting. That mess hall cook's lines will come across flat when you decide he's not a real person. When you decide he is limited to the scope of his two lines and nothing brought him to this point and nothing will carry him out of this point. He will be perpetually stuck in the ether of bad voice acting and in limbo in that mess hall. Can you think of a worse fate than that? Sure he's not technically real, but good voice acting can make a game and I bet money you can think of examples where bad voice acting has nearly destroyed one.

So, off my soap box, what am I talking about? What's the bottom line? Develop any character, no matter how small or insignificant, because in that character's eyes, he has come to this point from somewhere. Something brought him here and he expects to go somewhere else after this, even if you know it isn't true. So bring any and every character to life. They have a past and they believe they have a future (unless they're suicidal, but that's fun, too). Bring realism to your work and add depth, even if it isn't there. That will change you from an average voice actor into a phenomenal one.

No character is truly an NPC

The Suicide's Soliloquy (Part I)

The Suicide's Soliloquy is a poem attributed to Abraham Lincoln. It was planned as one of the next few videos, but I've been having some issues with it. First and foremost, I honestly don't believe myself when I read it.

The thing is, I'll admit that I occasionally understand what Lincoln (or the real writer) is talking about. That crushing feeling of despair almost comes out of the mouth in a very surreal way. Because of that, reciting the poem in a believable way is rather difficult. It's the first piece I've been working on that I might actually want to print out and write notes on. Unlike the accent work, it's not just displaying something, unlike Orson Welles, it's not meant to be flat and monotone. Further, there's a lot of heavy imagery that I need to actually convey with nothing but my voice. THAT is the trouble I'm running into. Focus on the voice, lose the tone, focus on the tone, lose the imagery. So, what I think the next step is, is to print the poem out and write down specific words to emphasize and images line by line. What would Lincoln have been feeling and seeing in his mind's eye that led him to speak a particular line? Why are those lines, those words, chosen over other ones? What would make him want to say it like this, write it in this way, so that others would see and feel what he saw and felt. There are certainly specific words meant to be emphasized, images to convey through text, and feelings to be shared. Right now, I'm having trouble reading in a way that shows that kind of complexity, so for the time being, I won't finish recording it.

Of course, after that issue, there's the problem of the specific voice. For some reason, I keep descending into a pseudo-Orson Welles voice. It definitely doesn't fit the tone or tempo.

After doing a lot of research, I'm not even sure what to do with the voice other than simply act and not change my voice too much. See, there are no documented recordings of Lincoln's voice and the descriptions from a couple of other politicians are... spotty at best. I'm not really comfortable doing what the reports say about his voice without some kind of example. Wiki and some other sources say:

Lincoln's voice was, when he first began speaking, shrill, squeaking, piping, unpleasant; his general look, his form, his pose, the color of his flesh, wrinkled and dry, his sensitiveness, and his momentary diffidence, everything seemed to be against him, but he soon recovered.
--William H. Herndon letter, July 19, 1887

But whenever he began to talk his eyes flashed and every facial movement helped express his idea and feeling. Then involuntarily vanished all thought or consciousness of his uncouth appearance, or awkward manner, or even his high keyed, unpleasant voice.
--Abram Bergen in Intimate Memories of Lincoln

The [second] inaugural address was received in most profound silence. Every word was clear and audible as the ringing and somewhat shrill tones of Lincoln's voice sounded over the vast concourse.
--Noah Brooks in Washington in Lincoln's Time

I have a lot of trouble getting my voice to sound demure and "squeak" So I'm reallying not sure how to make it do those things without a solid reference. I may shelve this project until I can find a better voice to imitate that will get me closer to the description of Lincoln's. I know I actually have a few readers now, so if any of y'all have ideas or voices for me to take a look at, it'd be much appreciated!

On another note, I am doing something a little different this video. I didn't feel like I was in the right mood or getting the proper feeling to do this recording silently, so I've decided this particular video will include some background music. What you may ask? Midnight Syndicate (Darkness Descends). I've used them for D&D and Whitewolf games in the past and they create a very somber, dark mood that perfectly fits the tone of the poem. Better still is they're a local group. Gotta support the local arts! Anyhow, I suppose that's all for this update.

I'm going to try recording it again tomorrow morning. There's something to be said for method acting, but there's also something to be said for not being in the right mood to read this.

Cheers, all. I'll catch ya tomorrow.

British Isles Accent Work

Weeell now...

So, I didn't expect to have an accent demo this quickly, but since one of the modders needed it, I guess I might as well post it.

I've been trained to do Scottish and Irish accents, but it's been a couple of years. Brushing up on them pretty much only required listening to a few clips on IDEA and following along out loud. After that, it was pretty much just finding some lines of dialogue and recording.

