So, I had a gig today where I had to be a sound alike for a young girl in a Canadian cartoon. I found myself doing several odd things to completely alter my voice to sound like her. I would stand with my feet out a bit further than usual, clench my fists, and scrunch up my nose. I would say a series of lines that I had auditioned with originally to “get back into character” and would go from there.
Looking at other characters that I’ve voiced, I’ve found that there is often one thing or a series of things that I would do to get that character voice back. For example, there is a cartoon that I did where I had to be 2 teenage girls and have a 5 minute conversation back and forth between the two. Their voices are complete opposite sides of the spectrum and I found myself posing different ways for each character. It’s a split second change, my posture, my facial expressions, and even my hand movements. But it works because I become the different characters and don’t have to worry about one voice leaking into the other.
For another character that I voice, I have to take off my shoes and put the microphone slightly too high so that I have to stand on my tippy toes for each line. Hey it works!
I’m thinking this goes back to my animation training. Whenever I would be drawing a new character, a lot of the time I found myself making several funny faces and posing even though I couldn’t see myself unless I had a mirror. For some odd reason, it made me picture the character better in my head before putting it on paper.
So, does anyone out there have odd things that they do to get into character? Tell me about them!
Tags: characters, voice acting
0