Directing Voice Actors

Between the voiceover work that I'm planning on doing for my ICTV show Prerequisites and the bizarre kitchen appliance voices that our group needs for our short film, I thought it would be useful to figure out techniques on how to direct voice actors.

Well as it turns out, directing voices isn't a whole lot different from directing normal actions. More often than not, the most compelling performances are produced by the most unorthodox forms of directing. One my favorite examples of this (sorry if this is something Arturo showed before, but it just really stuck with me) is how the directors of Up had Jordan Nagai perform his lines as Russell. Whereas other studios may have brought in a more "theatrical" kid for the part - or even a professional adult voice actor, as so many cartoons now resort to doing - Pixar took a risk and banked on a totally inexperienced kid. To make him read the lines as a child would really speak, they made him do laps around the room, hang on to bars hung over his head, etc. It was a creative approach, one that I would imagine was comfortable for Jordan to work with and which ultimately ended in a better voice for the character.

A few other tips I like, curtesy of the Timbuktoons.com  article you can find here, include going deep, not forgetting to record the incidentals, and always doing multiple takes. When you give an actor a line to read, it's going to be almost meaningless if they don't know the context. You need to give their character a backstory - as goofy as it sounds - and help the actor be able to identify with their character. Even if they're playing something that they have nothing in common with, a good director should be able to find that common ground and make actors see their characters in a different light.

Also, from a more technical standpoint, it's important to keep the mic running a bit both before and after each take, to catch some stuff that you may otherwise miss and want to keep in. At the same time, one take is never sufficient to know whether or not you have the content that you want (plus it's easier to lose), so you want to have your actors read their lines a variety of ways to make sure that you've covered all your bases.

So long story short, the next time you find yourself in need of some casual voice actors, make them do some weird things help them both A) Get their inflection right and B) get them in character. Canon and Diana (or whoever is directing producing our group's film) take note, and go cast an awesome blender.

SFX make up! and other news...

Recently, I was asked to help out with a senior thesis horror film that required some special effects make up! I have done make up before but nothing all that complex. So far this is the most complex make up job I've ever done and it turned out really nicely.

I was specifically asked to create a slit throat on one of the actors. I was intrigued and really excited to figure out the best ways of going about this! First I looked up a few video tutorials on YouTube...

Both of the one's I viewed required liquid latex. I was extremely crunched for time and luckily found out that someone was letting us use their make up. They had liquid latex. HALLELUJAH!

I didn't even get to play with it until I was on set but it was really fun and really useful, you can easily make a scar with this stuff. It's awesome! I plan on getting my own stuff someday. I really enjoyed the opportunity to play with it and the shoot turned out really well! Everyone was really thrilled with my handy work!  The actor himself really got into the character (if you can call being dead/dying a character). 

As you can see above, I also played around with my hand. No, I'm not kissing him!

I'd like to have more opportunities to do this kind of stuff, actually. I think I could do better eventually after figuring out the nature of the materials and such. It's very exciting to be able to figure out this kind of stuff out. 

Also just another fun plug I just recently watched The Game by David Fincher. The film was made in 1997 and in my opinion is very much comparable to the possibilities we have now in epics like this. It was a very mind blowing experience! It was mind blowing in a sense that you are caught off gard a lot  and you don't know what to expect the entire time. It's crazy! But it's not one of those confusing movies that you would have to watch 2,384,903,802 times in order to understand it at all. When you get it, you get it but you'll be surprised how you got there. Go watch it!!! It's on Netflix!

Music

I think the one of the most important aspects in a film is sound, especially music. Music can either destroy your project or help enhance. It can also add certain feelings and emotions to a scene. One of the biggest mistakes that we as filmmakers often make is adding music just to add music on our projects. If the score you choose does not fit your idea or concept, the final result may look cheesy and weird. That's why I think that the director and the music director have to work together to combine film and music together to create a master piece. I think that one of the greatest movie's composer of this era is Michael Giacchino. The man is a genius. He can literally make you feel happiness and sadness with just one song. He has composed for TV shows like Lost and Alias. He also made the scoring for movies like Ratatouille, Up, Star Trek and Super 8. I just love that all the music that he composes tell a story along with the movie. It is absolutely amazing. One of the greatest example in how music and film sync in perfection is in this montage from the movie Up, where Giacchino literally brings the audience from one extreme to another in terms of emotions.

Bur my favorite Giacchino's song is actually the "Main theme" of movie Ratatouille. I feel that this song depicts the main message of Ratatouille. it just fits perfectly with the movie. Also the instruments used by Giacchino remind me of Paris, and French culture.

Giacchino also composed one of my favorite TV shows of all time, Lost. With its music he added suspense and drama to the show. Every fan of the show would recognize this next song used composed for Lost.

Finally I think that everyone should keep this post in mind, and really think the kind of feelings you want to transmit to your audience when choosing the score for your short film.