The Queen of Character Voices - Lani Minella

Ever since I saw Lani Minella's Character Monologue on her YouTube channel I was amazed at how one mouth could become so many different people! Lani Runs AudioGodz - a voice production company specialising in casting and directing character voices. Lani herself has brought to life many thousands of characters in animations and videos games in a voice artist career spanning nearly 3 decades!

Join Toby Ricketts in a wide ranging interview with Lani covering many topics including: Casting vs Directing vs Voicing
Where your voices come from
Where did she get her start
Gaining confidence and knowing the trade
losing yourself in the character
Playing 'The Clickers' from The Last Of Us 2
How to come up with different character voices
How she uses accents in her characters
Managing the ethics of accents in 2021
The most underrated accent
How she comes up with alien noises
The challenges of creating accents and characters in voice sessions
Using real kids vs female voice artists
Serendipity in getting voice jobs
The story of the voice of Spongebob Squarepants
How to approach emotes and exertion scripts
How to make sounds authentic
Making death noises
Talking in pain
Vocal health and wellbeing

Contains clips of: The Last of Us 2 - Clickers Tiamat boss scene from Darksiders Avatar at Disney World promo from Disney Find more about Lani Minella from www.laniminella.com or www.audiogodz.com

Transcript:

welcome to the vo life and gravy for the brain Oceania podcast, it is my spectacular privilege to introduce my next guest on VO life today. I've followed this lady for many years, I run a voice Academy and I always make a point to show this particular video to my students, which is her going through like a monologue or kind of a routine of all her different character voices. And I've always wanted to be in touch and ask her about the craft. And finally, it's my opportunity. So it's my great pleasure to introduce Lani, Manila to the BLF podcast highlighting. Hi, how are you? Good to see you. I never knew that. That's the first time I've heard that. So thank you. So tell us just a little bit about your voice career. How long have you been in this business? Oh, since the dinosaurs, I've been probably I started in the game industry in 92. But I went through I mean, I'm ancient. So I did all that in kind of a radio business years before that. And so I started doing invitations on radio people heard that started saying, We need you to do ferngully movie voices and to pitch the LaserDisc way back then. And then they had someone downstairs doing CD ROMs I didn't even know what a CD Mama. And they said, Go downstairs and talk to our children's departmental. Okay. And I asked them who else does this? And that was the beginning. You know, so that's how it all got started with basically radio. And that was decades ago. Gosh, that's amazing. Um, you'd sent through like your, your kind of resume and I was looking at the front page and thinking, Wow, that's pretty impressive. And then I realized with 13 more pages of video, like literally scrolling, as you know, like, more quantity than quality. I tried to print as much as I can because IMDb doesn't? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it struggles with the video game section, doesn't it? So you you are like primarily a voice talent. But you also do casting in your direction and session? Is that right? Right? Definitely. what's your favorite? Is your favorite to do the voiceover stuff? Or do you enjoy all three? I enjoy all three. And the main thing is I I still would say that coming up, if I'm doing voices, the most exciting thing is to come up and construct new things, new alien languages, new things that I know expect. For example, when I was called to do the monster voices for it, chapter two, I had no idea what I was up there for showing up on the Warner Brothers live. It's intimidating enough trying to know where you're going and get passes and doing all that stuff. And then to be shown, okay, here's what we're doing. And we want you to watch the little line going across and go. Okay, that I think is really nice. And that's the fun part is when you get a challenge like that and can make up things on your own. But directing is fine, too. I really enjoy working with people and casting, I think you've had other people that you've interviewed before, is a it's an interesting thing. But when I do casting, I tend to not make people audition. I don't generally go through agents, because it's always last minute. Here's the stuff we need it in two days from now. So I just kind of I don't typecast people, but I will kind of assign and that's what makes it a challenge to a lot of boys challenge because we have to come up with with this on the fly in the session and be able to, you know, act. Absolutely. So when was the first time that you were that you discovered that you had this sort of knack for being able to just come up with you know, voices that were not your own? Probably ever since I was a little kid and had no friends. I would make fun of teachers in school and imitate them and get in trouble and be the class clown to make people laugh. So that would be my approval. You know what I mean? So the N telling jokes and things of that nature. So probably from the time I was a little kid, I just was imitating things that I would see on TV. And luckily I'd be by myself so I wouldn't embarrass myself enough. And it's one thing to be the sort of the person at the party with with all the voice tricks. But I mean, I've discovered as a coach, like you get a lot of people that sort of come on courses and say, I'm great at doing voices but then you put them Find a mic or in a situation where it's like, No, I don't want that. But I want something slightly different and they kind of they can't deal with it. So it's a it's an entirely different skill set to be able to make that work for you commercially. When was the sort of When did you sort of When was the first time you're paid to be behind the mic doing this? guy she sent me remember that, Barbara? I think it would probably be. Hmm, I'm trying to remember. But it wouldn't have been games, it might have been in radio, you know, because I was at radio stations as well thing production and things of that nature. But you're absolutely right. Being on mic, people can freeze up. And even if you see some of the YouTube videos of the celebrities that are in Pixar or something doing their stuff, they're standing there with like a pencil. And we all know that in order to get action, you should move your whole body and do gestures and be big. And when you're taught to do on camera, what they say don't do that too much, Jim Carrey exaggeration, you're going to look really exaggerated, but it's just the opposite. So being on mic, like I said, Sometimes I've worked. I've auditioned for agents, and I would ask them, okay, where do I plug the mic? headphones? And they say, Oh, we were getting feedback earlier. And I'd say Why? Because mary matalin was in the studio, and she couldn't hear. Okay, door flies open. And they say it's a