Unfortunately, since I had university training with the Irish and Scottish, I can't really help people learning them. To be honest, you wouldn't want my advice if you knew what I went through to get Irish. We went through a play (I believe Look Back in Anger) and underlined every line of dialogue making phonetic changes and inflection notes... and the play was already WRITTEN in an Irish speaking style. Feckin' instead of fucking. The whole thing. Script analysis is not fun, but it's an integral part of learning any new accent or character. I'm sure I'll have a long post on script analysis later. In the meantime, voice candy to sedate you!



And of course, head here if you're having trouble seeing it on this page.

Maybe one of these days, I'll actually bother to learn how to do nice video editing instead of just posting pictures like this! Until next time!

***
Post-Post:

It occurred to me after posting that that I had inserted a phrase at the end intended only for the mod leader, but I guess that gives you a hint of what I may be working on soon. Dutch accent, should be interesting...

Yorkshire Accent Work

So, I spoke with a modder on Mod DB and found out they only need people with British, specifically Yorkshire and Lancashire, accents. He said if I could do accent work, then I was certainly welcome-

Y'know, I have to pause right here and mention these thoughts aren't coming out of my head without sounding like they're from Yorkshire.

Hrhrm. Anyhow. As suggested by my teachers (Scott and Raymond) years ago, I've done a lot of work in the past few hours. Having done a lot of accent work in the past has made this easier than I thought it would be, but also a great deal harder. Yorkshire has a very strange accent that I'm not used to. One little slip and it changes to Irish, Scottish, or Liverpool. You have to change the ou in about or out to an au to avoid too much of an ooooooOOOooOO sound (like you'd get with Liverpool) and almost completely stop using r's.

For someone who enjoys speaking like a pirate and generally fully pronounces every letter of every word, this is interesting. Words like happening may change to appn'in or happinin depending on how you want to go with it.

When picking up new accents, especially ones like Yorkshire, I recommend doing as much research as possible. I've recently discovered Wikipedia has a section for at least the Yorkshire and Lancashire accents as well as many others. Wikihow even has an article on Yorkshire accents. I wouldn't trust everything they say, but it's a pretty good start. I would specifically recommend looking into IDEA (again, great springboard) and then going into other sources. Find as many as you can and repeat, repeat, repeat. Don't worry about the acting until you finish getting the voice work down.

Here are some good places to look for Yorkshire Accents:
http://web.ku.edu/~idea/europe/england/england.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lancashire_accent
http://www.wikihow.com/Speak-With-a-Yorkshire-Accent

Do your own research and share what you find!

Second Voice Post

Okay, so I'm done messing around with the second video, but I'm not as pleased with it as I'd like to be. Admittedly, it's a lot more difficult to switch between voices than I thought it was going to be and I'm not much of a video editor. Still, the show must go on!

So, here's the self-critique I have for myself.

In doing this, it hadn't occurred to me to check certain voices before I began. I wrote the dialogue and began recording thinking that every single voice was spot on. In fact, most of them aren't. Spike's voice melds with Matrix's since there's hardly any difference except for a slight Canadian accent. I can't even remotely do Moss's voice. Richmond's sounds like Marvin from HHGTTG in the first appearance... My voice was wearing thin by this recording, so I noticed Hiei's first appearance barely sounded like him. Death drifted in and out as to how good it was and so did Roy. Zoidberg was good for the first shot, but not the second. Couldn't seem to get him down. Ugh. This recording, in my eyes, was a nightmare. It shows very little acting ability and that I didn't match voices as well as I should have.


Although I could easily delete this blog post and the recording, no one is perfect. We need to learn from our failures, too, and people need to see what steps we take to better ourselves. So, I need to diagnose the problems and figure out how to fix them.

I think a lot of the issues come from switching between different characters, but some come from a lack of practice. I spent an enormous amount of time matching Orson Welles and going through the speech before I decided to record it, something I didn't do this time around. I think that caused a lot of the issues with recording. I think sometime in the future, after posting a couple of other demos, I'll re-do this one with more practice. I guess it shows glimmers of talent in writing, acting, and voice over, but they're hidden by the sub-par performance. Yay art.

Still, I did get a little more experience with this recording setup and the video editing software. I also did enjoy the process and having a conversation with myself. I think the conversation dynamics may be the one saving grace in the whole video. Ready? Let's watch.


First Dialogue with Death, the IT Crowd, and several others.

Anyhow, that's that. Time to move on to slightly easier things. When I've gotten further in the acting book, I'll begin work on a speech in Hamlet. In the meantime, I'm going to work on a voice for Abraham Lincoln and re-read Call of Cthulhu for the next few videos. Stay tuned for more TALES OF INTEREST!

