Maybe its just me who finds entertaining these interviews with some of the voice actors from The Lion King.
I especially found interesting Nathan Lane’s interview about the dark parts of this movie which I always found unnecessary to the story (Disney seems transfixed in its movie stories with killing parents ((Bambi, Nemo, Lion King)).
But the acting stories I think are fun.
Courtesy of Doreen Mulman on Facebook, a saw a video featuring interviews with voice talent discussing the challenges of voice actor parts in animation going to celebrity actors and how that impacts their careers.
As I noted recently, sometimes animated movies get picked on for picking celebrities to voice characters primarily because they are marketable celebrities (MJ Lallo offers one funny example). In other cases (I would cite “Toy Story” and “Cars” as two examples) the celebrities chosen to voice are clearly great actors whose transition to voice acting was seamless and superb.
As usual, Pat Fraley offers some really salient insight into the benefits of celebrities working in voice over.
While I applaud the producers desire to tell the story, a little effort properly checking the spelling of the featured actors’ names for the lower third graphics would have gone a long way to making this effort that much more credible.
Sometimes Hollywood actors get crap from non-Hollywood voice actors (of course not me, because I never give anyone crap) about why they were cast as the voices in an animated film.
Well, the voices in the Toy Story series for me have always made me forget who the “big names” were behind the voices. That’s a compliment – that’s how its supposed to be.
And now, watching them exercise their craft in these two videos from Toy Story 3, you may more fully understand why their performances are so amazingly good.
Toy Story 3 comes out tomorrow. The voice actor who plays Andy, the owner of all the toys like ‘Woody’ and ‘Buzz Lightyear’ has provide the character’s voice in all 3 films.
He started when he was 7, the next movie was made when he was in his teens and now, in his mid-twenties, he’s voiced Andy for the 3rd time.
Here’s an interesting interview with voice actor John Morris.
Voice Actor Allen Swift, photo copyright Neal Boenzi, The New York Times
Shame on me for missing the Cartoon Brew post last week and only now catching the New York Times obit on voice actor Allen Swift.
What’s sad for me in these situations is I learn of a performer’s work after their passing. Shame on me again.
Voice Actor & Teacher Bob Bergen
I believe it was my friend and voiceover compatriot Liz de Nesnera who posted a notice in social media circles about an upcoming Bob Bergen Voice Over Workshop that will teach you how to buy foreclosed homes for pennies on the dollar and become rich, rich, rich!
Um wait, that might be wrong.
Actually, Bob’s hosting a “2-Day ADVANCED Animation Voice-over Workshop” December 5-6, 2009 in New York City, (“Advanced” meaning you must have previous animation voice-over technique training or experience).
Eschewing the hype found in many one-sheets for workshops (har-har), this workshop’s flyer promises the following:
This work shop takes you through the entire process of what it’s like to audition and record a cartoon! Each student will have the opportunity to “audition” for up to 15 characters . Based on their” auditions” Bob will then cast and record an episode of the cartoon.! Each student will receive an audio copy of the finished product! This is a great opportunity to know what it’s like to actually work as a voice-over artist in an animated film.
I have not trained with Bob but that only means he’s selective about who he teaches and he has good taste – I’m kidding! All the people I know who have trained with Bob speak very, very well of the experience and if they didn’t you wouldn’t be reading about this workshop here. If you’d like more information, you can find it here.