customer. This, I want mainly agency, not to put the headphones on the talent because sometimes it scares them to hear their voice in their ear. I'm not. Okay, you know, so this is a whole other field where I think people don't realize they all think it'll be fun. You've heard that before, I think it'd be fun to do voiceovers, I can do really like, do them all. Well, I can do this and that. And it is better than digging ditches, it's a lot more interesting. And it does bring out a lot more creativity. But you have to be in voice control. And that's the thing, you're controlling your voice enables you then when someone says like you said, Can you make a little older? Can you make it a little less accent? Can you pull it back, you know, you have to be able to adjust on the fly. And if you don't have the voice control, and we all never know what's going to exactly come out when somebody says can you do you know, just make up something, do it. And you don't know if they want to, let's say, Rosie Perez, you've never done Rosie Perez before. And you have to say, I don't know that she sound kind of like this, you know, I mean, whatever you have to be able to kind of not be embarrassed. And the trick to is that the more you move, the more people who are actually watching, you are impressed. That person knows what they're doing, instead of Santa looking all nervous in the fig leaf position or your hands in your pockets or, you know, things of that nature. So yeah, I think that being on the mic can intimidate some people. But that's part of being on voiceover. So not only do you have to be an engineer nowadays, because you have to record at home. But you also have to be able to bend with the wind. And oftentimes, if you have a bad director, the trick is if they say I'll know it, when I hear it, you just ask them the question, would you like it in a texture older boys? Then they still say they know and there? You just heard it. And so yeah, there's there's little fix, but to know the trade and know the terminology. You know, like you're saying, p pops, you got to know what that means. So I think it's all a matter of you have to be more than just a person that reads as you will know, and I'm sure you train people to is that when people say I've heard the coaching philosophy of just be yourself. When you have to be different characters in a game. I would say you should adjust as that self is that character. Not necessarily that you're being Lonnie doing an orc given me. If I want to do an AUC. I'm not acting like mice who acts like that, you know what I mean? myself. So I'm thinking that you can do that you can kind of add yourself but that whole philosophy of fine your motivation, your subtext and all that kind of stuff kind of can be modified a bit to say that you have to bring acting as though you're watching yourself on a screen on your forehead, and you're playing that role being that role, but being your quote unquote, self does not confuse you a little bit. Yeah, absolutely. Like I often see people who come in my courses that it's like, they they know the character they want to do. And inside they've committed maybe 50% because they're like, I don't want to go too far, because I'll look silly. And it's like, the that's the point of this game is to is to go beyond what anyone else will. Like that's when you get real successes. Like it's not by doing a voice but by becoming that voice that literally feeling like right inside that skin, which I'm sure you'd agree. Yeah, well, and plus in games, they don't write enough lines to give you just one part. You have to play multiple roles because they could bring back some repeat character from six years ago with two lines so they get banned up Getting all the little Bitsy parts that are leftover that might be new, you know, so you do have to be able to sound different. And still not. We don't expect a man to be Mickey Mouse and falsetto. You know, most women do teenage boy voices. But most games don't have a lot of kids unless you're doing it. Kids game, you know, that kind of deal. So when you're talking about role play games, and massive multiplayer, online role play games, those would be the more adult things. And for women especially, you don't really ever have parts that are written for like the Encino check can act like oh my god. It's usually heavy duty warriors, you know, so women are going to be a little bit masculine sometimes, or if they're going to be a fighter, you don't want someone thinking they're going to be destroyed on the first swipe. So your voice has to indicate a toughness. That's very true, isn't it? Yeah. And then games do tend towards like, I guess a kind of a more violent, or at least a very kind of gritty kind of nature like that, then it's not often it was towards darkness rather than light, right. And even the angels may not sound you know, like they're that angelic. Yeah, because everyone is always in a fight. You're always trying to beat somebody. And when you're having an boss, like in a blizzard game or something, I suppose you have a million people all on your screen, little icons, all throwing their spells and doing whatever it is at this monster. It's difficult to make out the speech is usually just a cacophony of things going out there. So when you have emotes where you're dying, and you're attacking or being attacked, what have you, it all becomes a big mess. It's not usually that distinguishable between that. And I think I love being an bosses, I think that's really a joy, especially though, you have to realize that, again, I when I was called to be the clicker, or Last of Us to and I was impacted on the first game and the clicker, they just said, Oh, by communicate by clicking go. And you were watching an avatar on screen of Oh, this monster running down, smacking against walls, doing all kinds of weird things going in agony and doing all this stuff? Well, there's two ways of clicking, you can let it out like a screen door. Or, like do this. Then when you're breathing in, you know, you can do that kind of a thing. But you never know what's gonna come out of your mouth. So just the whole ability of trying. And showing that you're willing to look like an idiot is, I think, very much appreciated in the industry. You know what I mean? And people who have a good attitude and don't say, Don't tell me how to say it. Don't give me a line read. That's kind of you were bringing up before, things that we directors don't really like to hear. I mean, it's fine. I just sometimes they're in such a hurry that I can't think of an analogy, like, okay, you're out in outer space and a birthday cake folks by and your line is what is that? And because I don't know why we're saying half the time. What is that? So I'll say Give it to me two ways, like, what is that? or What is that? Okay, next, you know, on with that, it would be really nice if we knew more about the games. But I, for one have never heard anything, I was asked once per gauntlet, they said you're going to be part of the whole process that never happened. So what I mean is that so we're looking cool. How important is it to