Some Pretty Good Advice

I've been doing absolutely everything I can to get everything ready before I start sending in demos, etc. So much so that I've almost forgotten everything I've been doing and that it might be useful to others.

A friend of mine spoke with a professional theater guy in Pennsylvania for me to see if there was any work to be had. I didn't really expect him to have anything, but he did offer some very good advice.

"I don't know of anyone really, but I can try to give some advice to
pass on to your friend. The first resource I suggest is playbill.com.
This is usually the most reliable source for information on casting
calls for actors. I would also call up the local theatres and see when
their local auditions for the season are held, and when he can submit
his resume and headshot (oh, and make sure that the resume and
headshot are good and professionally done, it does matter when it
comes to casting...if he needs an opinion, I'd be happy to help out).
Next, he's really got to be willing to go anywhere to do his craft.
It's the only way until you get liked by a theatre in particular. And
be prepared to travel to New York City for auditions alot (hopefully
he has friends or family with a couch to crash on).

As far as voice over work is concerned, I hear it can be really tough
to break into. The best way to do it is to just keep recording
yourself reading things like books with distinct character voices,
pamphlets, and magazine articles. Then you send those recordings to
agencies, and hope that an agent ends up wanting to work with you. As
far as I hear, It's damn near impossible to do it any other way.

Finally, he has to realize that if he pursues a career as an actor,
his job will not be to act...it will be to audition, and the reward of
his job will be to act. To that effect, he'll need work to supplement
himself until he gets a contract, and he should try to always forward
his art (dance classes, voice lessons, learn an instrument, constantly
add new skills to his special skills like juggling, etc.). It can be
pretty tough to deal with, he'll just have to be tougher."

Suggestions

Okay, so I've mentioned the conversation I had with my cousin the other day a couple times. He's been working on his voice profile for around eight months and had a lot of good advice.

A couple of things every aspiring voice actor should have:

1. A Character Demo
Generally, people interested in voice acting are interested in either tv shows and movies or audio books. It's no wonder, that's the vast majority of the long-term work available. Obviously, actors need to be able to... well, act. If you don't have an enormous vocal range, you can either work on that or grab tons of characters which are similar to your style and range (in other words, typecast yourself). Even in audio books, a voice over specialist needs to give voices to every character. Reading flatly is only good in very specific circumstances (news reporting and imitating Orson Welles, for example).
2. A Commercial Demo
Okay, so as much as you might want to be an anime voice actor or the next Disney princess, you probably won't start off that way. In the research I've done, most voice actors got really, really lucky or began by doing tons of commercial voice over work and other things. My cousin suggested actually recording and posting a voice demo reading commercial lines. After all, you need to get paid somehow in the beginning. Although you could capture a video on YouTube or somewhere else and just dub over it, you can also just record pre-written lines, like you can find here, though I think you need to register to see the /scripts location on the site. Remember, in a commercial demo you're selling a product. Even if you don't want to buy it, you have to make other people want to.
3. A Resume
When you're looking at beginning voice work, you need to consider what employers want to see. Rather than lying (which you NEVER want to do), consider actually working towards the things employers are going to want to see. Of course, one of these things is a detailed, experienced resume. There are plenty of resume sites out there and tons of help to be had.
4. Volunteer Work
Honestly, it's hard to believe that you can find a paying position immediately, regardless of how talented you are. This might be different if you've got a ton of stage experience and have a masters in theater, but... Now, there are plenty of ways to get volunteer experience. Volunteer at a local or college radio station or work on video game mods [check out Mod DB or the forums of a popular, recently released game]. There are other ways, too.

Personally, I think I'd add a few more.

1. Accent Demo
If you're interested in more than just narration, it might be a good idea to consider working with accents. I know I've mentioned IDEA before, but British or Russian aren't the only 'accents' out there. The anime Baccano, for example, uses 1920s accents. Seriously, if you haven't seen this, check it out. Even a single episode is enough. It's some of the best voice work I've ever heard. Although I'm not positive since I've never seen it, I'm guessing there's a One Piece character or two who uses a pirate accent. Plus, there are accents within the United States (or your home country), too. The Southeast sounds much different than Maine which is also different than Wisconsin. Although this won't really display your UNHOLY ACTING TAAAALENT!, it can showcase your versatility. If you can't do this already, start working on it.
2. Reading Demo
Similar to the other demos mentioned, this will bring everything together. It allows you the opportunity to show your acting talent, voice over work, character creation, and script reading capabilities. Picking a text you personally enjoy (for me, this is going to be Call of Cthulhu and probably a chapter from American Gods) will invest your heart in the project. Passion is the gateway to acting and a reading demo will show everything you've got. That's also the reason I'm leaving that for after the character demo, accent demo, and monologue.
3. Display Area
For me, this is a combination of this blog and my YouTube account. You need somewhere to showcase your work. After all, unless you have your own website, you want somewhere people can go to see your work without contacting you. Furthermore, sites like YouTube are probably better than a personal site because people can stumble across your work. Blog sites like this allow you to give back to the community and show you aren't staying sedentary. This is especially important if you're not in an artistic career at the moment (or, like me, currently unemployed).

