Rand Unwrapped Read online

  CAP COM: (OFF) XFS one – this is Freedom Base, we read you loud and clear!

  PILOT #1: (MNS) Looks like I took a few hits… my centurium pod is badly damaged and I’m losing altitude. I need to put this baby down fast.

  CAP COM: (OFF) Stand by for landing coordinates.

  PILOT #1: (MNS) Roger.

  CAP COM’s voice is heard in the scene, but the shot the audience sees is of the radar screen. CAP COM is not seen at all in this example. It’s just a voice within the frame of the scene that is heard only. Lastly, there are those lines which (although) are not usually indicated are deemed to be (ON). This means that the character’s face and facial expressions are in frame and are visible to the audience. The dialogue spoken must be in sync with their lip movements, facial and body gestures. Normally an (ON) line doesn’t have the word (ON) in front of it. If the line is not limited by an (MNS) or an (OFF), the actor assumes that it is (ON).

  INT. ALPHA COCKPIT – Angle on Pilot #1 pulling off his mask.

  PILOT #1: Sure is good to be home… (MNS) receiving coordinates now. Setting course for sector five.

  INT. CONTROL ROOM FREEDOM BASE – Angle on radar screen.

  CAP COM: (OFF) Confirm sector five…

  SELLACK: (OFF) Is he going to make it?

  CAP COM: Yes sir, all coordinates locked in (MNS) guidance now active.

  Pull back on control room revealing the face of SELLACK, the Supreme Commander of Freedom Base One. CAP COM activates the control room monitor tracking the damaged Alpha Fighter as it slowly descends and safely touches down.

  SELLACK: Welcome home, son.

  In this example the existing animation required the actor to perform the lines within three different dynamics – (OFF), (MNS) and (ON). The actor must create a emotional and intellectual reality for the character within preexisting framework of the animation and editing of the film. But there is more to it than that. When a voice actor creates a character within an already existing film, it is not as simple as only considering whether or not the character’s face and mouth are visible to the audience. There’s something else to consider.

  When a character’s face and mouth are visible to the audience, the actor must conform his vocal interpretation within the lip shapes and movements of the character. Some animated productions have a simple open and closed mouth pattern when their character speaks or in other instances no mouth at all. I did an animated series in which I played an orphan bumblebee. The character, a little bee, had no mouth. But instead, moved his antennae when he had something to say. This was an easy task from my point of view because there was no actual lip-sync for the character. I only knew that when his little antennae moved, he was speaking. There wasn’t much else to grab onto other than the antennae movement. However, in more complicated animation and live dubbing, the actor must fit the words written within the movement, tempo and shape of the mouth of the character they are dubbing. But there is a step before the moment the actor puts the line in the character’s mouth. Before an actor even shows up to voice a character, a scriptwriter must write lines that are in synchronization with the character’s speech patterns and movements within the film. Often in animation, the writer can write lines that fit nicely into a flapping mouth that just opens and closes. Live action films, which are dubbed into a language other than the one the film was originally shot in, can be a particular challenge. It becomes the writer’s task to create a story and character that must fit within the strict confines of what is already on the screen. I can’t tell you how many times there were lines that I wanted to put in an animated or live action script that were absolutely perfect for the situation at hand which simply did not sync with the character’s mouth movements. I always have been of the school of thought that you should favor content over sync. But, while you might be able to write that perfect line, if it is out of sync it takes the audience and your character out the reality of the scene. This is why it takes a unique breed of writer to be able to be true to the content of the material, be imaginative and still stay within the limitations of what they have to work with in terms of sync.