sort of to know the genre and know games? Like, are you a video gamer? Do you play video games? Or do you rely on the directors to kind of show you what the context is? Ah, neither. I have to ask sometimes the people who are working with you that say on a Skype call or whatever, they don't even know. You ask them? Is this over battle noise? Is this in stealth mode? Do it both ways. So you have to make sure that you keep the loud stuff last, so you don't wreck somebody's voice. But oftentimes, the things that people that are getting a test, maybe the audio guys, not the producers, you know what I mean? So we're we're working with somebody that doesn't really know the game, maybe they know a little bit, but we're just working pretty much cold. And again, I have to give script writers the credit, because a terrible script is hard to make sound good no matter how good of a voice actor that you are. So I really am applauding of people that write good scripts. I remember when I was doing blood too. Long time ago. One of my favorite lines of this. I don't know what she was thinking she's kind of Jamaican huge warrior, and she says, I've got chunks of people like you in my stool. And I thought that was just hilarious. You know? It's been tested. Yeah, yeah, I know. But the point is when you get some fun stuff like that you have fun. And teamwork is really essential. So if everybody's on it, hey, let's do this, we're gonna have fun doing this, and, and we respect our talent. And, you know, nobody's trying to put anybody down and make anybody feel bad. I think it all turns out to be better. And if the teamwork is, is where people know what they're doing, it helps. But oftentimes, we're working cold. That's very true, isn't it? And I think it's important to have that playtime. Like where you're maybe not in a session, do you set aside a time to or I mean, I guess if we don't these days, but did you just start with? You lock yourself in a room and be like, I'm going to come up with 10 different voices or something like that. See yourself challenges? No, I have to say no. Because again, it's usually a surprise, when we get our auditions in the inbox, we never know what's going to be. And if it is for games, more likely, I'm called lately. I mean, I say now in my career, I'm called up, let's say, by Blizzard, I don't know for what I'll show up, and they'll Hand me the script. Okay, we've got three different characters, sometimes you don't even see a picture. They're nice enough to pull a picture up when you're when you're in front of the mic. And you go, Oh, okay. Okay. You know, and so it's kind of a very spontaneous thing, which was why maybe as a good training, theater helps. Because you can project you can be bigger, you know what I mean? Then on screen, you can use gestures when you're doing theater, drama. And improv could be good. So you're quick on your feet, those two things might very much help or enough, what what kind of talk in terms of coming up with different voices and being able to sort of, you know, carry that direction? What are some of the levers that you can pull, because I know with my, my voice, you know, I've got the deeper register down here, and I've got my normal talking voice. And then I've got kind of a higher voice up here as well. And things like making those sound natural, but then there's also like their raggedy old tone, and then like young tones, I noticed that you've got lots of different levers that you can pull in terms of accent pitch, rasp, Enos, what are some of the things that we have to do, and this is when I'm coaching people, I will tell them, you've got your pitch or textures and your accent. I mean, that's the easiest way to of course, you got attitude and all that kind of stuff. But, you know, when you go to a kung fu class, you learn your kata, and I kind of made this up as a coaching link where you're going, you know, and you're hitting things, but you have been below your belly button. And if you want a deeper voice, by putting your lips forward, who you create more of a inverted chest, so you make yourself into a base metal. You know, Enzo, whoa, ha, ha, ha, ha. So it's, it's, it's formulating not only your body to cave in your chest to be deeper. But also, if you put your lips forward, it places the voice in the back of the throat, which is a great way to get a British accent by the way. For me in the morning, right? Yeah, that's how I tell people to do that to get into it. Because it's not it's not call me on the morning. Call me. Not that British people talk. Like that's a good way to get into it, you know? Exactly. So you've got that and then the texture stuff, is I tell people find sandpaper like Clint Eastwood or zombie? You do. You can start out with a loud whisper. I see dead people. Now add a little bit more. now. Go ahead, make my day then. I'll ask if I would ask you I'm gonna put you on the spot here. Okay, I want you to be a general think patent. Okay, patent or George C. Scott or a tough general with a gravelly I'm use that term, gravelly voice with a lot of rumbly texture. Okay. And I want you to say and bite your consonants, which means you know, you hit them hard. Get that mo over here now. Okay. Get that I'm over here now. Nice. Nice. Now I'd like you to try it. Have you ever played with trucks or gun? I'll try to grow like a dog. You have to flap your voice a little bit more make more air because your voices like a carburetor a mix of air and voice. So if you went and try Can you try her? Mo to me over now you got it. Let's see. You can also know that's great. Because you can lead into it you can go get that out even I mean you can lead in to do that kind of thing. And that gives you another voice you know that you could you could also do it. You know you could do all that kind of thing. So that's the different leavers as you call them, that you can do is to get the pitch. And now if you're cool, you can give them my accent. I had a funny story I told you that Wizards of the Coast THAT THAT DOES MAGIC and Neverwinter, which I do the casting for. never went to we were making the dwarves would be Scottish musket. ELLs are going to be British and the dwarves are going to be Scottish. And to help differentiate between all these races, and so that would give them a Scottish accent or whatever. You're ready to do. And then they came back say Scotland wasn't invented yet. It can't have Scottish accents. Right? Wait a minute, Britain was invented. But Scotland wasn't invented. I don't have my history that well, but it was one of those moments but yeah, so also, if you're doing accents or dialects, if you have a phrase that can get you into the right thing, it helps to learn either maybe some, maybe some of the language if it's a foreign language, you can, you know, almost die and getting you got a little bit more of that kind of a thing. But for Asian, I always use the most honorable pasa. So you put in phrases move on about, like three words. And the backup British drop their ers, like after over, under. It's the same way but you're not in the back of the throat. Hmm. So instead of saying I'd