Although I don't think this is super necessary, anyone interested in normal acting will also want a head shot and body shot for their portfolio and some monologue work. Personally, I've always loved Hamlet's character so I'll probably be working on that soon. Still, there are literally thousands of play and tv/movie monologues out there. They always say "dress for the job you want," consider that when choosing a monologue. Since I tend to play a villain or psychotic character more often than a hero, I've chosen Hamlet and will likely record Lincoln's Suicide Soliloquy, as well. I may never play a hero, and villains are more complicated, interesting, and dramatic anyhow, so why showcase something I'm not quite as good at? I'm not advocating typecasting yourself, I'm just saying your profile should show you at your best.

***

So long as the storm brewing outside doesn't knock out my power, I'll be working on the dialogue later in the day. I'm hoping to have the whole thing done by this afternoon, but I'm guessing the video won't be up until tomorrow.

In writing this, I've realized I ought to write a post about recording equipment. Soon, I promise. I should also probably offer a post on choosing source material for demos. And now I'm thinking about cold reads and other, similar topics, as well.

The First Demo! Orson Welles, I hope you'd be proud.

Okay!! So, I will eventually be getting back to the conversation I mentioned at the end of yesterday's post, but I'm a little short on time this morning. However, I've got a lovely piece of candy for my two devoted followers and anyone else who happens upon this blog.

I believe the video for that dialogue may take longer to work through, so I haven't started yet, but I HAVE posted my first video!! I'm more excited than text can convey. Although I'm a terror with video editing and the mic took foooorever to get working with Audacity, I did finally get everything working well. The video is now on YouTube linked to this account, but why go there when I can give it to you right here?!


Orson Welles Broadcast

If you're interested in hearing the full original broadcast, check it out here. You can also learn more about the broadcast on Wiki, since the article is fairly well written and more or less accurate.

Stay tuned for more videos and voice work as well as the advice, excellent suggestions, and tricks my cousin and I talked about.

-Drew

As an afterthought, I've watched this a couple of times and found an interesting quirk with YouTube. Sometimes, it gets to the last few seconds ("on their radios") and sometimes those words get cut off. I suppose I'll record several seconds of silence after the videos from now on to ensure it reaches the end...

Tomorrow

Given that I'm focusing all of my efforts on voice work, I'm doing my best to get an update or two every day.

I'm running around and pretty busy today, but my update is this:

My vocal work on Orson Welles has progressed so quickly that I will soon be doing an excerpt from the infamous radio broadcast in October of 1938. I will be working on this tomorrow, either right before or right after the dialogue I've already posted. The audio / video for the two should be a great deal easier for the Welles work, so I'd expect to see that one first.

Here's a transcript of the opening to that broadcast which is also the quick demo I plan to be doing:

***

ORSON WELLES: We know now that in the early years of the 20th century this world was being watched closely by intelligences greater than man's and yet as mortal as his own. We know now that as human beings busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinized and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinize the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. With infinite complacence people went to and fro over the earth about their little affairs, serene in the assurance of their dominion over this small spinning fragment of solar driftwood, which by chance or design man has inherited out of the dark mystery of Time and Space. Yet across an immense ethereal gulf, minds that to our minds as ours are to the beasts in the jungle, intellects vast, cool and unsympathetic, regarded this earth with envious eyes and slowly and surely drew their plans against us. In the thirty-ninth year of the twentieth century came the great disillusionment. [It was] near the end of October. Business was better. The war scare was over. More men were back at work. Sales were picking up. On this particular evening, October 30th, the Crosley service estimated that 32 million people were listening in on radios.

***

I've also been speaking with my cousin a lot, who is also an aspiring voice actor. I'd like to make a larger update on that conversation later today or tomorrow since we had a lot of valuable suggestions for each other that I feel would assist other aspiring actors (voice or otherwise).

In brief, we talked a bit about mods, talent agencies, abridged series (Cowboy Bebop, for example), and a couple of other things. When I get the chance, I'll post an update about those useful tips and tricks.