  ADR (Automatic Dialogue Replacement) also called dubbing form of scriptwriting is not for the faint of heart. It takes a healthy combination of creative writing talent and technical knowledge to create a script that contains a believable story and real characters within the constraints of the existing animation or live action footage. It takes an extraordinary writer to be able to get it right. I have had the opportunity to work with some of the best writer/directors in the business. While there are many talented writers/directors that I have worked with who can do this and do it very well, the two that I have worked with the most are Gregory Snegoff and Steve Kramer. I have worked with these guys in Robotech but also on many other projects both live action dubbing and animation. When you go into the studio and they have written the script and are directing, you know it’s going to be where it needs to be. They have the ability to write compelling stories, smart dialogue make it all look the characters are saying it. Both of these guys also have the ability to write on the spot. While this to most may seem like no big deal, it is actually a very fine art. Sometimes in the studio, a line might be too long or short and just not fit. They look down at the script and in a heartbeat will say – just add this or that line and BAM it all fits like a glove. Also, sometimes in the studio you may get a script that is just not written well or is completely out of sync. I may have written a few of those. When that happens, it has to be rewritten as the film is recorded. That’s a slow slog through the mud at best.

  There is a Mike Reynolds story that is often told in Robotech circles. I’m not sure if the script was a Robotech script or another show that was being recorded. I am also not sure if he said it to me or it’s been told to me so many times by everyone that I visualize that it happened to me. It really doesn’t matter either way. Mike was working very late one night recording and directing a particularly awful script. He was just having a hell of a time trying to get what was written to fit what was up on the screen He calmly looked down at the pages with pencil in hand and sighed, “Who wrote this piece of shit!” The sound engineer, deadpan, piped in, “You did Mike.” This was of course not the case, but Reynolds just sighed again, looked down at the pages and said, “Okay, let’s see what we can learn from it.” We have all had a laugh over the years recalling that night. But the truth is that Mike is a pro and didn’t get rattled by a bad script. He just fixed it where it needed to be fixed and it got done. If you’re going into a dubbing studio, these are the guys you want to be with. The worst thing that can happen in a dubbing session is to have a poorly written script. When I say poorly, it may not be necessarily a bad story. Poorly in this case, means not in the appropriate sync or no sync at all. When this happens, the script has to be rewritten line by line by the director and voice actor in the studio as part of the dubbing session. These sessions are long and require a lot of patience because the director and the voice actor are now writing the script on the spot. Sometimes writers write acceptable sync but it is created too long or too short. This is more than likely due to the differences in speech patters between the writer and the actor. As script problems go, this is not the worst. Good director/writers like Gregory Snegoff or Steve Kramer, Mike Reynolds and the late Bob Barren always found a creative way to elongate the line by slowing down your delivery or adding a short word if it was too short. This works as long as the added word doesn’t throw off the sync when the line is delivered. Sometimes, even when it’s written correctly, the actor just can’t get it.