love the chance to die, I love that. turnstones ansata There we go. You can talk like British but you make phrase over under after, not over, under after? I think I mentioned when I searched earlier how when I ask people do you do British they'll say oh I do British accent. And inevitably a lot of men will pull off. You know, and or they think that Cockney and people who don't know where Cockney really originated from coffee. It's not what American Theatre is turned. What's our, you know, Mary Poppins? I know. It's actually a rhyming language like apples and pears means stairs, you know. So the point is that usually RP, Received Pronunciation. Patrick Stewart, drama Picard. That's the thing. But the mistake a lot of people think is that British always sound pompous and aloof. They don't you don't have to say no. So you just have to know a little bit more about that. And like I said that David Attenborough, cheap, you're doing voices that sound that you're really interested in what you're talking. And then we go to the script issue. If you have see spot run, see, spot run, you know, but many times you have to ask, Is this quick? How many seconds do we have? Well, this is in game. This is a shout out this is during battle. So you have to go see spot run. All those things are things which a voice talent should ask if they're not getting the directing? back? Is this stealth? Is this over battle? How quick do you need this? You know, those are questions because there's nothing worse than a bad director except for a bad scrap. Great quote. I like that. So with accents, because it's something that I someone specialized in in terms of like there's a difference between doing authentic accents. And then you can fool a native and then there's like, kind of stereotypical trope based sort of accents like you say, Have you like, how do you go about Did you just learn languages? Sorry, accents by osmosis. Do you just listen to it and kind of and follow the stereotypical form? Or do you go hang out with people who have been? Very nice check over time. It's hard to hang out with. But I will tell you an interesting thing about that. I listen a lot to maybe actors on screen. Okay. Game of Thrones, whatever. I'm not intentionally trying to listen. But if it's Scottish, I will listen to somebody. Now you know, Glaswegian and Edinburgh are two different accents, right? You want the one that is the most intelligible? And the most pulled back because everyone's afraid of offending? Somebody? No. You might be afraid of offending the real Brit. But I can tell you honestly, no two Brits think that each other's accents worth a shot. I've been in England, I've recorded a name. I was, you know, during this game, and I recorded in Southampton, and then I was brought up to London. And they would say, Okay, this was a ring cycle game for psygnosis. And it was not very good. But they were saying, We want this to be a cross between Manchester and Liverpool. And I go, well, Manchester is kind of more, you know, and, and liberals like john lennon. And I say, how do you expect to cross that there? Well, we could do that we'd be doing it ourselves. No one would know. So oftentimes, you know, it's, it's again, for most games, I think that you don't have to find the real person. Because, but here's here's a little tip for people who are bipoc, which is black, indigenous people of color, or binary, or trans, or whatever, that no, now everybody's asking for the complete f neck. You know, Stu, they're open to all ethnicities. This is what you're going to see in auditions a lot open to all ethnicities, blah, blah, blah. Well, I would say start taking theatres. Taking drama if you belong to one of those, okay? Because you would be a big fish in a small pond. Oftentimes people who are of a native thing are not voice actors. And I mean, or if they're getting into voice acting, they might have not had done characters, because when you're doing localization, a lot of those localization companies have native speakers that know how to do voice work, but they're doing medical transcription, or they're doing some sort of educational or, or online, whatever it is, and not games, not animation, things of that nature. So when it comes into looking, always listen, when you're around people listen to them, you know, try and pick up different things that you can watch TV, people told me once I know another guy that does coaching. And he said, I always tell people to go to a radio station online. For that country. I got to put this person down without telling them the name. And he says, and, for example, I'm going to play you something here. I've taken German and Spanish and French. But it's playing this radio station, I'm not going to be able to say it all in German, because I'm not that fluent in German. But you can take a fossil, you can do it with a rocket. Oh, okay, not Did you hear that, I'm going to play that part B bar, the bar, the dial. And so now I'm going to let you hear something from some guys that are not really German, but they're going to give you the good German accent. I really don't like your bond. I hate the music. I hate everything you're doing. Well, nobody wants Arnold Schwarzenegger, especially you have to kind of know something culturally that Germans kind of look down on Austrian, just like Japanese may look down on Korean. And it has to do with history, and stuff like that. So you want to be as nondescript, non regional as possible. Sometimes, for that reason, political reasons, and things of that nature. So you do have to listen, when you can listen to people talk. But the style of acting German actors, they kind of deliver everything like a machine gun. And because I've gotten the German lines from the game, and the actors, and here's what we did, and they will assign one actor, nine roles. And they all sound exactly the same, but they said they're not together, but they're not gonna care if a sound sounds the same. That's not how I do it. But okay, so that's the thing is that also Japanese, when you're looping are doing stuff over Japanese, usually, stereotypically anime, may have girls that are more of a high chip monkey kind of thing. And the guy's own monster, or they could be very kind of boring, you know, but it's a cultural thing. So you have to respect the culture. And looping is something that some people get into, it's the more difficult, but it is a different mindset, you can be a big star, and do ADR, you know, but you're not coming up with as many original voices and the ability to do timing on your own. As you're matching the timing of the lip flap, you know what I mean? So it's a more constricted thing, but you can be a big star in that field. But it's kind of like, in my opinion, and no offense, animate people and loving people, but it's kind of like the want to be DJ, that is a traffic reporter, you want to be it's just a different, different application of the voice. I'm not saying traffic records are not important, but it's a different set of you're not able to be as creative because you're limited within that time space to match the coming back to the