Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/216003
or sounding too slick. We're given copy changes throughout the session, and then when we're asked to do it all again and shave off three-tenths of a second, we can do it in one take," Liz Zazzi, a national board member from New York, said. "It's not for everybody. It's a real specific talent," said New York-based voice actor Johnny Heller, who specializes in audiobook narration. "You need to have incredible stamina to read that many hours. It's hard, hard work." Heller recalled teaching a class on audiobook narration and explaining to the students the importance of reading the book before beginning. You have to understand the characters and the tone of the story, he told them. Perhaps there's an eleventh-hour revelation about a character that is contrary to the way the narrator initially imagined him or her. "If you're telling a joke, you best know the punch lines," he explained, by way of analogy. One gentleman piped up. "Wait, wait, I gotta read the book first? I gotta take notes and study the characters?" he asked. "This is hard. I'm not doing this!" he said, before getting up and leaving the room. Performers who are serious about pursuing voice acting need to have the proper training and experience, or their first job might be their last. "There are so many people who want to do this, and they're just pushing producers to listen to [their] demo and [saying] 'please hire me.' And they get a job and if they're not ready, then that's it. You don't get a second chance," Heller said. Townsend Coleman, best recognized as the star of The Tick and the voice of Michelangelo on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, echoed the same sentiment, cautioning that the biggest mistake novices often make is to work for weeks and months on their demo, tuning it to a perfection they can't live up to in the studio. "They can put together a really great-sounding demo, but without the experience behind them, all it's going to take is getting booked on one or two jobs and the producer and writer at the session realizing that this person just doesn't have the experience … to be able to read the copy, in time, consistently," he said. Voice actors need to be able to interpret the instructions they receive in the studio and be able to make changes on the spot. The King of Movie Trailers One of the giants of voiceover was the late Don LaFontaine, the definitive voice of movie trailers. From the first moment you heard him, his rich, booming voice created a certain intensity, and turned "In a world …" into a well-worn catchphrase. The words are so identified with movie trailers that Lake Bell borrowed them for the name of her comedy film about a woman trying to make it in the voiceover industry, struggling to get out from under the shadow of her father, a man with LaFontaine-like stature. After his death in 2008, he was honored posthumously by the AFTRA Foundation, and friends spearheaded an effort to create a studio in his honor that could be used by professional actors. The result is the Don LaFontaine Voice Over Lab, a fully equipped sound studio at the SAG Foundation in Los Angeles. Members — whether they are members of the L.A. Local or are visiting from out of town — can book time to record or attend workshops and share techniques with their fellow performers. It's one of many perks of being a member of SAG-AFTRA. Voice actor Townsend Coleman is on the lab's advisory panel, and knew LaFontaine professionally. LaFontaine, he said, made a special effort to reach out to the next generation of voice actors. "He was very gracious; super generous of his time and his talent and his advice," Coleman said. "Putting together the V.O. lab in his honor is a very, very fitting tribute for Don. Because it really is the way he lived his life." Member Neil Kaplan can be seen in reflection as he listens to fellow members' feedback in the SAG Foundation's Don LaFontaine Voice Over Lab. They have to be skilled at making subtle adjustments to the nuance of a line, change inflection, or speed up or slow down to fit within a predetermined time. "Those are the kinds of things that don't come overnight; it takes years of experience," Coleman said. When a voice actor develops a voice for a character, whether it's in a video game or an animated show, often all they have to go on is a picture of the character and a description, and maybe some general direction. And that's where being an expert on voices is important: Knowing how to incorporate personality traits into a voice comes not from talking, but from being an expert listener. E.G. Daily, the voice of Tommy Pickles on Rugrats, said a person's voice can reveal a lot about them. "You can hear if someone's really happy in their voice. You can hear if someone is SAGAFTRA.org 50-57_voiceover_F.indd 51 | Fall 2013 | SAG-AFTRA 51 11/13/13 12:06 PM