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tagged in Pat Fraley, Tips & Tricks, voice actor interviews

Pat Fraley not only has an immense talent as an actor, but he excels at all kinds of vocal tricks. While working with Mel Blanc, Pat learned this hilarious and amazing technique for making the perfect crying baby sound.

Grab a handkerchief and follow along to learn how to perform “Baby in a Hanky.”

Transcript:
Somehow I got tagged as a guy to do a lot of strange sounds, and talking backwards, and making nonsense. I did Cousin Itt: . You know, things like that, which is natural to me, I mean, it’s perfect for being stupelexic, which I am.

And most of the stuff I learned — although I went to school, and I got an MFA in Acting — I learned at recess. Or I picked up from other people. And one of the tricks that I love is, I call “Baby in a Hanky.” And I was doing a show with Mel Blanc — Captain Caveman, at Hanna-Barbera — and they said “Mel, we need your baby,” and he reached in his pocket and he took out his handkerchief, and this is what I heard: .

And it was like, oh my goodness. The whole room stilled. And the way you do it, is you go, in a high pitch: , and then you go a little like the baby’s lungs are being fulled. And then we he gets real fussy, you jump an octave . Right? But when you muffle it , you get that baby sound.

And I’ve done pilots, and I’ve done all sorts of covering babies in case, you know, they have to cry on cue, I’m backstage at a microphone with my hanky. And you get calls on the phone for auditions for those, you know, you’ll just literally call the producers and go, “Okay, give me a baby.” And I go, “What baby? What do you want? You want an Italian baby? Oh, oh, Jewish baby?” Who knew.

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tagged in Pat Fraley, Tips & Tricks, voice actor interviews

Aside from being an incredibly in-demand actor, Pat Fraley is one of the most sought after voice over teachers in the country. Whether it’s acting, microphone technique, or text analysis, he brings nearly forty years of performance and teaching experience to every masterclass and recording session he runs.

Pat truly loves teaching and sharing his tips and advice with other voice actors, so we were excited to sit down with him and hear some of his advice for aspiring voice actors. Here is his response:

Transcript:
Probably the best advice I could give myself and my students and another player is that to remember that confidence is the real juice. If I could teach confidence, that would be the only thing I teach for the rest of my life. But it turns out that the gateway to confidence is knowledge, which empowers one, and then that unlocks confidence.

If you’re confident, if you can just be confident and committed to your choices, you can’t be bad. I mean, think about Paul Lynde as Hamlet, right? He wouldn’t be bad. He’d be wrong, but hey, you know, “To be or not to be, that’s the question .” Or, uh, who else was I thinking I’d love to see? Oh, well, you know, Jack Nicholson: “Oh, what a rogue and peasant slave am I.” Not bad, just wrong. But the confidence, if you’re wrong for the part, they call you back. They’ll call you back, because they’ll be interested in what you do, and eventually they’ll land on a role for you.

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tagged in In Their Own Voice, Richard Epcar, voice actor interviews

Richard Epcar has voiced more than 300 characters, in games, cartoons, and anime, so he’s no stranger to juggling multiple roles. He recently worked on an audiobook where he played the entire cast, and we were curious to know what it was like to have to go back and forth between so many characters. Here’s what Richard had to say:

Check out Richard Epcar’s work in the Doc Savage audiobook White Eyes.

Transcript:
I just did a project where I had about 10 or 12 characters that I had to do, and I had to read, it was an audiobook, actually, is what it was, and I had to basically do the narrator and then I had to be all these different characters when they would show up in the story and it was…it was really difficult. And you just do it, you know. You see, “Oh, this guy’s coming up,” and then you just become that guy, and then, oh here….

I actually had to play some women, I had to play some guys, I had to play, you know, all these crazy characters. Bad guys, good guys, cops. And you know, there were scenes where there was 10, 15 cops and I had to come up with all different voices for all those guys, so, you know…It was pretty crazy to try to keep all that straight.

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tagged in In Their Own Voice, Laura Bailey, voice actor interviews

This week, Laura Bailey talks about how she got into voice acting. We’ve had the pleasure of working with her many times on both games and animated projects.

Laura Bailey has performed lead roles in popular anime titles including Shin Chan, Fruits Basket, and Fullmetal Alchemist.  Gamers may recognize her as the voice of Chun Li in Street Fighter IV and Marvel vs Capcom 3, as well as Jaina Proudmoore in World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King.

Transcript:
I first got into voice acting, let’s see, I was in college, and I was doing a play in regional theatre, and one of the guys that was in the show with me actually did voice over for an anime that was popular at the time called Dragonball Z, and they had, like, a whole bunch of female characters coming up and the company that was doing the show was very new, so he asked if I would come in and audition for some roles they had coming up, and so I did, and I ended up getting a part on that, and voice over just kind of took off from there, you know, I started doing more shows with Funimation, and that led to more video game and interactive work and it just kept building on itself.

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tagged in David Lodge, In Their Own Voice, voice actor interviews

David Lodge is one of our favorite people to have in the studio. Not only is David super talented, but he always keeps us laughing. In this clip, he talks about what it’s like doing voices for video games.

If you’ve ever watched a cartoon or played a video game, you’ve probably heard David Lodge’s work; his resume boasts a wide range of heroes and villains alike. We’ve used him as everything from orcs to puppies, and his never ceases to surprise us with his creative choices.

Transcript:
Video games are very spontaneous, we don’t get the scripts in advance, so we can’t cheat and memorize it. There’s no “Actor Prepares” kinda Uta Hagen stuff goin’ on. The magic starts right then and there, you’ve got to be able to deliver a lot of voices, ‘cause most of the time you’re playing six or seven characters, or at least two or three. And so it’s very immediate, and you have to be ready to change your voice, change the pace, change the character. One minute you’re like an old wizard that talks like this, “Bazamba-ka-dooba!” and the next minute, you’re like a little, you know, peasant kid that’s being kicked around a little bit, you know. Or, you’re like a pirate, aye there matey, oh ho!

So all this stuff, including, you know, dogs, animals, birds, pigs…you gotta be ready. So, unlike cartoons where you get the script way in advance and you can sort of build on the character, get familiar with the lines, this is very, very, like, right now, read, go, go, go, go, go. So, improv helps.

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