you know, imitating foreign voices and you know, trying to inhabit the skin of others and being like an actor because I one of the things I've I've been thinking about the last especially well, especially the last year what with with the kind of with Black Lives Matter and, and lots of issues being highlighted around authenticity and, and privilege and that kind of thing. Like one of the things I've struggled with is someone who does accents and does imitations is like, when does it become socially unacceptable now because I feel like the ground has shifted in terms of being an actor because you know, you're if you're if you're imitating someone and it's meant to be funny, then that can seem like it's kind of mean. So I mean, have you ever come across those those issues yet? Or are you are you is your awareness heightened around those kind of things, I think is probably like gearing saying that in the last year or so that the attention is being given to not even allow us who could do a respectable accent, you know, and be believed by the big people to saying we need to give the opportunities, the people of color. And then there you have a lot of people in the Caucasian world saying, I'm not even going to touch that. I want the job to go to the right people. Now again, right, in my opinion would be who sounds the best and does the best work. Given all the people the chances who are of that ethnicity, sure, you know, but in my opinion, again, if those people aren't giving, you know, you can go way out of your way to try and find just to fit that bill, where you may have someone that fits it right then and there. So I think you have to have a little bit of leeway. But you're right. It's getting really political correctness. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, for me, like, I've kind of made the decision where it comes down to intention, if it's like, if you're, like, if it's anything to do with making fun of anyone because of their accent or whatever, then it's totally off the cards. But like you say, if you're doing a genuine performance of someone good, and you know, you're not kind of like, just, they're not just coming to you because you're of a certain ethnicity. Yeah, you know, maybe they're your audition like kind of with those notes. But it is it's, it's it is, it's a bit of a minefield, it's challenging to the world, isn't it? Especially as I was told you before, that the oftentimes, black people, and there's not many games that normally have gangbang stuff anymore, but they used to be, you know, you gotta be tougher, like you're born to the ghetto, you know, I'm saying, at versus the Hispanic up. What are you doing, man? There have been games like that. But a lot of the black actors, some of them that I've tried, they take offense, when I say, can you sound a little more ethnic? Because they're trying to sound like I went to drama school and they don't sound black at all, you know? So, there has been that challenge of, you know, when when I'm asking people, they wanted you to sound black and you don't, right? tries different types, isn't it? Because stereotypes, yeah, they are things that we they're like cultural hooks that we we recognize and it's an extra, it's like, well, I'm gonna I'm gonna put it on that hook. But then, like, the political correctness has meant that we don't want to stereotype people, people can be whatever they want. But you still you can see that there's a tension there isn't there between, you know, what people will recognize and what's actually being sort of, you know, racist or offensive, it's, well, have you noticed that with your accent, that, you know, the, when I was at at a trade show, I was down in the lobby once and I was listening to people that were from Australia and there for a game company. And I am sure you know this, but a lot of people don't, that if you sound like Crocodile Dundee. It's kind of like the Cockney version of English isn't, but you know, good, I might, or whatever. And you might be able to do Outback Steakhouse or something like that. But in general, I said, You guys don't sound Australian at all. And they looked at me and they go, what do you think Australian sounds like? And they say, That's because we're educated. And, you know, like, okay, so I haven't I think South African I think your accent if it's, you know, Kiwi. I think it's wonderful. And there should be more of a of a call for that because it's exotic. And it's not, you know, good IMEI is it's not offensive. It's not that kind of thing. But even South African, which is a little bit more cross between British and you know, Australian or peewee has an exoticness about it. This is no small portion. Hello, you know, are you being served that kind of thing, but it's got a a lovely like, Wow, I can't identify that, but I should like it. It's a It's a lovely accent. So I congratulate and I think that more people should be looking at, you know, the trouble. I think the trouble is, a lot of people who write for these parts. Don't know that any of the cultures they don't know what people can sound like, and they don't if they did, and I have had some weird requests. Like we want to cross between Peter Lorre and Daffy Duck. We want to cross between pig bud Bundy from married with children. And Dean came from Superman. You know, they give you these weird things that is an abomination that you're going okay I want to cross a rabbit with a jeep. They want it they wanted these this certain race that look like zombies with skulls hanging all over them but they were supposed to be smart astrologers they wanted a cross between ancient Peruvian and Celtic or over can't get Celtic will do Welsh. Or the farther north you get from England, the more of a little you have. I like to play rugby and oh, and can you imagine these zombie looking bangs? Are you big beasts? Yo guys, I want to play rugby Oh, you know, that kind of thing. So I think it's the problem that we have of the designers and the people that are making up some of these things that we could have so much more fun and so much more ability to use Kiwi accents and an Australian if they knew a that they could find the people that are out there like yourself right and be that it would make it a lot more interesting instead of here's your I think the most call for accents are British Russian. Maybe the Houston for that sir. Yes, sir. The soldier, you know kind of thing. Everything else. If you want to be a Scandinavian warrior or Valkyrie, maybe you would stand out if you could do it. Nigerian or a Kenya accent? You know jumbo holiday? You know that kind of mystery Santa's that kind of a thing. But in general the writers aren't writing. Yes, true. Going back to strange directions. I think you've just inspired me to come up with an annual award for the strangest direction. Yes. I think there have been some strange things like that. The combination plate of Yeah, make it a combo. And I would say I have said, that's like trying to cross a rabbit with a jeep. You know, it's just, it doesn't make logical sense. It's like a musician getting told. Can you make your music a