  One night, while working on an episode of Robotech, Steve Kramer was directing me and I had the simplest line. I think the line was “… the day of oblivion has come for us all!” part of Episode 13 – Sand Storm. It was an “ON” line written correctly, I just couldn’t say it. Maybe I was tired or more than likely I was just goofing around. But, the more I tried to do it, the more I kept missing it. Then, the worst thing happened. I started
to laugh and once that got going, Steve started to laugh and then the engineer joined in as well. It was a downward spiral; the more I tried to get the line right, the more I couldn’t do it. At one point I was able to achieve the correct sync but said the wrong line. Instead of “the day of oblivion has come for us all” I said, “the day of Bolivia has come for us all!” To this day, whenever I see Steve, one of us will say to each other “the day of Bolivia has come for us all!” or if we’re short on time, we just say, “Bolivia.” But as someone once said somewhere, “ the show must go on.” That night in the session, Steve brought it all back down to earth and we finally finished the line and the episode. I can’t leave a section on dubbing and sync without mentioning Greg Snegoff. I had the opportunity to work on many post Robotech projects with him and if there is any shred of ability in me to write sync, he put it there. Greg and I worked as writers on a Fox Television series called The Adventures of Dynamo Duck (1990). The series featured a whole collection live action animals including ducks, gerbils, badgers, weasels, frogs and gold fishes dressed in a variety of costumes with bow ties, hats, and vests. Our job was to cut, edit, and create character voices and story lines to this already existing raw footage shot by Jean Tourane. There were hundreds of hours of this material and to say the least, we had our work cut out for us. In addition, to writing and directing, Greg was actually the voice of the series lead character Dynamo Duck. This is a little known fact. For reasons, I can’t remember, Greg’s voice never made it to the final edit of the series. Actually, now as I write this, I do remember but you’re not going to get anything out of me! Let’s just say, that’s another story and Greg, can tell it to you. During the writing process, Greg and I spent long hours sitting in front of television monitors rough cutting over 300 hours of footage, writing story lines and scripts. We cataloged every cut of the raw footage so that we would be able to retrieve it for a particular episode. When the rough cut was done, we had an infinite variety of situations featuring live animals dressed in all sorts of odd costumes trying to do one thing or another. Out of that larger body of material, we edited about eighty episodes. It was a daunting process at best to try to create a set of consistent characters and story lines out of such a large body of previously existing footage. Greg and I (especially Greg) wrote this show to life. He was able to hit every mannerism, syllable and movement of each character whether it was the lead duck (Dynamo) shaking his head between quacks, the wiggling nose to a hamster or bubbles coming out of a goldfish in a bowl. We wrote every gesture, every twitch literally every quack, which ultimately made the animals, come to life. Greg and I became friends of course during the making of Robotech. He was directing me when I improvised the now famous “Get a job!” line. That line actually goes back to my childhood when I used to tell it to my mom when she would get on my case for something or other. She would say something with the word “don’t” in it. Like “don’t scuff your shoes!” or “don’t make so much noise!” I would always snap back, “Get a job!” We continued saying it even when I got older. It was just a something that my mother and I always said to each other. That’s why I thought it was a perfect line to say to Rook’s mom and it was in sync!

  I always felt comfortable working with Greg in the studio on any level. He is intelligent, quick on his feet and funny as hell. And when you work with him, you know you’re going to push the envelope. It is out of that spirit that, once in a while, all right more than once in a while, I would improvise a line or two during one of the takes. The “get a job” line was one of those lines. On one of the takes, I said it and we all had a laugh (pretty good sync too) and then we moved on and did the correct line. Which to this day, I don’t remember. Somehow, (nobody really knows) how the “get a job” line made it to the final network cut. The rest is as they say “history.” Greg and I subsequently developed many other projects together and working with him was some of most fun I’ve ever had while getting paid for it! Greg now lives in sunny Italy but has a nasty habit of showing up in Los Angeles from time to time. Despite the distance we now live from each other, we will work on some wonderfully creative and hopefully silly project again in the future. That is a given. And then there is the late Carl Macek.

  I had the privilege of working with Carl on projects including of course Robotech, Captain Harlock and Queen of a Thousand Years and later on Computer Warriors. Carl Macek was a one of kind creative genius that was extremely talented in taking the existing footage a creating a story line around it. Carl was a master at putting a creative frame around everything we did. In one instance, he single handedly created one series out of two already existing animae series Captain Harlock and Queen Millennia. Carl created 65 episodes with a connected story out of two different series, with different characters and storyline. He did the same thing with Robotech. I remember him one day sitting in a tiny studio at Intersound in front of a monitor while eating a sandwich going over diverse pieces of animated footage and effortlessly blending them together into one concise story. Only Carl could do that. But Carl was much more than a super talented writer. He was the glue that held us all together. He could remember all of the details from episode to episode and never forget the big picture. Often, when the members of the Robotech cast were on conference panels fielding questions, fans would ask specific things about the storyline and characters in the story. Only Carl could put the elements of the show together in a way that we all understood it. I worked with Carl on a several post Robotech projects. One of which Computer Warriors, which was based around a line of toys made by Mattel in the early nineties. The project, co written and produced by Carl and Bill Kroyer, was truly ahead of its time. It involved a top-secret government mega computer that unleashed an evil army of viruses. The fun part of the project was that the virus villains made their way into everyday common household items like diet soda cans, lamps and computers. Of course, the goal of these nasty viruses was to be very bad and dominate the world. Thanks to Carl, I was able to create a character with an English dialect that was one of the good guys sent to battle the bad virus army. Unfortunately the Computer Warriors did not get produced beyond a pilot episode. But it was fun to get to do an English dialect. This is something I rarely (no never) get to do. I’m usually cast as the “streetwise” wise cracking tough guy. It was great to get a chance to stretch a bit. Over the years, Carl and I talked about doing several other projects together. One of the projects he was interested in doing was to publish a collection of old 1930’s movie treatments and scripts that I own the rights to and perhaps develop several of them into actual projects. We always talked about doing it but never did because we were too busy. We always believed that we would get to it later and that we had all the time in the world. We actually spent one summer afternoon sitting in a café in Studio City figuring out how we would put the whole thing together. But, we both got busy on other projects and never did. I regret that deeply. Carl had a wonderfully unique and creative way at looking at the world and was truly a master at seeing what we all could not see and we will all miss him.

