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  • DWAYNE \"THE ROCK\" JOHNSON: Boat a boat!

  • The gods have given me a--

  • NARRATOR: In recent years, big actors like Chris Pratt

  • The Rock, and Margot Robbie, are taking on roles

  • in animated movies more and more.

  • ANNOUNCER: Actors and actresses

  • perform for unseen audiences.

  • NARRATOR: You can see the appeal, roll up to work

  • in your pajamas, and say a few lines into a microphone

  • seems like a sweet gig, right?

  • JOAN: It actually takes months of training,

  • and sometimes years

  • and when I've worked with people that are on Broadway

  • and celebrities, almost always, and these are actors

  • and almost always, they'll say to me, I had no idea.

  • NARRATOR: So, how exactly do

  • actors prepare for animated roles?

  • We went straight to the experts to find out.

  • RUDY: Hi, I'm Rudy Gaskins,

  • CEO of the Society of Voice Arts and Sciences

  • here with my partner, Joan, to talk

  • about all things voice acting.

  • NARRATOR: Joan and Rudy have been

  • teaching their craft for over 25 years.

  • RUDY: We've worked with Phil LaMarr, who's one of

  • the voices of Family Guy and Nancy Cartwright

  • who's the voice of Bart Simpson.

  • NANCY CARTWRIGHT: Your attention please, your

  • attention please. I have an announcement to make.

  • RUDY: You wouldn't believe a 60 year old woman

  • is that adolescent's voice,

  • but she is and she's extraordinary.

  • NARRATOR: But talent is only part of the equation.

  • When it's just your voice doing all the work

  • you have to make sure that instrument is in tip top shape.

  • Voice coaches lead actors through a variety of exercises

  • to optimize their vocal chords

  • and condition their mouth muscles.

  • Some of these are things you might expect

  • like controlling your breathing

  • and learning to speak on the breath.

  • JOAN: Hi, how are you?

  • NARRATOR: Some of them are less expected

  • like the jaw, throat, and tongue warmups

  • that actors do before they get in the booth.

  • JOAN: Most people, their tension is in their jaw.

  • So, I'm using these fingers to hold the jaw

  • not clench the jaw, but hold it

  • and I'm gonna take a diaphragmatic breath in.

  • So if I go...

  • Now I'm gonna do it on sound.

  • It's key to have a relaxed open back of the throat,

  • as opposed to a tense and fixed back of the throat,

  • which means that sometimes the breath can't go out

  • the mouth so it has to go shoot out the nose.

  • And that's when you get things like nasality.

  • NARRATOR: Nasal might actually

  • work for certain characters.

  • OWEN WILSON: Of course I wanna keep racing.

  • BOB BERGEN: Th-this is my backyard.

  • NARRATOR: But in most roles, actors wanna speak

  • more deeply and roundly so their voices

  • can capture a fuller range of emotional expression.

  • WILL ARNETT: Outta curiosity, why wouldn't you

  • wanna marry me? Just, you know, again, purely for curiosity.

  • JOAN: The little dingy thing in the back is called the

  • uvula. Most people's are frozen and they are kinda stuck.

  • So there's exercises like...

  • You'll hear voiceover people do that in abundance.

  • And it's to exercise the uvula in the back,

  • so that it's almost like

  • a punching bag the way it moves.

  • NARRATOR: Clever tongue twisters are

  • another key part of actor's warmup routines.

  • JOAN: What everyone knows is Peter Piper

  • picked a peck of pickled peppers.

  • But there is a lot of tongue twisters

  • that aren't necessarily long,

  • but they really help nip in the bud certain pronunciations.

  • Abominable abdominals, abominable abdominals,

  • abominable abdominals, abominable abdominals.

  • Kinky cookie, kinky cookie, kinky cookie.

  • Lemon lime liniment, lemon lime liniment.

  • Eleven benevolent elephants, try it.

  • CAMERAMAN: Eleven benevel...

  • I don't even think I can say that word normally.

  • RUDY: Yeah, that's why it's in there.