little more plaid with salsa? Exactly. I mean, typically, musicians go through this too. Mm hmm. And so like, you must have because you sort of specialize or you, you have come to specialize in kind of alien noises. Like, like strange kind of sounds? Do you have to know what like animals sound like? Do you study kind of like what animals sound like? Or is it just purely it's not animals, because when we do our things, like when I was working for Starcraft two, and we were doing zurg and ezard, Kwame, we didn't know what she was gonna snipe, I was doing all these weird things. And then they would take you as 130 seconds of the sound file and add lions, tigers and bears. So that's what the sound designer will try and take your really unique thing. Like, why this is flapping my call? I am not doing a growl. You know what I mean? Yeah, this sounds really good if it's pitched down. But I was Philippa and Tim, to mock whatever, for darksiders. And was this giant creature with wings, you know, and then silica was a spider. And I fully expected them to put sound effects on it then, just as it was. Okay, so you never know, when you're doing a creature thing, whether you're going to have a really creative sound design in this kind of layer, you have so much You can't even understand what it is you're saying. But it has helped me you will have games that require you to sound like an animal. And sometimes they will provide you with a link to YouTube for the animal noise. But you'd be surprised that if you're going to be a lamb versus a sheep versus a goat, I don't think they really want the real thing because lambs and sheep side they're in pain. They also want you to, they want you to convey human emotions in those animal voices. And that's one of the toughest jobs you can do is say, Now we want you to imply that you're that you want someone to come over and pet you. But it also helps when you're doing animal things like like birds like to make kind of a big crop for a frontal beak. To get to get the facial, the emotional, physical thing of the animal really does help. And also to kind of look, act, pitcher face like and this is another thing where you're getting into different character voice This is going to mirror crop Come on funny, Frank. You know, that kind of a thing. So you can at least know how to change your voice. So if you may put that in your so called library and say, Okay, I can do yoga. You know, but they don't want you there. But maybe you can make this for another voice and say no, I'm using this kind of a thing for another character. So you can have people have done that where they make little recordings and have their own little libraries and things of that nature and then they can go back and pull on there. So that's just alone or whatever they can do. But conversely, if you're asked to do a Scottish accent, and all you can do is Sean Connery. I've had that happen. Okay, but I'm sure you know what I mean. So you can't just be a Sean Connery doing a Scottish accent you have to be able to apply it toward other sounds, not just do you use mnemonics to keep track of how many voices and get back into those those characters. Explain as in like for accents, for example, you like for say, Irish you have like hoity toity for lady potato and like so the little set pieces that just get you back into that vowel sit and that face shape. I wish I had them. That's a very good Have you know I will tell people that the call me in the morning over under after I'd love the chance to dance with you British thing? I don't do it myself because I've kind of, you know, got it already but the hoity toity the Irish thing is harder for me to do the oil, the oil, you know, that kind of thing. And they're more in the flesh than those aren't they? You know, they have a mother loyalty kind of a thing. But the other accent I won't do is French Canadian or pagent. All right, you know, all of all, boo, boo les and because it's kind of like an aberration of French. But I I just say no, I don't do that one, you know, but what voice what accents? Won't you do? That's a good question. I won't do accents. When it comes from authentic accent like I've got like, I've got three tiers of accent, I've got like, I can do this until the local, I've got like, this is a good party accent. And it'll form like a lot of people, especially slightly drunk people. And then like, the third one is just like, I just don't even know where to start. And that list the last list is getting fewer and fewer because I like to like when I come across one of the speakers like my thing I got obsessed with I listened to what's his name, The Daily Show the new guy, Noah, Trevor Noah his book a and it's funny that talks about his his whole past and he is amazing with African accents. He can just any. And this book, the audio book, he goes through, he reads all these different things that happened to him in these different African accents. And after that, I got a little bit obsessed with African accents. And I young, I just went went around trying to to find what the essence of the accent was. And I know that's not that's that's completely blunt, like consonants and and like, really the way it talked like this. And and when you hear someone doing it authentically, you suddenly like when you do it and just normal life, you kind of think like, Oh, is this a bit like, is this a bit racist? I feel a bit funny about doing doing, like, especially accents like that, but then you think I'm just talking in a different way. Like, this is just for me, I just want to explore how this feels in my mouth. And I think and that's good. Well, because not a lot of people can do the African accents. And I know that there's a difference between Nigeria and Kenya and things of that nature. But I will tell you when I was working for I think it was Diablo three, there was a witch doctor. And I was cast for the Barbarian and a witch doctor and I didn't. I ended up being released. But it was really a strange situation. I'll make it short. The Witch Doctor kind of made it a combination, almost like the Pirates of the Caribbean. Not the Voodoo priestess. I wasn't trying to make it. So African, you know, whatever I was, you know, and the one line was supposed to be they asked you how do you know he was lying? He admitted it to me right after I cheated his minions. Okay, so I would say that and then she'd say she'd go through and have me go back and she'd play me my, my part already that I done to stay in character and I wasn't dropping out of character. So I was getting a little bit weirded out. But then she says at the very end she goes, can we play the male? witch doctor? I swear to God, it's one of those guys who cannot talk English at all. You know, he's got it because yeah, a minute. After I did this minute, I said, I couldn't talk like that. You want me to talk like someone who does not speak English that way? Is Never mind. I got fired on the way home, you know, and it was not because I don't know. And then I heard later What was the chosen voice and hardly had any accent at all. So I'm saying there it is that you should