Read The Art of Voice Acting: the art and business of performing for voice over Online
Authors: James Alburger
The Art of Voice Acting: the art and business of performing for voice over (32 page)
Character Copy
A good actor can do a thousand voices because he finds a place in his body for his voice and centers his performance from that place.
Charles Nelson Reilly
Many character and animation voices are an exaggeration of specific vocal characteristics or attitudes, which enable the performer to create an appropriate vocal sound for the character. A forced voice is rarely the most effective, is difficult to sustain, and can actually cause physical damage to your vocal cords. The most effective character voices are those that slightly exaggerate the attitudes and emotions of the character you are portraying, or that take a small quirk or idiosyncrasy and blow it out of proportion.
Over the past few years, the trend in feature film animation has been to apply very real, human characteristics and voices to animated characters. Although there is still a place for the occasional wacky voice, the vast majority of animation work has moved to a more conversational style.
Character and story analysis are most important with animation voice work. Many factors will affect the voice of the character, so the more you know about your character, the easier it will be to find its true voice.
Consistency is extremely important in character voice work. When you find the character’s voice, lock it into your memory and keep the proper attitude and quality of sound throughout your performance, adapting your character’s voice when the mood of the script changes. The important thing here is to avoid allowing the sound of your character to
drift
. To make your character believable and real to the audience, the quality of the voice must not change from the beginning of the script to the end.
Most animation voice actors have a repertoire of several voices. A typical session may require voicing three characters before lunch, three more after lunch, and then going back for pick-ups on some of the first set of characters. This sort of schedule means character voice actors must be extremely versatile and must be able to accurately repeat and sustain voice characterizations. These demands make animation work a challenging niche to break into, and one of the most creative in voiceover.
In addition to voices and sounds for animation, character voice work can also include dialects, foreign and regional accents, and even celebrity impersonations. Special accents and dialects require an ability to mimic a sound or attitude that is familiar to a portion of the listening audience. Usually, this mimicking is a stylized interpretation and doesn’t necessarily have to be 100 percent accurate, unless the character is represented as being authentic to a region or culture. Many times, the best accent is one that reflects what a community “thinks” the accent should sound like, which is often not the real thing. However, when authenticity is required to give the character believability, vocal accuracy is important. Most of the time, however, a slight exaggeration of certain regional vocal traits tends to give the character attitude and personality. Being personally familiar with the culture, region, or dialect is also helpful.
Celebrity voice impersonations are often the most challenging because the celebrities are usually well-known. The voice actor’s job is to create a voice that offers recognition of the celebrity, yet hints at being just a bit different. Celebrity impersonations are usually done in the context of a humorous commercial in which some aspect of the celebrity’s personality or vocal styling is exaggerated or used as a device for communicating the message. In most cases, if a producer wants an extremely accurate celebrity voice, he or she will hire the celebrity. It may cost more to hire the actual person behind the voice, but the increased credibility is often worth it and hiring the real person will circumvent any possible legal issues.
There are two critical aspects to character voice work: regardless of the character, the voice must be believable; and it must, in some way, be different from your natural voice. Achieving excellence in this aspect of the craft requires specialized knowledge and a mastery of performing skills.
Pat Fraley is one of the most amazing voice actors I’ve met. He’s not only a consummate performer—in just about every area of voice work—but he’s also an excellent, and very generous, teacher and coach. Pat understands character voice work better than most professionals. He’s one of the top 10 voice actors for animation, having performed more than 4,000 different cartoon voices. He’s narrated dozens of audio books, and voiced thousands of commercials.
Just as I’ve broken down a performance to its
Seven Core Elements
, Pat breaks down a character voice to its six critical elements.
© Patrick Fraley, 2006
www.patfraley.com
With any artful endeavor, you will find two words that are important to define: Form and Content. What is
form
of a character voice? The way this applies to character voice is that the
form
is the
sound
of the voice. The
content
is the thinking and feeling, the psychology of the character. The Six Elements of a Character Voice are all about the
form
. What makes up the form of a character voice? Like everything else, there’s a finite amount of elements.
These are the six elements:
Pitch, Pitch Characteristic, Tempo, Rhythm, Placement,
and
Mouth Work
.
The first element is
Pitch
. Pitch relates to the musical notes of the character’s voice. Is the character’s voice higher than your own? Is it lower? Or perhaps the character goes both higher and lower, showing a wider range. Thus far we’ve dealt with Pitch and it has been assumed that the characteristic of the pitch was clear.
The second element deals with the specific characteristic of the pitch,
Pitch Characteristic
. Pitch Characteristic is the dynamic of the pitch, or coloring. If Pitch were a noun, Pitch Characteristic would be it’s adjective, as it describes the nature of the pitch. It is clear? Is it gravelly? Is it hoarse? Is it breathy? Is it constricted? Is it cracking? Velvety?