  • NARRATOR: These exercises help to relieve tension.

  • But even some seasoned actors will still get nervous

  • once they hop in front of the mic.

  • JOAN: Their throat gets dry, their tongue gets dry.

  • When you talking there's a lot of

  • lip smacking.

  • What I'll do is I will eat a green apple.

  • NARRATOR: The acids that give green apples

  • their sour taste also can stimulate saliva production.

  • This helps clean and moisten the mouth,

  • reducing problems like lip smacking and mic clicks.

  • Some people have the opposite problem.

  • They produce too much saliva when they're worked up.

  • JOAN: So they sound like they're

  • a little drunk, but they're nervous.

  • NARRATOR: Luckily there's a quick fix for actors

  • who hyper-salivate in front of the mic.

  • JOAN: What I tell them to do is take coffee grinds,

  • just a pinch and put it underneath their tongue,

  • and let it absorb.

  • NARRATOR: The coffee grinds aren't tasty.

  • RUDY: That is not good.

  • NARRATOR: But they do dry up excess saliva,

  • minimizing the sound of a wet mouth.

  • A unique problem arises in the booth

  • when actors are pronouncing words

  • beginning with P, B, D, G, or T.

  • JENNY SLATE: You're welcome Batman.

  • SAMUEL L. JACKSON: Besides, I

  • knew the cops would let you go.

  • ALISON BRIE: Blast!

  • NARRATOR: These sounds are called plosives.

  • MATTHEW MCCONAUGHEY: And that's up!

  • NARRATOR: It's these air vibrations

  • that are the foundation of beatboxing.

  • But not so much in voice acting.

  • RUDY: That burst of air is very loud and dramatic.

  • One of the simplest ways to get rid of that,

  • so if you have a pencil in front of your microphone,

  • and you're speaking, when you say something like,

  • P it gets stopped by the pencil.

  • NARRATOR: Contrary to what people might think,

  • voice acting can actually be very physical.

  • RUDY: You can conduct yourself much the way

  • a symphony conductor works with an orchestra,

  • when he wants something legato

  • and easy and when he wants big motions.

  • You can do that with your hands and your body.

  • If I wanted to say many moaning men,

  • I want that to be legato and smooth and loving,

  • so I can use my hands like a conductor

  • and go, many moaning men.

  • If I wanted to be sharper, I'd say many moaning men.

  • JOAN: So your voice follows your body.

  • RUDY: If I said take a Superman pose

  • and now say many moaning men making money, it changes.

  • If I say put your hands on a lectern

  • and become the president then it's

  • going to change the way you speak.

  • If I say put your hands on your hip

  • and start moving your head--

  • JOAN: Then all of a sudden--

  • RUDY: Then now, yeah.

  • JOAN: You're gettin' down.

  • And this often comes up in voice acting

  • where the script is saying that you're at

  • a baseball game, let's say, and then there's atmosphere,

  • you know, the fans are going crazy,

  • but there's still dialogue happening, right?

  • One of the things that we have to do is

  • we have to talk over, as if there's a crowd there,

  • but that's not yelling, it is talking over

  • the crowd or the noise, right?

  • So I was working with someone

  • and they just kept yelling into the microphone

  • so I finally said to 'em, use your hands

  • as if a wave was coming up and over

  • so that while you're saying the line,

  • you're gonna say the line as if you're talking up and over.

  • So when he finally did that, he was stunned.

  • NARRATOR: In live action films, the actors have

  • sets, costumes, makeup, and practical effects

  • to help them get into character.

  • In animated films, actors have their imaginations.

  • WILL ARNETT: I'm becoming, I'm becoming I am Batman.

  • RUDY: When you're working on a particular script,

  • it may call for a certain mood.

  • Maybe it starts with, brr, it's cold in here.

  • And so okay, this gonna be a cold experience,

  • but you're in the booth, you don't have people with you,

  • you don't have props, you don't have

  • a real environment, and you have to create a lot.

DWAYNE \"THE ROCK\" JOHNSON: Boat a boat!

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