really epitomize on what you're doing. But to they're going to make you pull it back and pull it back and pull it back because I was hired to do the world of avatar Disney promo. Hmm. They thought I was Caribbean. And it was like poem, the mystical mountains and a magical Villa floating mountains. mystical Welcome to found out I wasn't. And so it was a it was one of those things that they liked it. They still wanted it. And would you believe we did the whole thing and was just marvelous. I had a great time. And at the tagline It was like, now open it there were at Disney World Resort. They wanted that the same voice but no accident. World of avatar, only at the Walt Disney World Resort. Isn't that good that I was taking the other one. It breaks. It breaks the smell. I know. So I would never be afraid if you are not of the right. Color. Try it anyway. I've asked my agents, by the way, when it says we're looking for, you know, actual this ethnicity, I would say do you want me to do it? Or not? You know, I will ask permission. Do you want me to do it? And they'll say we're not gonna find the real one, do it? Or they might say yeah, we want the real thing. Just like when they're asking for kids. Kids, bless their hearts can be a special thing to deal with. And I'll leave Get a bat. But put it this way, if a kid's like we had this happen with tails for Sonic where all of you for that sake hit I wish us women. Hey, Shawn, it you know to do the kids voice and we're better not were easier to direct. You know what I mean? Usually, we are faster things of this nature. But they decided that this time they wanted real kids. Well, we went through three kids because they each reach puberty. by sea, of course, we had to use a guy's brother. Yeah, I know. And so that's the other thing too, is that when people who are saying, I have a kid to get, okay, try and get the kid in the business now. And but if you are hiring a real kid, realize that can happen. Depending on if you have sequels and things of that nature, that, that that can be an issue. But the fact that there are real kids and Disney wants kids, you know, they want the real thing. Just like they want celebrities. Imagine if Bart Simpson was voiced by an actual kid Originally, it would be like two seasons. No way did I know. And that's pretty much her natural. She has much of that natural voice. And Andrea Romano discovered her I guess listening to her at some ways and said you're on Did you hear how SpongeBob SquarePants got a story now, he was speaking at the convention center here at Comic Con. And you have to excuse my language because I'm going to swear, is that, okay? Because I'm going to quote, I'm going to quote where you said, I can kind of alternate a little if you want. My funny listening to him as well. He was on camera during a green screen, I think was insurance commercials or something of that nature. And they had a break. And he went down the hall and there was a Christmas commercial being filmed with elves, small people, you know. And there was one very irate one saying Gary, and they were cast me as a mother. But then I'm gonna kick somebody in. Now, he was telling the story at a hollywood party. Someone tapped him on the shoulder and said, come into my office tomorrow, I think I have a part for you. And that's how we got it. So that's another thing about being in the right place at the right time. Unfortunately, sometimes it's who you know, who you, you know, I'm saying it's to us. And so it's people say, Well, how do you break into the business? It's a lot of serendipity. It's a lot of who, you know, it's a lot of being recommended by people that are in the business. Sometimes it's a paid audition, where people pay to get a class from a casting director, and you better make it an active one. Because sometimes in this business, those who can do and those who can't teach that is a paid audition to be seen. Yeah, yeah. And I like that adage that luck favors the prepared. In terms of you've got to be ready, because that luck train comes along occasionally. And if you're ready, it'll pick you up. But if you're not really, it's just gonna go right by. That's true. Very true. So I think you've done a marvelous job, especially when you're coaching people and everything and, and I congratulate you, and I'm gonna probably ask for your coaching staff. Just before we wrap up today, I wanted to cover like a couple of things, because one of the things I've I mean, I've only dipped my toe into the kind of like the character and video game world. And it's, I've realized that it is such a different world to the commercial voiceover that you have to learn everything again. One of the things I really struggle with in these sessions is well, there's two things, there's exertion scripts, which I'm very familiar with, because, you know, exhausting and last days, what let's talk about acquisition scripts, and then we'll go on to the next topic. So once you're sort of, how do you go about because I just figured they were like, right, okay, now you're climbing a rope, can you do that for 20 seconds. And then like, you know, jumping on the table, and they all ended up sounding kind of the same all like six noises, like strategy. Let's just talk about generic and this could be different. I think that a lot of guys sound like gorillas going to the forest when they're doing a tax write. First strategy is always use your body and since I'm holding the stone, excuse me, for all the movement that I've had in here, but you've got to use you got to use you know, and then you've got to use your body to do the attacks and in general attacks would be consonants or the rough and that the being attack would be the and I didn't direct it. Okay, now you're hitting the eye now you're hitting the throat now you're hitting the guy, you know, so you can do your or I can make them juicy. You know? that kind of a thing that but nowadays they don't have action specific so you're not being throat slit head bashed, jumping into hot lava, you are light, medium, heavy, light, medium, heavy, and your death. You have to ask, Are you showing the cause of your death in your Yes. And how long do we have to die is only very few have allowed you to be hit balled your knees and do a faceplant. Most of them are like, you know, like, one second or two seconds. Because the fact is, most of these people that die or respond, and they come back immediately, and I'm going to sound like, I'm a gamer, right? But the fact is that, to do some weird things like the jump, bring your arms up. Now, you ask them Do you want the land? So it's the same thing as trying to ask people to do a natural laugh. To go haha, know, if you would do the spit take or something to release most of your air first. That little leftover makes it sound much more natural that Haha, you know, you don't want to have that whole thing. So you can do that. You have a two stage attack where you're maybe, you know, winding up that kind of deal. But when they're telling you that you're jumping over a log and somersaulting on the ground, you're going, Oh, look, you know, you have to be