The third element is
Tempo
. Tempo refers to the character’s general rate of delivery. There are three possibilities: (1) Does the character speak faster than you? (2) Slower than you? (3) Or does the character vary or have a wider range of tempo than you?
The fourth element is
Rhythm
. Vivid characters go about getting what they want, and they go about getting it in the same way, over and over.
There is a pattern to their behavior. This pattern shows up in the way they speak. Character Rhythm is defined as a repetitive pattern of emphasis in the way the character speaks which emerges from the thinking and feeling of the character. It’s kind of a vocal thumb print.
The fifth element is
Placement
. Placement refers to where the voice seems to be coming from or where it’s placed. When I think about placing my voice in my nose the sound takes on a whole different dynamic. I feel a lot of air coming through my nose. It sounds a whole lot different than when I place my voice in the back of my mouth. How about if I think of creating the voice in my throat? Distinct sounds? The trick is to learn how to
stay
in the placement all the time for any given character.
Because placement happens in and around the mouth, it has a kind of relationship with our sixth and final element,
Mouth Work
. Mouth Work refers to anything done in and around the mouth to effect the character. The kind of effect that comes to mind is accents. But also, having tight lips effect the way we sound, stretching your mouth to one side and talking, or the way a character pronounces their “S”s.
So that’s all the ingredients it takes to bake up the form of a character voice—no less, no more: Pitch, Pitch Characteristic, Tempo, Rhythm, Placement, and Mouth Work.
Begin creating a character’s voice by doing a thorough character analysis to discover as much as you can about him or her (or it). Based on the copy, make the decisions and commit to who you are talking to and if your character has any special accent or attitude. Finally, decide where in your body the character’s voice will be placed.
Visualize the voice coming from a specific location in your body and work with the copy until the voice feels right, using choices about the character’s physical size and shape to help you localize the voice. Use the “sweep” (Exercise #10, page 49) to find a suitable pitch for your character voice. Once you have found a pitch, use placement, pitch characteristics, tempo, rhythm, and mouth work to create a unique sound. Here are some possible placements:
- top of head (tiny)
- behind eyes (denasal)
- top of cheeks (bright)
- front of mouth (crisp)
- under tongue (sloppy)
- diaphragm (strong)
- loose cheeks (mushy)
- back of throat (breathy)
- nose (nasal)
- chest (boomy)
- throat (raspy)
- stomach (low)
Practice different voices with different attitudes. Use computer clip art, comic strips and other drawings to get ideas for character voices. You may find that a particular physical characteristic or facial expression is needed in order for you to get the proper sound and attitude. Remember:
Physicalize the moment and the voice will follow
. Record a variety of voices and characters, then listen to what you’ve recorded. If your character voices all sound the same, you’ll need to work on your character voice skills.
In animation, you must be able to recall a voice on demand. The Character Voice Worksheet on the next page is just one of many good ways to document the characteristics of each voice you create. The worksheet is divided into four parts: (1) Accessing and recalling the character voice, (2) Placement, (3) Physical characteristics, and (4) Other notes.
Accessing and recalling the character voice:
- Give your character a name for quick recall
- Define age, gender, attitude, physical attributes, energy level
- Create a
key phrase
that will allow you to return to the character. - You will know the phrase is correct when it sounds natural.
Placement:
- Determine where in your body you are positioning the voice.
- Choose appropriate pitch, pitch characteristics, tempo, rhythm, and mouth work to contribute to the reality of the voice.
- Understand the character’s emotions and feelings.
Physical:
- Determine how your character stands and moves in space and time. Experiment with facial expressions, physical gestures, and speaking quirks, including how your character laughs.
Other Notes:
- Include any additional information that will help you recall your voice.
Each voice you document is what Pat Fraley terms a
starter
. This is a core voice from which you can create many more simply by adjusting some of the characteristics. Start with a defined voice, then experiment with changing the pitch and altering pitch characteristics. Change the tempo and rhythm as you work with the voice, or see what happens as you adjust the voice placement or slightly modify the mouth work—and voila, you’ve got a new character.
Penny Abshire demonstrates how she creates and documents her characters on track 10 of the CD.
Character voice work can be challenging, but lots of fun. Use the following tips and suggestions to help find your character’s voice.
- Understand your character and the situation. In animation, you must often use your imagination to make up what you are reacting to.
- Discover who the audience is and understand how the audience will relate to the character.
- Maintain a consistent voice throughout the copy and be careful not to injure your voice by stretching too far. It is better to pull back a little and create a voice that can be maintained rather than push too hard for a voice you can only sustain for one or two pages.
- Be willing to exaggerate attitudes or personality traits for the sake of finding the voice.
- If a drawing, photo, or picture of the character is available, use it as a tool to discover the personality of the character.
- Find the place in your body from which the voice will come.
- Experiment with pitch, pitch characteristics, tempo, rhythm, placement, and mouth work to discover the most appropriate vocal delivery for your character.
- Experiment to take on the physical characteristics of the character.