  It was the ADR or dubbing writer’s job to take Carl’s creative idea and connect the dialogue and action. As I have said, along with Steve Kramer and Greg Snegoff, there were a lot of wonderful talented people connected at every level of the production including the late Bob Barren and Mike Reynolds. However, it was Greg Snegoff and Steve Kramer that I worked with the most. They taught me the most about “how to do it.” They had a sense of the project as a whole, knew how to interpret Carl’s vision, knew what they’re doing and more importantly, always made it fun during the creative process.

  I have been luckier than most to get to work with a group of talent people who would always be there to catch you if you fell. I know the old saying that you “learn by doing.” But what a great way to learn! I often see advertisements for many different types of voice over classes promising guaranteed employment. But really, there is no way in a classroom setting to prepare an actor for a dubbing experience.
Over the years, some of the camera classes I have taught have had voice acting components. I have had some very talented students who possess that uncanny ability to make a character come to life by creating a compelling voice. You can get a sense of what voice acting is like in a class but the best way to learn is to just do it. This is the only way to become accustomed to the many variables one might encounter when creating a character within an animated or live action setting. In addition, when you’re in the studio, the script and the quality of the writing becomes crucial. For actors that are new to dubbing, I think the best way to learn is to sit in a walla session. I will talk more about that later in this book. But you can also work as a voice actor on student films and independent productions. However, I want to tell you up front, that a lot of them are not very good. They are not very good because most of the people working on them really don’t know how to write, direct or perform dubbed projects. The result is they produce work of inferior quality.

  If the writer of a particular project falls short in this task, it can result in long laborious recording sessions where the director and actor have to rewrite the script line for line as they record it. I will say, that I have done my fair share of what we voice over folks call schlock which literally translated from Yiddish slang means “goods produced of cheap or inferior quality.” These projects, which are written and edited poorly, are the kind that you get hired to do and you just go in and do them. When it’s done you fill out the paperwork and go home. But even doing what we would call schlock is a way to learn. Yes, to quote Mike Reynolds, you can always learn something from a bad experience. You can learn what not to do and what doesn’t work. You take that knowledge with you to the next session and it makes you a better voice actor. As far as learning how to sync to animation or live action, there’s no school for that as well. I guess, you could turn the sound off on your television and try to capture the lip movements of the characters that are up on the screen. But that’s not the way you’re going to get it in a darkened studio with a time code running. The ability to do effective sync when voicing a character takes into consideration that the actor is able to capture the essence of the character and have the ability to place the voice within the framework of what ‘s up on the screen. It’s something you just learn to do after doing it for a long time. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that you can read your character’s lines like you’re reading a book and hope that they fit. You have literally, got to scoop up and capture the lines and retain the essence of what’s going on up there on the screen. You literally become one with the character. It’s a very Zen experience and there’s no school for that. You just learn it as you go. But when creating a character in an animated series such as Robotech, you have got to literally bring something to the party. What you bring with you is a wealth of all your experiences literally everything that has ever touched your life physically, intellectually and emotionally. Whether you know it or not, it’s all there, every experience of your life, is in the studio with you. And you, without you even knowing it, use these experiences, which become part of your character. At least that’s the way it was for me and this is my story in creating the character of Rand.