prepared to be asked some strange things, but in general is just the maybe the jump when the rope climb. And the breathing your boy, you can get hyperventilating really nicely, when they're saying doing your breathing. I always say do you want it so you can move it? So you might do three breaths like by doing similarly, not? Because then it would sound stupid. You know, and then you're doing the more out of breath ones, you know, like, but you you ask them that because you can really get hyperventilate and start getting dizzy during the breath. But that is one of the amounts that you'll probably be asked for is the breathing. And you could do a fall. And you have to ask how far do you fall? I always want to go away from the mic and fall away. No, no, no, be like right now. You got to be like with your face, right? They want to be able to cut it usually. thump as you as you land. But yeah, I think also use your body a lot. When you're doing that. And imagine that it hurts. Also, you're going to be asked to talk and pain, wounded. The wounded sound. My funny direction is pinch a loaf. Oh, I can't I'm trying to hurt it. But you know, I'm constipated. And that's one way to think of it to be sounding like you're in pain. When you take kind of turn your breathing and sounding like you're, you're gasping for air, you know? So those are little tricks that you can use. Fantastic. It's really good. Another one another big, big advice because this is another thing I struggle with these sessions is doing screams doing falls doing deaths. Exactly. It's hard on your voice. Like what's that? Exactly. But like, I have you? Like what's your strategy for maintaining voice health? Do you have warning signs where you're like, No, I've got to stop now. Otherwise, I'm gonna lose my voice. Or you just go I always tell people if you don't if you're not willing or wanting to ruin your voice stay out of the game industry. No, it's because sometimes they will. And I don't say it lightly because some games like iCast don't even have the amounts. But sometimes they will say this will require physical exertion. do not accept this audition if you're not willing to do it. In other words, if you're not willing to kill yourself, stay out of the oven. We're gonna remain. Yeah, so the trick is that you will always depending on now some people can be really snippy and say I'll only give you three I'll only give you one you know, you can do that and limit yourself but then what happens after I got through doing sendowl for Mortal Kombat. They had me do Shiva. And I said wait a minute, aren't we doing her emotes? Oh, you can do emotes in a different voice. Well, yeah, real this is from a top it was like technical their studios in LA with around now. But they were went to Vegas. I said nobody's ever done that before. Oh my god, I was a superstar because I could emote in a different, you know, voice which is hard for a lot of people to do. But I'd say that the hardest thing the screams are not as hard as the as when you're clapping your voice and you're doing things like that, that that or the likes of the pig or those kind of things, or the clicker wasn't so hard. That's not really hard. But those kinds of things when you're tightening up the scope. I've had it so that I couldn't drink water. I mean, they'll give you the honey and the tea and everything else that you'd throw Spray, whatever. When you're tight, you're tight. And you're kind of done. If you can ask for maybe 10 minutes, 15 minutes, you may have your throat and sweat a little bit. It might not, you know, so you just have to be prepared and be prepared that maybe the next day, you're not going to be able to audition for much. Yeah, that's tough, isn't it? Like, that's definitely the thing that I've struggled with most is that, yeah, it takes me out for for for a day afterwards, I make changes my fundamental voice, my normal speaking voice for the commercials close. Yeah. And then, so you asked to do everything last, including, if it's difficult for you to do a deep voice. You don't want to strain yourself during your higher voice and all the emotes first, because as you need the loose cords to do the deep voice. So you might notice that if you were he'd been screaming in your higher voice, it's gonna tighten up your throat, so you can't get down into your resonant voice as quickly. So you want to do your deep voice stuff first, and then your screen. And those kind of stuff would do last otherwise, you're gonna sound kind of like this on Joan Rivers, you know. And so you're going to actually have this, this sound of being very, I know, you probably had it when you're when you have a voice that you're out of your voice, and you're trying to sound like this. That's what's gonna happen. When you ruin your voice. You're gonna sound basically like this. Yeah, exactly. Well, it's terrible, isn't it? So, like, and finally, like, how do you keep it? You've been doing this for such a long time? You obviously don't get bored of it, you're still How do you keep enthusiastic about it? Do you? Do you have those days when you're like, Ah, man, we should get a different trouble us still, like 100% I love this. Well, because you went from all these different people, and different characters, and everything is a new challenge. You always have new characters that come up. So that's the newness of it, and being able to make something better than it could be see spot run, you know, I mean, you're able to bring new life, it's our job. That's our job. I mean, why are we here? If it's not to bring new life and to find people and give new people opportunities, I do that all the time. People are always thinking me, you know, I want to be added to your talent pool, that kind of thing. So I will give them the whole rundown. I think that's what makes it fun is because it's always a new scenario. Even if I'm doing another Star Trek thing. We will have new characters, we're sure you have your captains and your admirals and whatever. But I love it when there are especially I love it when there's creatures what have you. But when you're working with a whole different group of people, that's your family. You know, I mean, and me being pretty much alone. That's that's enabling me to vicariously live in an outside world and not have to play the games to be part of. Well, thank you so much for your time today. Just before Did you still do that? There was that great monologue that used to do which started which started we'll start out as babies. Oh, yeah, we'll do that one. Could you perform that one for us? Sure. I'll start at a baby. And then as days go by, we get a little older material. We shouldn't cry. It goes through school trying to be cool. And then we graduate. Some of us might be mommies, others work or even date. As we grow. We wonder what are we smart are just a full. Now some others are back in diapers again. And others even draw. Well done. Thank you so much. That's that's one of my favorite monologues. Perfect. Thank you. Such a pleasure. And you're such a great Interviewer And I hope we did okay. We did great. Thank you so much. Thank you.