china dispatch #11 - voicework
I've been doing some voice work lately. Every so often I look into doing this in the states. I have a nice radioey voice, and can do everything from Golden Age Announcer Voice to Present-Day DJ Voice to compelling character voices. But I've never scored a gig back home, even after repeated inquiries and submissions of my reel to agents and studios.
Here, though, it's different. Catherine spotted an ad looking for voice talent, and we answered it. A few weeks later, I was doing some English language instruction tapes. Fun!
It's actually not always fun when you're doing it, depending on the material. Today, for instance, I went in for a few hours and did some pretty pleasurable advanced stuff for upper-level English speakers: magazine articles and dialogs, all at normal conversational speed. However, there are times when the material is for beginners, and then you have to say things like, "W h a t . . . c o l o r . . . i s . . . t h e . . . s o c k ? . . . W h a t . . . c o l o r . . . i s . . . t h e . . . t a b l e ? . . . W h a t . . . c o l o r . . . i s . . . t h e . . . s t r e e t ? " for hours on end. Stultifying.
On the other hand, you do have to remember that a lot of this stuff is written by non-native speakers. So, you and your (always opposite-sex) partner get to read, with a straight face, stuff like this:
Try that, at 130 words per minute, with exaggerated inflection, and you'll get the picture.
The gal I started partnering with is of Asian descent, and fluent in Chinese, but an American from Chicago. She's pure magic: one of those beautiful voices, with perfect inflection, and a real talent for character voices that have a Saturday-morning sheen to them.
By chance, I met another voice person, an English girl named Bex, who has a perfect RP accent. That's the classic BBC sound: not haughty or posh, but perfectly crisp and clear and Londonny. She mentioned she needed a Brit to partner with — remember that Beijing wants to hear British English as well as American English — and that her studio guy, Mr Wang, wanted a native speaker. So we went in and I pretended to be English, speaking with an English accent (mainly floating around London's various districts and classes, I'm afraid), and he bought it. I soon settled into a semi-tongue-in-cheek approximation of Deryck Cooke, the genteel music commentator who burrowed his way into the in-jokes of several of us who can't help but collapse into tearful laugher remembering his placidly civil evocation of "the Rheinmaidens' cry of 'Rheingold, rheingold; Heiaia, heiaia.' " After the session, Mr Wang mentioned he was looking for an American male voice, and I put on my best American accent and told him I could do it so well that even native-born Americans couldn't tell.
Heh. He knows the truth now. So I'm doing Brit and American voices for him, and for the other studio guy Bex introduced me to, Mr Yang, who lives in the building next to Mr Wang. I brought her to the one I'd been working with, now referred to as The Other Mr Wang, and introduced her over there while the Magic American Gal was on vacation.
So.
I've been gigging at a really nice intimate little jazz club for Serious Listeners, with an excellent couple of musicians, as well as a few private things here and there with my friend Billy and others, and occasionally at a drop-dead-amazing club designed by Philippe Starck — a hedonistic pleasure to play in — and August is filling with gigs as well. But every so often I head over across town to Yang or one of the Wangs and exercise my other talents.
Here, though, it's different. Catherine spotted an ad looking for voice talent, and we answered it. A few weeks later, I was doing some English language instruction tapes. Fun!
It's actually not always fun when you're doing it, depending on the material. Today, for instance, I went in for a few hours and did some pretty pleasurable advanced stuff for upper-level English speakers: magazine articles and dialogs, all at normal conversational speed. However, there are times when the material is for beginners, and then you have to say things like, "W h a t . . . c o l o r . . . i s . . . t h e . . . s o c k ? . . . W h a t . . . c o l o r . . . i s . . . t h e . . . t a b l e ? . . . W h a t . . . c o l o r . . . i s . . . t h e . . . s t r e e t ? " for hours on end. Stultifying.
On the other hand, you do have to remember that a lot of this stuff is written by non-native speakers. So, you and your (always opposite-sex) partner get to read, with a straight face, stuff like this:
M: "Are you driving this machine?"
F: "I love the driving of machines in the day."
M: "So am I."
Try that, at 130 words per minute, with exaggerated inflection, and you'll get the picture.
The gal I started partnering with is of Asian descent, and fluent in Chinese, but an American from Chicago. She's pure magic: one of those beautiful voices, with perfect inflection, and a real talent for character voices that have a Saturday-morning sheen to them.
By chance, I met another voice person, an English girl named Bex, who has a perfect RP accent. That's the classic BBC sound: not haughty or posh, but perfectly crisp and clear and Londonny. She mentioned she needed a Brit to partner with — remember that Beijing wants to hear British English as well as American English — and that her studio guy, Mr Wang, wanted a native speaker. So we went in and I pretended to be English, speaking with an English accent (mainly floating around London's various districts and classes, I'm afraid), and he bought it. I soon settled into a semi-tongue-in-cheek approximation of Deryck Cooke, the genteel music commentator who burrowed his way into the in-jokes of several of us who can't help but collapse into tearful laugher remembering his placidly civil evocation of "the Rheinmaidens' cry of 'Rheingold, rheingold; Heiaia, heiaia.' " After the session, Mr Wang mentioned he was looking for an American male voice, and I put on my best American accent and told him I could do it so well that even native-born Americans couldn't tell.
Heh. He knows the truth now. So I'm doing Brit and American voices for him, and for the other studio guy Bex introduced me to, Mr Yang, who lives in the building next to Mr Wang. I brought her to the one I'd been working with, now referred to as The Other Mr Wang, and introduced her over there while the Magic American Gal was on vacation.
So.
I've been gigging at a really nice intimate little jazz club for Serious Listeners, with an excellent couple of musicians, as well as a few private things here and there with my friend Billy and others, and occasionally at a drop-dead-amazing club designed by Philippe Starck — a hedonistic pleasure to play in — and August is filling with gigs as well. But every so often I head over across town to Yang or one of the Wangs and exercise my other talents.
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