And now, another entry from the “I really need a break from the Just A Geek rewrite” department . . .
Last Wednesday, I had the awesome session for Super Robot Monkey Hyper Force Terrific Mega Madness Hella Hella Bitchin GO! That session led to an audition on Friday for the freakin’ head of voice over casting at Disney Feature Animation for a new Disney project. If I book that job, I’ll be one of two leads on the show!
It was a very different experience from what I’m used to in the “on-camera” world, and I think I may have cost myself the job by tensing up, but I won’t know for sure for another few days.
Here’s how on-camera auditions work: I walk into the room, hope they don’t immediately hate me, then read the scene. Usually, there are several scenes I have to prepare, and if the casting people don’t hate me after one of them, they tell me to read another one. (Of course, I have to prepare all seven scenes, or whatever, just to be sure. Can I tell you how much I love it when I spend the time it takes to put together seven scenes, and then they only let me do one of them? Almost as much as I love it when I prepare seven scenes, they only let me do one, and then they never take three fucking minutes to call us back and give us any feedback. That’s the best.)
Lots of things can happen during that one scene that sort of tip me off that they may not be giving me maximum love: talking to each other, looking out the window, flipping through other people’s headshots and resumes — oh, sighing heavily is my personal favorite. When something like that happens, I know I’m done, and everyone’s time has been wasted.
Because it’s like that in on-camera auditions, I have to be a perfectly oiled fighting machine when I go into that room. If I’m Voltron with five lions, I’m good. But if I’m Voltron with all those little spaceships, I’m doomed. If I’m Donkey Kong on Colecovison, I’m in like flynn (from Tron, of course.) But if I’m Pac Man on Atari 2600, I am on my way to the landfill of ET cartridges in the middle of the desert.
I’ve done enough of these on-camera auditions to perfectly read the room. I have a Sixth Sense about things that lets me know if the Signs tell me I’m Unbreakable.
Go ahead. I’ll wait.
Okay. The point of all that is, if people look at each other, or talk, or whatever, I know I’m sunk.
Let’s contrast this with my very limited experience in Voice Over calls, shall we?
On Thursday afternoon last week, I got the sides for Friday’s audition. They contained a picture of the character, accompanied by a written description of his personality (13 years old, thinks he’s tough, sort of sarcastic, give his partner lots of shit but is ready to defend her in an instant, etc.) and two pages of sides that I am supposed to prepare and perform. Before the session on Wednesday, I would have been way too scared to attempt a character voice, but I felt confident, and I gave myself permission to do one.
I walked around my neighborhood, with one hand cupped to my ear, and just fooled around with different voices. One was too pinched, another sounded too much like Beast Boy, still another was just too “mature.”
After about a mile or so, I found one that I liked. I went home and tried it out for Ryan and Nolan, and they thought it sounded cool, so that’s the voice I took with me into the booth on Friday afternoon.
When I walked in, it was the same thing as Wednesday’s session: a lone music stand, headphones and a microphone to keep me company on my side of the glass. A director, a casting director, and a producer sat on the other side.
This time, I remembered to put my headphones on right away.
The director talked to me a bit, and one of the producers told me that he’d bought an old game of mine at a game shop in Burbank. (Okay — that was really weird.)
I read my first line, and waited for someone to read the other part. After an awkward pause, I looked up, and they were all looking back.
Oh fuck. I’m supposed to just keep going. Way to look like an amateur, Wheaton.
Now, if this was an on-camera audition, that would have been the mistake that extinguished my torch, and sent me off the island, but I just cleared my throat, apologized, and started over. I read the entire script, performing the other character’s voice in my head between my lines.
When I was done, the director told me I’d done well, and they all began talking. It was the most disconcerting thing in the world to watch them talk about me, see their lips moving, and have no idea what they were saying.
I felt a slight tightness begin in my chest when she pushed the TALK button.
“We’re going to go through the whole thing now, bit by bit. Let’s just start with lines one through four.” She gave me some direction, and I took it. The tightness in my chest relaxed.
We did this all the way through the rest of the script. After a few unsuccessful tries on line . . . I think it was eight, that tightness came back, and my eye began to twitch (it’s been doing that a lot the last week or so, as the JAG deadline draws looms closer.) The old Voice of Self-Doubt, that’s always ready to jump in and whisper in my ear when the voice of Calm Reason would be so much more useful said, “Dude, you suck at this. You know that your voice sounds too deep, they know your voice sounds too deep, and they’re getting impatient with you. Just do the fucking line and let’s go home.”
I read the line again, and the director said, kindly, “Wil, your voice is getting a little tense and pinched. See if you can relax it some more.”
It wasn’t until later, when I was driving home, that I realized how I’d screwed myself. I listened to the Voice of Self-Doubt, and when I became tense and nervous, so did my voice. It’s a good learning experience, and I won’t repeat the mistake on other VO auditions, but I wish I’d learned this lesson in a risk-free environment, instead of an audition for the head of freakin’ voice casting at Disney Feature Animation.
After each take, they’d tell me to hold on, then conference with each other. By this time, I was so totally insecure, I was certain that I could read their lips: “Forget it. He’s just not right.” “His voice is too deep.” “He’s fine for on-camera, but he doesn’t have what it takes to be a voice actor.”
Of course, they weren’t saying anything like that, but the good old Voice of Self-Doubt was doing a great job of dubbing them. With each conference, I grew less and less confident, but I ultimately finished the audition.
I looked at my watch, and noticed that I’d been in there for almost 35 minutes. That’s unheard of in on-camera auditions. I realized then that they must have been into what I was doing, and they were trying to help me sound my best, to do my best work.
I punched the Voice of Self-Doubt squarely in the fucking nuts when I walked out of the booth, and saw my friend Hynden, from Teen Titans, sitting in the waiting room.
“How did it go?” She said.
I told her all about the stupid Voice of Self-Doubt, and asked her what it meant if they kept someone in the room for a long time. She told me that it meant they liked what I was doing as an actor, and they were trying to help me iron out a few kinks, and settle into the character’s voice.
I told her about my experiences in on-camera auditions, and she said that VO auditions are completely different.
I was so stupid, man. I was SofaKing stupid. I’m chalking it up to inexperience, though. Now that I know what to expect, the fucking Voice of Self-Doubt can just stay wrapped up in electrical tape and bailing wire in the trunk, next to Corey Haim.
So here’s what happens now: They’ll take all the takes I did, and cut together the very best performance they can. They’ll do the same for the other actors they saw for this part, and then they’ll all sit down and listen to all our tapes. After this Aural Thunderdome, one of us will get the part. I honestly don’t think I’ll get it. I had to work very hard to stay in this character’s voice when I freaked out, and if it came down to me (who had to talk around the stupid Voice of Self-Doubt) and someone else who didn’t, they’d obviously hire the other guy.
But I think I did a decent enough job taking their direction to at least remain in consideration for other parts.
In other news, I’ve been asked to write for another magazine. If that happens, I think I’ll be ready to officially call myself a writer, because I’ll have more things to do than write this weblog and work on a book. I’ll have actual regular deadlines and everything! It’s crazy, isn’t it? Just a year ago I never would have thought any of this would be possible . . . but here I am. 🙂
On top of that, I’ve just been added as a contributor to VH1’s Best Week Ever blog (maybe I’ll end up on the show more, too. I mean, c’mon, “Liquid Ice . . . also known as water?” You should see the stuff that didn’t make it. Seriously. I slay me. Or something. Heh.)
I would like to close by pointing out that I haven’t made a single Pixies reference in this entire post, even though I typed it with Bony Fingers.
(d’oh.)